Disabled hours

[cosmolinguist]

I have had a dispiriting week, to be honest. I noticed this by the time I complained mid-lecture on Thursday about that lecturer not taking advantage of the ability to record the audio and slides for students to access after the lecture. She says it means fewer people come to class, and maybe so, but it also means I feel like I am drowning in confusion that would be abated if I could re-watch, pause, zoom, and go back over bits of these lectures. It's for phonetics, so I'm getting less from the readings than I otherwise might -- we're learning the International Phonetic Alphabet, this week specifically "consonants that English doesn't have", so reading "here's a weird symbol and here's a description of this sound you can't make or even really imagine" is less than helpful.

I said all this on Facebook and got a lot of accurate, helpful responses along the lines of "there should be some way disability services can help you, maybe you can make your own lecture recordings, etc.", while all true, just left me more disheartened. Making my own recordings wouldn't be as good as proper lecture-capture because being able to follow along with the slides and the websites and things my lecturer is referring to (yes I can look at Seeing Speech in my own time but I'm not getting the context she provides in lectures. And yes I will talk to the disability people about this but I just resent that I have to.

Disability admin has been eating quite enough of my time and I have a laundry list of things to talk to my disability advisor about even without this. The prospect of having to fight for something that has been a matter of course in my other lectures was making me feel resentful, and I didn't realize until after I'd made the post that I didn't want suggestions or advice, I just wanted someone to go "tsk, typical."

I wanted someone to remind me that it's okay I'm still getting tired at six o'clock in the evenings, that lately I'm tearing up at anything or nothing, that I'm overwhelmed with uni work and while there are a lot of reasons for that but one of them is the "disabled hours" I have to put in on top of my regular student work.

Andrew and I tried to go see Black Panther today; he'd been so good at researching the cinemas. The Odeon said some showings were audio-described, but not until one that was an awkward, inconvenient time for us. The Vue said on their webiste some of the movies were audio-described but didn't say which. Andrew tried calling them and got no answer. But they had a showing earlier which was better for us, so we decided it was worth a try and met up in town and trekked over there and waited in line and baffled the teenager at the till who had to find a manager... who told us that the audio description wasn't working, there was some kind of technical fault and they were looking into it but no they didn't know when it would be fixed...

Andrew and I haven't been out together like that in months, and to be sent away empty-handed, unable to participate in a huge film event like this that seemingly all our friends and everyone on the internet has said they love is just...dispiriting. I resent the £4.50 Andrew wasted on bus fare to go into town for no reason, I'm mad that their website still says they offer some audio description when it's clearly been broken for a while and the manager told us she didn't know when it would be fixed (which is fine, it's not her fault, but somebody should update the sodding website!).

Maybe I'll write a complaint but maybe...I don't have the spoons and they'd be better spent on the fucking coursework that I am already barely managing. Complaints like this are so often shouting into the void anyway; is it worth it when I'm feeling so run-down? Or is not complaining worse, feeling like my disabling experience has just dropped like a pebble in a pond without leaving the slightest ripple.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

*hugs* if you want them. That sounds like bad disability fail. Would you mind if I told liv about this? She's at a different institution and is training lecturers on modern teaching methods, and I think your story would be useful for her to illustrate how lecturers can be more inclusive about disability - something she's passionate about.

[cosmolinguist]

Please do! And if she has any other questions or might like my help with anything else, I'm happy to (I never mind spending my "disabled hours" on things like this which have a chance at actually having an impact).

[syntaxofthings]

That is so much discouraging work and I am tired on your behalf.

All the ways that we have to advocate for ourselves just to get on the same playing field. It's another aspect of being disabled that people need to understand.

[cosmolinguist]

It is. The only people I know who understand it are other disabled people, or people who live with us.

[eiffel_71]

Hope the college deliver the help you need. I would find the IPA fascinating but I appreciate you would benefit from resources that would really not be too hard for them to provide.

