Teach for Minds of All Kinds
by Daisy Breneman
The theme of this year’s upcoming
Disability Advocacy Week (DAW) is “Minds for All Kinds,” which celebrates the value of
neurodiversity—in other words, the wide range of ways that individuals think. Events,
including a CFI Faculty Workshop and a keynote by
Temple
Grandin on Thursday, March 28, will focus on employment opportunities and justice for “Minds of All Kinds.” The DAW organizers highlight the importance of the following:
Justice for Minds of All Kinds
Equity for Minds of All Kinds
Design for Minds of All Kinds
Advocate for Minds of All Kinds
Care for Minds of All Kinds
Teach for Minds of All Kinds
Grandin, an autistic activist and writer, emphasizes that
diversity
in how individuals think is a good thing—for innovation, problem-solving, effective teams, and more. As many in the neurodiversity community argue, we need to
stop
asking individuals to change and instead create more access, and a world in which minds of all kinds can thrive. Such a world
benefits
everyone.
Career advocacy is one important way that we can work toward access and justice for all our students. Faculty play an important, but often underrecognized, role in
career
readiness for students. This doesn’t undermine the inherent value of learning for learning’s sake, or mean that we have to give in to what Matthew T. Hora (2023) calls the “vocationalist
turn” in higher education. In fact, Hora argues that embedding career readiness into our classrooms actually enhances student disciplinary knowledge, as well as transferable skills like critical thinking, which are essential
to “dealing with problems like climate change, misinformation and threats to democracy.”
We can at the same time encourage students to embrace the joy of learning, while also seeking to prepare our students, especially our marginalized students, for life beyond college. Incorporating career readiness
into our classrooms is part of an equity-minded approach to teaching.
When we don’t talk about career readiness and pathways, we can actually widen
career
equity gaps. Here are some ways we might be able to contribute to employment justice for neurodiverse, and all, students:
Please join us next week at
Disability Advocacy Week, and always feel free to contact me to keep the conversation going. Let’s all work together to prepare students for their
future pathways and to create more welcoming, inclusive, and just spaces for minds of all kinds.
Daisy L. Breneman holds a joint appointment with University Advising and Justice Studies and is the co-coordinator of the Disability Studies Minor. She is also a CFI senior
faculty associate. She can be reached at [log in to unmask].
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