A distressing column in The Chronicle of Higher Ed has been making the rounds this week – Gail A. Hornstein’s piece on why she doesn’t honor disability accommodations in her classroom. Many people more articulate than I have taken issue with the column – my favorite is Robin M. Eame’s response – but I want to point to a trope at the heart of Hornstein’s column that is often used to denigrate students and minimize their experiences. Hornstein’s focus is…
Last weekend I joined Jacki Rand (University of Iowa; Choctaw), Leah Slick-Driscoll (Meskwaki Settlement School; Meskwaki), and Mary Wise (University of Iowa graduate student) in facilitating a professional development workshop for Iowa teachers, K-12. Part of the Iowa Native Spaces project being run by Jacki out of the University of Iowa, the workshop was an opportunity to bring teachers together on Meskwaki land to learn about the Native communities of Iowa, and begin to rethink the way Iowa history is…