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Posts tagged ‘inclusion’

2
Sep

99 Days of Something – #3 or Society of Legal Scholars Day 1

There was no writing as such do be done today so again the blog is the only writing in my string of writing I am going to do today. Together with the brilliant Dr Kat Langley I convene the Legal Education Subject Section at the Society of Legal Scholars. We had two really good sessions today so here are some of my initial very brief reflections on the contributions.

We started the conference with a brilliant panel of Nick Cartwright, Rita D’Alton-Harrison and Simisayo Olawore on Studying Black in Law School: The intersections of Black Student Life. There was so much in that panel presentation that I am not sure where to start really. We have so much to unpack, think about, challenge if we genuinely want to create inclusive legal education. Hearing from Simisayo about her lived experience as a black female student highlighted really clearly that even when we are trying to be inclusive, our efforts might not be landing how we intend them to. I was thinking about how we get round this issue that presents itself whenever we as experts in a particular field or as educators think that we know what is best or how we can get ideas across. We will always get caught up in the power dynamics of teacher/student that risk silencing some voices, re-enforcing stereotypes or misrepresenting experiences – even with the best of intentions. I think if we genuinely want to tackle this we need to relinquish much more power in the classroom. We need to genuinely listen, co-create, tear down and rebuild our discipline in a way which treats all of our experiences of law as valid and useful starting points for analysis.

In our second session we shifted focus and started with a paper which made me think about how we can use visuals to help us understand and explain complex legal concepts by Tristan Webb. It prompted me to think about how I make sense of complexity. I don’t think I really do visuals. Everything I do is text based in some way. So even my diagrams are text based – more mind map or flow chart than picture. I think in words not in pictures. But that is not helpful for anyone who thinks in pictures rather than in words. So how can I adapt some of my teaching, representations, slides and other materials to help students develop the things, whether its diagrams, pictures, memes, cartoons, objects, whatever it is to help them make sense of the things we are talking about. And seamlessly that linked me to the next presentation about using Lego to help students grapple with contract law doctrine and develop a more nuanced understanding. Marton Ribary and Antony Starza-Allen outlined how they used Lego and a structured series of builds to really get students thinking about the complexities of contract law.

Questions that came up on both of those papers were around how we measure success. How do we know if these things have a tangible impact on student performance. I don’t know the answer to that but I wondered whether we should maybe just stop obsessing about measuring. I wondered if we could just celebrate the fact that students maybe just had fun, that the noise levels in the classroom rose that little bit, that there was more conversation, more laughter, maybe even giggles. Can we just accept that it doesn’t matter if students on average did X% better if they did the thing or used the gimmick or whatever, maybe the increase in the grade is irrelevant. What if what matters is simply that they enjoyed the learning, that they talked to others, collaborated and had fun.

The final paper was a presentation by Dawn Watkins on a game about law for school children and I have more to say on that and no capacity now. It’s time for bed to let me brain do its thing on all of this – more tomorrow

16
Dec

They’re Not Just Toilets!

A couple of days ago my institution opened a new entrance to one of the university buildings.  Not exciting, but in that entrance area (it’s a glorified porch really) there are new toilets, not exciting either, but these  toilets are gender neutral toilets. Now this is exciting. I was going to blog about them then but somehow it didn’t seem important enough. Well I think I was wrong about that. I actually think that having those toilets there is massively important and an email sent by a colleague mocking them and noting (sarcastically it seems) ‘As tens of thousands of innocent people are being cynically and perhaps routinely slaughtered in Aleppo, this remains the most compelling issue facing Students & Staff today’ suggests that maybe celebrating the toilets is even more important than I thought. Stick with me as I try to unpick this and try not to rant.