[cosmolinguist]

It is fascinating but having two months or so in which to learn the whole chart is daunting.

[kaberett]

I bear witness.

[cosmolinguist]

<3

[worlds_of_smoke]

Ugh. That all sounds so tiring. And I want to kind of smack that lecturer. Honestly, who the fuck cares if the students are in class, as long as they're learning the material? Making your class accessible to ALL is only going to help spread the knowledge you're trying to share, ffs.

I mean, there are some class where you have to be there, like my anatomy lab. But even my anatomy professor is like "IDGAF if you go to the lectures, since everything is online" because, SURPRISE. We're still learning the material!

(It still boggles my mind that so much college stuff is online nowadays. Back when I tried to go to college the first time, you had to be in class, just because there was no other way to hear the lecture!)

[cosmolinguist]

Same! And the pressure of having to be there or just missing out contributed to me missing a lot, it was a vicious cycle for my (then totally unsuspected and untreated) mental illness, what fun that was. :)

Had to print off all my essays to hand them in, too; now that wouldn't even be possible; there's no one to hand them in to! It's all on Blackboard.

[worlds_of_smoke]

I made it to class until the seasonal depression hit, then everything kinda started falling apart. And then, in the summer, the shit absolutely hit the fan. But my main problem was that college was a huge change and I didn't fit in well because I went to a swank private school and everyone was rich AF, and I was just the opposite. Plus add in my autistic social problems and it was just... a real mess. XD

I'm endlessly grateful for having lectures online, especially with this anatomy class. I love my prof, but he's an immigrant and he has such a strong accent that my fucked up auditory processing can't translate nearly fast enough. The online lectures are a fucking lifesaver. Reviewing the online lectures before class helps me figure out what he's saying faster because our lab book is basically a "fill out the notes for each lecture" book. So I already have notes to go off of before I have class and I can focus completely on figuring out what Dr. Bright is saying. When I didn't bother to watch the lectures last weekend because I figured I didn't need to because of the snow day we had the week before, Monday's class was such a hilariously sad clusterfuck.

I'll still spend like an hour and a half on a 30 minute lecture when I'm listening to the online lectures. But it's not because I'm not understanding what is being said. It's because I understand it and am stopping it every 5 minutes to take notes.

[cosmolinguist]

Your last paragraph here is exactly me, yes. (And various bits of the first one I identify with; it was for different reasons but the outcomes seem the same.)

[alithea]

*hugs*

That all sounds very tiring and infuriating :(

[cosmolinguist]

And this is just the bit I typed out, it's part of a larger, tiring pattern.

[ivy]

Argh, I'm sorry that the instructor is making choices that are disproportionately and negatively impactful for you, even after being told about it. That really sucks.

I hope you find a theater showing the movie that has the audio-described showings and works for your schedule.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm sure we'll work something out about the movie. We were spoiled by having a theater that was ridiculously easy to access on public transport and was part of a chain that's really good about audio description, and it closed a few months ago. The two we used to go to in town (the ones I'm talking about here) have both changed to a new franchise recently (one of them just moved across town, one of them's new), removing the secondary option we used to go to and which also were good at audio description because me and Andrew and our friend made them be good because they're the one that is no longer there...

It's a bit of a disaster now, but I'm sure it'll settle down eventually and we'll find a new regular place to go. Just frustrating in the meantime. Usually I'm much more fierce about wanting to complain about things, and it was dismaying (if understandable) last night to find myself going oh what's the point...

[ivy]

Yeah, it's creepy to feel like the fuck-its have invaded one's brain. But there are days. This past week when I was all project all the time, I just didn't have the bandwidth for anything else at all. Things I normally would get spun up about were just "whatEVER!". So I sympathize on both the situation and on the creepiness of being in that place.

[cosmolinguist]

Being able to recognize it as creepy does help, though, so thank you for articulating that for me right now.

