Risky Business, or the Rhetorical Possibilities of Disability Disclosure #4C15 #J40

Risk Management in the College Classroom #J40 Risk Management in the College Classroom Student Strategies for Disclosing Disability

Tobin Siebers “If we cannot tell our stories because they reflect badly on our personalities or make other people queasy, the end result will be greater isolation. For human beings makes lives together by sharing their stories with each other. There is no other way of being together for our kind.” -from “Tender Organs” Image Description: the image above is a portrait of Tobin Siebers, a respected scholar in Disability Studies. He has short white hair, glasses with thin frames, and is wearing a black suit jacket with a white button-up shirt, no tie. He has a smile on his face.

The Study 35 Students with Disabilities Semi-structured interviews “Is disability a large part of your identity? Please explain.” “Have you ever disclosed disability to your instructor? Why or why not?” “Do you have any advice for writing teachers about how to make their classrooms more accessible?”

Presentation Overview Introduction and overview Dimensions of Disability Identity Rhetorical Strategies of Disclosure

PART ONE Disability Identity: Rhetorical Agency, Stigma, and Patterns of Resistance

JAKE “And so I thought I was dumb…I couldn’t stand having these remedial classes. I couldn’t stand being this kid who’s struggling.”

BLAIR “I don’t want people to identify me by my disability because I’m in [pre-med]; it’s a really hard major and there’s already a stigma of being a girl. And it’s still really hard and I don’t want people to think I’m not as smart as everyone else. And then if I identify with my disability, people will be like, ‘Oh, she’s not as smart as everyone,’ but that’s just not true at all.”

GREG “It was just nice to have somebody understand where I was at. Because that is still such a stigma in society. It’s just not something that I want everybody to know about. And most people don’t know.” When I asked why he thinks the stigma persists, he said, “because it’s still mainly associated with gay men. That’s it right there.”

DIANE “Tourette’s isn’t really me. It’s just a part of me I guess. A little quirk I guess is what you’d say.” “I always notice it. It’s like the best way to describe it is try and keep your eyes open without blinking…if you try and keep your eyes open without blinking, you’re gonna eventually blink and then you look around and you notice, did anyone notice me blink? It’s always there. It’s always nagging at me.” “I feel like myself as a person is more than my disabilities, and I shouldn’t be defined by my disabilities. I mean, they’re a part of who I am, but they shouldn’t define me. I’m a creative, intelligent person. I’d rather those things define me than someone who just looks at me and sees depression and Tourette’s.”

GAVIN “No, I don’t allow it to become a portion of my identity. It’s like anything else in life. It’s a problem. It’s a problem like, being an engineer, you think analytically about things so I’m more of the type of person who would rather identify any problem or any bump in my life and do my best to overcome that. My identity is not defined by whatever diagnosis I’ve currently been prescribed. I don’t allow it to because if I did, I’d just be more depressed of a person than I already have been.” “I do trust the doctors…they’re the ones who are much more educated and much more intelligent on the subject.”

PART TWO Disability Disclosure: Rhetorical Strategies of Impression Management

LEAH “I feel that sharing the specific disabilities I have with a professor is sharing things that can be easily judged one way or the other. Other disabilities are accepted by society as legitimate and thus, a professor can’t react badly to it. Migraines and depression, I feel, are things that general society might not automatically deem a disability. It might take having a conversation with someone like me, who has been so significantly affected by them, for a sway towards disability to happen. By not describing my disability, the professor doesn’t have the opportunity to judge whether it is legitimate or not.”

Student-Veterans: CHESTY & MIKE Chesty: “I don’t want them to be weirded out. I think that with PTSD, veterans have gotten a really bad rap as far as that goes, so I don’t want them to be nervous.” Mike: “It’s a mental health problem, and I don’t want people to look at me like I’m crazy or that I’m subnormal.”

APRIL “I should tell them but at the same time I feel like I’m gonna get scolded for not going to the disability center. I feel like they’re not going to respect that I’m telling them, very unofficial. So I try not to tell them unless I feel closer to them.”

TYLER “I realized that no one in the art school knew about this condition whereas my entire family knows, all my closest friends know, people at my workplace know, so I was wondering if art has to do with the rest of my life, why am I not telling these people about it?.”

Reductive Approaches to Disclosure

Thank you twood@Rockford.edu