Disabled students make up 19 percent of U.S. undergraduates, yet some of our conventional teaching practices make their educational lives needlessly difficult.
It’s time to set those practices aside.
You might not realize how embedded in your teaching some of these habits are, even if you are an excellent and beloved teacher. Many of us cling to unnecessary logistical hurdles because it’s the way we were taught when we were students, and the way we were taught to teach: punitive attendance policies, strict deadlines, suspicion of disability accommodations, refusing to share class recordings and other materials.
Don’t freak out. I’m not saying you should stop taking attendance. I am saying you shouldn’t punish a student for missing class, but rather use absences as a nudge to check on that student’s well-being.
With these words I’ve put myself on the anti-rigor side of what Jamiella Brooks, director of student equity and inclusion initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school, has called “the rigor wars.” Over the last few years, this debate has seen those who argue for more inclusivity and understanding in the classroom square off against those who fear that such policies “will remove the very ideal of excellence from our colleges.” If that fear sounds overblown to you, it is.
Kevin Gannon, an advocate for inclusivity and a historian at Queens University of Charlotte, has argued convincingly that there are two kinds of rigor, intellectual and logistical. Intellectual rigor challenges students to explore complex ideas and refine their own thinking. Logistical rigor requires adherence to “strict policies about when and how work is produced and evaluated.” An intellectually difficult course need not be logistically difficult. And it shouldn’t be.
Logistical rigor infantilizes students and reveals a professor’s deep mistrust of them. Mistrust sounds like this: Students are absent from class because they’re slackers; they’re turning in assignments late because they’re taking advantage; they only want lecture recordings so they can cut class and party. And honestly, how many dead grandparents can one student have?
This suspicious and adversarial pedagogy is what Karen Costa, who trains faculty in online teaching and trauma awareness, has called “toxic rigor.” And it targets disabled students — perhaps not intentionally, but powerfully. Discrimination against disabled people is insidious and built into cultural norms, including teaching norms.
From a toxic rigor of view, disabled students are out to con professors. The mistrust professors feel toward their students in general is multiplied when they face their disabled students. Mistrust of disabled students sounds like this: Not another student with a disability note. Honestly, how does every kid have a diagnosis these days? I’m teaching to the lowest common denominator. They’re faking ADHD to get extra time on tests.
The accommodations model is part of the problem. Accommodations are exceptions made for specific disabled students. To receive accommodations, students must jump through invasive and expensive hoops — for example, educational testing that costs thousands of dollars. They must provide extensive proof before professors will relax logistical standards to give them equal footing. And even then, toxic rigor tells professors that disabled students have it easier, that they get a watered-down version of the curriculum, that they just need to work harder.
We should strive instead for accessible teaching. Accessibility, as I define it, means the existence of a space (such as a classroom) that is hospitable to and usable by all disabled people, always, all the time.
When I was a young professor, I took attendance. I thought that I was wonderfully forward-thinking because I gave my students three free absences during the semester. They didn’t even have to give me an excuse. After three, I started docking their grades.
That’s ableist pedagogy.
Ask yourself: What, exactly, is an absence? It is an indication that a student has missed class. Absences are not a moral failure. They do not indicate that a student is a slacker, a bad student, or irresponsible. In fact, since I’ve stopped being suspicious of my absent students, I’ve found that none of my persistently absent students have been any of those things.
Do happy and healthy students occasionally cut class to sleep in or spend time with friends? Sure. But docking points won’t prevent that — and it can push away those whose frequent absences denote serious struggles.
Jesse Stommel, a writing professor at the University of Denver who specializes in inclusive pedagogy, notes that attendance policies don’t measure students’ motivation or engagement. Instead, he says, attendance functions as a “proxy for the amount of difficulty a student is dealing with in their lives.” That has been my experience over the years since I dropped my punitive attendance policy. All of my persistently absent students have been struggling with physical or mental disabilities: chronic stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, chronic illness, addiction, and more. All of them.
Take attendance, yes. And when a student is absent, use that absence as an opening to check in on your student.
Privately, pull them aside and ask if they’re doing okay. Tell them, “You don’t have to share your private life with me.” Then say, “I’ve noticed you’ve been absent, and I’m concerned about you.” Some might be embarrassed and blow you off. But if they sense your genuine concern, they might open up to you.
Treating absences as a reason to intervene rather than punish helps create an accessible classroom, where students don’t have to provide proof of illness or disability to avoid being penalized.
Do you require deadlines? Great! Do you allow extensions for all of your students, without a medical note or other extra nonsense? No?
Why not? Because in the “real world” students will have to meet every single deadline, always? Are you serious?
My latest book contract from a university press arrived in July with a scolding note about the importance of turning in my manuscript on time. Of course it did: Academics are notorious for blowing through deadlines. It’s, like, our thing.
If want to teach your students about deadlines in the real world, you must also teach your students how to ask for extensions. As Sarah J. Schendel, an academic-support specialist at Suffolk University Law School, points out, “Addressing extensions is not about anticipating failure [or] dismissing the importance of deadlines.” Instead, she says, these discussions nudge students to “explicitly examine what it will take to meet the deadline and whether they have frankly assessed both their skill and preparation.”
Students who have ADHD, anxiety, depression, and other mental disabilities struggle with meeting deadlines. These conditions are linked to procrastination — which is a symptom, not a character flaw. Students who have chronic illnesses may have unexpected doctor appointments that interrupt their work plans.
Extensions are the real world. But you can’t assume that your students know how to ask for extensions. Some will, but most won’t.
Offering extensions and teaching how to ask for them is yet another way to create an accessible classroom. Don’t require your disabled students to out themselves to ask for extensions; instead, teach all of your students this important life skill.
With the rise of hybrid teaching, more professors than ever are recording their classes. But many make those recordings available only to students with a disability-accommodations note.
Accessibility means giving them out to everyone.
Are you afraid your students will skip class if they have your class recordings? Try it, and see what happens. If they do skip class, ask yourself why they’re doing so. Are they overwhelmed? (Yes.) Are they learning asynchronously? (Maybe yes.) Do you have a chance to intervene and help because they’ve been absent? (Yes.)
I’ve given my students class recordings since the technology existed. My choice has not created a wave of absenteeism: If students skip class, the class recordings are not the reason. The reason is anxiety, depression, and other mental-health struggles caused by the pandemic. The statistics don’t lie.
Catherine Denial, a historian at Knox College, wrote in 2019 about her own shift toward what she calls “a pedagogy of kindness,” which she distills into two central commitments: “believing people, and believing in people.”
As professors, we can choose to trust our students and have faith in them. Doing so will not dilute the intellectual richness of our classes. On the contrary, it will allow all of our students — including our disabled students — to experience, and contribute to, that richness.
Toxic rigor and accessibility cannot coexist. Accessibility demands compassion, trust, and understanding, qualities that are anathema to toxic rigor. Until we prune toxic rigor from our pedagogy, disabled students will bear a heavy burden to soothe professors’ need for control.
