Out of spoons error

[white_hart]

This morning, I went to an "EDI Roundtable" event on the subject of neurodiversity and, allegedly, how we make the university a more neuroinclusive place.

The event was in a very new lecture theatre in one of the colleges. It was (a) incredibly steeply raked, so that the top of the theatre felt absolutely vertiginous; (b) weirdly lit, with fairly bright ceiling lights and windows at the top of the walls, meaning that the level where the speakers were was dimmer than the space above the top of the screen; and (c) horrendously echoey. The chairs were also really uncomfortable, there wasn't enough legroom even for a shortarse like me, and the foldout desk things were so close to the seats that mine was actually touching my stomach while I was sitting with my back against the backrest of the chair. And I am a very average size 16-18ish. Rarely have I been in a room that was that much of a sensory nightmare.

Of the four solo speakers, one (an academic colleague of mine) was neurodivergent. The others were: a Professor of Autism Research (not bad, apart from making me feel uncomfortably like a research subject and not a person); a GP (ok); a political philosopher who appeared to know nothing about neurodivergence and care less, opined that he didn't like the term "neurodivergent" because it implied a "neurotypical" and he thought everyone should just do as they would be done by and it would all be fine, and made a stupid joke about rejection sensitive dysphoria ("that's why I don't submit to peer reviewed journals any more") which made me want to throw things. All three neurotypical speakers came across very much as if they were addressing a default neurotypical audience, rather than a neurodiverse audience. And then there was a panel discussion with three neurodivergent people (two students and a student support worker), all of whom seemed incredibly ill at ease and at least two of whose microphones were not picking up their voices well.

I do think that the cause of improving neuroinclusion would have been better served by giving space to more neurodivergent voices. And the two-hour event used up all of today's spoons.

Comments

[mountainkiss]

Will there be an opportunity for you to give feedback?

[white_hart]

I definitely hope so. And if they don't circulate a feedback form I might just email the Director of EDI directly.

[mountainkiss]

That sounds like a really good plan.

[hilarita]

It's more constructive than setting fire to the building, which would also be feedback, but not appreciated.

[white_hart]

The feedback form is pretty rubbish (rate the event out of 5, what was most valuable, any other comments) but I will fill it out with an essay in any other comments.

[angelofthenorth]

Oh dear. Was there any feedback opportunities?

[white_hart]

I am really hoping they will circulate a feedback form! If not, I might just email the Chief Diversity Officer directly.

[joyeuce]

Definitely worth feeding back to them once you have enough spoons. I hope today is less stressful.

[white_hart]

I was definitely still feeling the aftereffects of the sensory overload today, and that wasn't helped by a "hybrid" meeting where I really struggled to hear what the people in the room were saying...

[serriadh]

Sympathy. I went to something aimed at (presumed NT) managers learning to support ND people and 90% of it was "ND people are all very different so there are no common things to consider or approaches to follow", which may well be true, but would have been much more helpful if delivered (even as quotes/examples) as ND people saying what did help them, with an acknowledgement that you cannot just Learn The Talking to ND People Handbook* and magically be brilliant at supporting actual people.

Otherwise we were left with 'get to know people and ask what will help them' which a) is either bloody obvious or you're the sort of manager where being told this won't help anyway and b) puts the work squarely back on the ND people to communicate their needs exactly.

(*the number of HE managers who thought this was a possibility suggests that we might not all have been as NT as all that either)

[white_hart]

I was talking to the Professor of Autism Research from UCL over lunch (she came up to me where I was standing like a sandwich-scarfing lemon) and saying very much that - what we really need is as many examples as possible of what *might* work that we can suggest to ND people so they can think about what might work for them. As well as the understanding that we might not hit on the right things straight off.

[(Anonymous)]

There are lists of "reasonable accommodations" for students with different neurodiversities (I was looking for ADHD/Anxiety but there was also Autism and Dyslexia) that I looked at when we met with the school to discuss B's needs (having acknowledged that the previous SENCO had ignored her diagnosis and thus nothing had happened for two years...).

Of course, schools are used to these too and B's school is particularly good, so they had a list of suggestions and we had our own similar list. (Things that ended up being implemented: a pass to arrive to class after the rush, a place to take ten minutes out, a quieter place to eat lunch, fidget toys, and a discussion about how she does better with written instructions than verbal.)

[white_hart]

A colleague with an ND kid at another university was really impressed at all the material they provided to incoming ND students. We are somewhere behind them on that, but it's accommodations for staff that we are acrually really crap at.

[jinty]

It's like in our technical teams, where we are good at creating systems and processes for other people but rubbish at creating processes for ourselves in any managed way! We always have to invent and re-invent our internal processes even though we work with people who are good at creating very similar processes for *others*.

[nanila]

Yiiiiikes. I'm sorry. That does not sound well thought through.

[white_hart]

Our Chief Diversity Officer appears to have a regrettable tendency to want to both-sides everything and treat it as an academic debate, rather than seeing his role as advocating for marginalised people.

[kaberett]

Good grief :-(