I don’t really get the obsession with toilets split by gender. It’s a toilet. I actually think it would make perfect sense to just have toilets – full stop. That would just be so much more inclusive and, well equal. Who gets to pee where isn’t about biological differences, it never has been. It’s about some old-fashioned concerns about what women should and shouldn’t be doing in public. It’s about anxiety and the misplaced perception that there is a need to protect women (or just generally protect us from each other). The research into public toilets is fascinating (see for example Molotch and Norens 2010 book ‘Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing’ which also contains a chapter by Terry Kogan on segregation) and I wish I had the time to read more of this stuff (yep, maybe I should have been a sociologist after all!). There are a number of issues around gender neutral toilets which jump out at me. I know there’s research and I am also keenly aware that most of it I haven’t read. What follows is my gut feeling about this and my initial reaction to the email I got at work which, to put it mildly, made my blood boil. I have tried to sense check my gut feelings and perceptions by talking to friends and reading some stuff but I know there’s a whole load of stuff I’m missing. If you have ideas for something I should read to help me get a fuller and more nuanced picture please leave me a note in the comments

  1. Gender neutral toilets are for everyone. They make sense. In buildings where there is limited space for toilets – just have toilets. Don’t make (almost always) women walk further and wait longer to pee.
  2. We don’t need segregation. Women do not need protecting. Segregation just encourages us to deal with each other in a slightly artificial and negative way. (I hadn’t really thought about this until one of my friends mentioned this – thanks, you know who you are). Segregation encourages us to view each other with suspicion. Well, as someone who routinely skipped the lines for the Ladies’ and walked into the blokes’ toilets – there’s no mystery. You might encounter a few more hairbrushes and a little more make-up in the little girls’ room but that’s it. Also – segregation doesn’t work. There is no magic safe space. See a recent Guardian article for examples
  3. Toilets can be the venue for many a drama, many tears and confidential chats and comforting. This has come up in conversation several times with female friends whose best friends are men. If the toilet is the only area at work or wherever where you can have a private conversation and a bit of a cry when you’re having a rough day, and your best friend or trusted colleague is male, you’re stuffed. You have to do your crying on your own leaving your bestie outside feeling properly useless. That doesn’t make sense
  4. Gender neutral toilets also make sense for parents – it means they can take their child of whatever gender to the toilet without any awkwardness whatsoever. None.
  5. Gender neutral toilets are also imperative for trans people. Here I think safety is an issue. The US trans survey results are pretty scary – 59% have avoided using public bathrooms (including at work and school) because of fear. Just think about that for a minute – 59% of respondents to that survey did not go to the loo because they were scared. That alone makes gender neutral toilets not just a good thing but absolutely crucial in any society or organisation that takes equality in any way seriously.
  6. I have re-written this paragraph several times now and I can’t quite get it right. The email I received (which went to a selection of people in response to the announcement that we now had these gender neutral toilets) was dismissive of ‘gender dis-specific’ people and pointed to the fact that there may be 3 in the institution and that ‘their survival is threatened by both a lack of tolerance and the lack of an arena where they can take a dump without the wolf-whistles’. I don’t even know what to say to this. Yep, there’s a lack of tolerance – nicely exemplified by the email. And yes actually their survival (in some cases, actual survival) and safety is threatened. Have a look for example at this article in the advocate which highlights some of the issues.
  7. Perhaps the most upsetting bit in the email is the assertion that because we care about gender neutral toilets we don’t care about Aleppo. I stopped breathing for a second when I read that. I care, as do my friends, about injustice. If I care about having gender neutral toilets, I can still care about Syria, about Human Rights abuses, about the gender pay gap, about every day sexism, about trans equality, about whatever f-ing injustice there is. I don’t have a finite amount of ‘caring’. Using one massive injustice to justify doing nothing about other injustices (on the basis that this means we don’t care enough about the massive one) is just idiotic. But of course I am missing the point here – if you don’t see not having gender neutral toilets as an injustice…
  8. For my institution as a university those gender neutral toilets are a great first step. There is somewhere to go for staff and students who do not want to deal with the ‘which toilet is the right one for me’ debate or issue every time they need to pee. I don’t care what the reason for that debate might be, nobody should have to worry about going for a pee at work/uni. I’d like to see gender specific toilets disappear – I don’t see the point in having them

So there we are. Do you see now why they are not just toilets? Why they are much more than that, a symbol of inclusiveness and equality or at least a step towards those values. They can also be genuine life-savers and certainly stress savers for many – and it’s not for me, you or anyone else to decide who gets to pee where.