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Is Anyone as Cruel as a Normal Person?: Disability, Access, and Why I Refuse to Go “Back to Normal”
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Is Anyone as Cruel as a Normal Person?: Disability, Access, and Why I Refuse to Go “Back to Normal”

And of course, Western chauvinism drips from the preceding paragraph: to be even at this stage of this unending trial is due to the accident of birth of vaccine privilege, which the richest countries in the world seem determined to horde like Gollum’s ring (and you know what happens to hobbitses who horde rings). But with the wealth of opportunity we have had to protect and care for ourselves and each other, it’s all the more disheartening to see how quickly the collective solidarity of the early pandemic days has fallen away. We’re heading “back to normal,” which I guess means “everyone for themselves” — because the normal we had before didn’t work for an awful lot of people. If there’s one thing this moment has made achingly clear, it’s that the ableism baked into how we do business in the post-secondary sector will take a lot more than a global pandemic to unseat. And that if we don’t use this moment to imagine something a damn sight better than normal, it’s hard to imagine that we ever will.

How depressing. Let’s dig in.

Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make: Surveillance and the True “New Normal” of the Moment
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Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make: Surveillance and the True “New Normal” of the Moment

When everyone first left the campus and went home to teach and learn remotely, there was a lot of talk about how we would reduce assessment loads and reframe our evaluations to meet the moment. Many institutions offered a Pass/Fail option in the immediate term and instructors were encouraged to find compassion for students in crisis.

And then, you know, universities gotta university. By January 2021, students were reporting a perception of increased workloads and by June 2021, the sector had decided everyone was cheating and somehow the idea that our processes should change in a, you know, global pandemic became a lot less attractive. Instead, what became a lot more attractive was surveillance.

The Worst Is Yet to Come, and Babe, It Won’t Be Fine
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The Worst Is Yet to Come, and Babe, It Won’t Be Fine

So last week, we talked about fatigue and burnout, and I promised you I would give you some reasons to keep engaging with the things that matter. I didn’t promise a cheery chat — and the title today reinforces that! — but I am going to provide some reasons to hope even as I try to spook you into action.

Naomi Klein’s concept of disaster capitalism, as she outlines in the Shock Doctrine, is one that resonates. We’ve talked about it in these pages before: it’s the idea that bad, exploitative policy — of the neoliberal variety — typically follows on from crisis. Klein herself has acknowledged the parallels to this moment. And I’ve argued that we’re seeing this same thing happen in educational technologies, as universities floundered to sign agreements and then get stuck with tools they are ill-prepared to effectively manage and use.

We Get Knocked Down, But We Get Up Again: Discourses of Resilience, Realities of Burnout
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We Get Knocked Down, But We Get Up Again: Discourses of Resilience, Realities of Burnout

I don’t know what it’s like in your circles, but in mine — which, thanks to Twitter, span a broad range of English-language academics, and sometimes a little beyond — everyone is done. Everyone is burnt out and tired and feeling pulled beyond what they can do. And in many ways, things feel bleaker than they did at the beginning of the pandemic, because we’re now all too aware that everything we hoped was temporary, from critical staffing shortages to the demands of working in multiple modalities, is probably not, in fact, temporary. Anytime an institution finds it can run with less, it rarely goes back to more. Even if the cost is human; maybe especially when the cost is human. Humans are infinitely replaceable. Capital projects are forever.

Thank you for your resilience.

Welcome (?) to the 2022 TRU Digital Detox
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Welcome (?) to the 2022 TRU Digital Detox

My friends, what a time to be working in education. When I sat down in November to plan this year’s Digital Detox, I really struggled. Reading back through the essays of the last few years, it is easy to believe that nothing has really changed or improved since the start of the pandemic, and that…

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Recent Posts TRU Digital Detox 2024 Posts will appear here through the Detox period and will be archived on this site thereafter. Guest Posts Guest posts are displayed below.

Archive

Digital Detox 2023 Archive The Robots Are Coming:AI and the Education Revolution Digital Detox 2022 Archive Overcoming Apathy and Fighting Back Digital Detox 2021 Archive The Post-Pandemic University Digital Detox 2020 Archive Detoxify Your Relationship to Technology

Digital Detox 2021 Archive

Digital Detox 2021 Archive The Post-Pandemic University about how the crisis teaching methods, and other technological strategies, we undertook in 2020 might have unforeseen consequences, and about how we might work together to build back better in spite of the pressures on us and our institutions. with other members of the TRU community and beyond,…

Digital Detox 2020 Archive

Digital Detox 2020 Archive Detoxify Your Relationship to Technology some of the biggest issues in technology, and especially educational technology, today. We’ll learn about issues of equity, ethics, access, and we’ll talk about data privacy and how students and faculty are targeted. with other members of the TRU community who are wrestling with the same…