[mair_in_grenderich]

If she's so concerned about attendance, couldn't she record the things, but then only make them available to people who have a reason not to come to class? (Disability, illness, grandma's funeral, idk). Or is that another can of worms?

[rmc28]

I can't help thinking that if most students find it preferable to watch recordings of lectures than turn up to them in person, the answer is to make one really good set of recordings, and think of other ways to make the best use of the lecturer's time. And then maybe just update individual talk recordings ...

(I've read a bit about "flipped classroom" ideas, and I just finished a degree with the Open University which was almost entirely flipped-classroom. I did lots of reading / watching videos by myself, and then attended tutorials/seminars in person - and more recently they were all online - to check and reinforce our understanding of the reading. I liked it SO much better than my first degree, where I spent a lot of time in lectures where "notes are transferred from the lecturer to the student without going through the brains of either".)

[cosmolinguist]

I did try OU stuff when I was new here, and it didn't work out for me for reasons that I think were truer then than they are now. But yeah, the existence of distance learning does kind of make my lecturer's motivation in compelling us to come to class look a bit...misguided.

[cosmolinguist]

I am overdue a disability advisor meeting, and I will ask them what they think about this.

[purplecat]

The "disabled hours" is something I'd never really considered before you started making these posts. It's not clear to me what specifically universities should be doing to try to reduce them, but it is clear that the way disabled access is being handled (at least at Manchester, but I strongly suspect sector-wide) is placing an unnecessary burden on you and still acting as a barrier to access.

I'm not sure there is anything I can concretely offer, though if you ever think it might be useful to have someone from within the sector (albeit a different institution) attend a meeting with you, then I would be happy to come along.

[cosmolinguist]

That's really kind of you and I'll keep it in mind, thanks.

[silveradept]

Both of these are terrible things. Your lecturer is actively not helping students learn the material, and that theater chain is not helping themselves by misrepresenting their capabilities.

And sadly, that is pretty typical.

You put it so damn well.

[jesse_the_k]

I want to embroider this on a pillow:

Also, it's NOT MY JOB to manage strangers feelings. I do SO MUCH emotional labour for abled people day in day out [and before I became disabled, I did emotional labour for men who demanded I "SMILE!" etc etc] and I am threadbare and exhausted and out of patience.

It's so unjust and such a waste of our time to individually attempt to create access when we could, I don't know, do it as a society and as a matter of course?

/I feel you.

Re: You put it so damn well.

[cosmolinguist]

Exactly. Having to keep solving these problems individually is so...inefficient, apart from anything else!

Re: You put it so damn well.

[lilysea]

Having to keep solving these problems individually is so...inefficient, apart from anything else!

Yep!

See for example: my local cafe, tbsp, where ****every damn time**** I have to ask them to

a) open the heavy door for me (when the door could easily have an automated door opener);

b) move the please wait to be seated sign blocking the top of the wheelchair ramp;

c) move the table and four chairs blocking the top of the wheelchair ramp;

You would think by now, they would permanently have rearranged their furniture so that their wheelchair ramp wasn't blocked, but, nooooooooooo....

See also: I spoke to a local chemist about how their electronic machine at the cash register that aerosolizes fragrances/essential oils was an access barrier/migraine trigger and they just *shrugged* at me in a snarky manner.

[lilysea]

Also: *solidarity* and *empathy*

[cosmolinguist]

Thank you. <3

[barakta]

tooMuchDisabilityCrapERROR();

[askygoneonfire]

I'd give a really clearly worded email a go; lecture capture is an accessibility issue, I am stamented for it, I need you to provide this. You could also copy in your disability advisor and an appropriate SU officer (education and welfare, typically)


Lecture capture is typically approved for upload to online place (i.e. it doesn;t auto upload) so if lecturer insists on being a dick about not making it available to everyone, I fail to see why they can't arrange for it to be directly sent as a file to you.

I am really sorry about this and I hear your frustration and loss of time chasing round in circles on this.