HOW TO TEACH ‘RACE’ IN THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES by Geraldine Heng (via medievalpoc)

If anyone would like to read an English translation of The Romance of Sir Moriaen, you can do so here!

[Image: tweet by Titanium Cranium (@FelicityTC) including three screenshots of a Harry potter book in three different formats on Amazon. Text:

“Harry Potter on Amazon -

Print: $6.39 Audio: $44.99 Braille: $100.00

#CripTax”]

So, let me explain this a bit.

The defenders of CripTax prices will say that those prices cover the cost of production. This is, without a doubt, true. I work at a university where we often have to take written materials and convert them into braille – it takes a LOT of people hours, special software, and a braille embosser.

But those defenders of higher prices are reversing the argument to justify fleecing disabled readers.

What do I mean by that?

Braille is not magic. It is done by taking plain text and feeding it through fairly affordable translation software, creating a document that can easily be printed in braille.

All that time and effort and special software? IS NOT FOR THE BRAILLE.

It is to take the document provided by the publisher (usually in PDF format, the same file they send to the printers) and turn it into plain, unadorned text, by hand. Text has to be “stripped” (OCR/text recognition); images have to be described; footnotes have to be embedded; special pullouts and other formatting shifted or removed. 

Printing in braille is cheap; reverse engineering a finished text to print it in braille IS NOT.

Same with those audio books. After a book is completed and, often, after it has already been published, the publisher arranges to have the book recorded by a professional voice actor/reader, which usually also involves a recording producer, if not a recording studio, which all stacks up to $$, no two ways about it.

However: that cost? IS RARELY FACTORED INTO THE BUDGET OF PRINTING A BOOK.

Oh, it might be, if the author is JK Rowling and it is well known that readers will want audio versions right away. But most of the time, nope, the audio book is produced only after the hard copy book has become a decent seller, and so it’s an extra cost which is claimed must be covered by making the audio version extra expensive to buy. (Even then it’s somewhat ridiculous, since honestly, creating an audio book is, in the end, cheaper than printing, factoring in the cost of paper.)

If publishers factored audio book production into the assumed costs of publishing a book, they would have very little reason to price it higher.

If publishers factored in creating a “plain text” file – including having editors/authors describe images – that could be used to print braille copies or to be used with refreshable braille readers (electronic pinboards, basically), then there would be zero reason to price those books higher.

tl;dr: Yes, it’s a #criptax, and the excuse that “those formats are more expensive to produce so they have to be priced higher” is only true if you completely throw out the premise that publishers have an obligation to account for disabled readers when they are actually budgeting for and publishing the book.

I’m really glad you brought this up, because this is exactly the sort of argument thatpeople try to use to justify inaccessibility in all kinds of areas. When we tell a company that their website or appliance or piece of technology isn’t accessible, they frequently tell us that they are sorry to hear that but that the accessibility is too expensive and time-consuming to add in now. There is also a provision in the law that allows companies to not bother including accessibility in their products if the cost of building in the accessibility is more than 5% of the total cost to build the whole product in the US.

That seems reasonable on the surface, doesn’t it? Except here’s the thing—the accessibility should have been a part of the original plans to begin with and designed in from the very beginning and should have been considered a necessary element and just another ordinary part of the cost of producing the product, not some extra feature that can be opted out of if it’s too expensive. The problem is that these companies do not understand the fact that if you cannot afford to build the product with the accessibility included, then you cannot afford to build the product and that is that. It’s exactly the same as not being able to afford to make the product with all elements up to safety and health codes and standards. If you can’t afford to meet the legal standards, then you can’t afford to make the product, and it’s that simple. Accessibility is not an exception to this and it should not be considered as such. It should be just as much an ordinary required part of the design process as any other element, not an extra, shiny, fancy feature that you can just choose not to bother with if it costs a little bit of money.

Accessibility should be part of the standard design process just as much as safety codes and health standards and other legal regulations. The ADA has existed for 20 years so companies have had ample time to catch up and learn to plan for accessibility from the beginning as a part of the standard required design process. If you can’t afford to create the product fully up to code, standards, and accessibility laws, then you simply can’t afford to make the product. No excuses, no exceptions.

Thanks for this awesomely informative post; this is precisely what I used to do for a living, in a college environment. People were often surprised that this work was not somehow already done by the publishing companies, but nope. My department did it all by hand, more or less. From scanning, to creating PDFs, to OCR text extraction, to formatting the files for JAWS, to making the corrections and image descriptions.

The thing is, college textbooks are so image heavy, compartmentalized, and splashed with text boxes on every page, with increasingly convoluted diagrams that sometimes take up multiple pages, I was basically *writing* half the textbook myself. Basically, you have to take an image like this diagram (which might be in a book, or part of a handout, or be embedded in an inaccessible online module, or part of a video lecture, or maybe it’s part of a powerpoint or slideshow):

and figure out how to describe every bit of pertinent information that is happening visually, decide in what order to present that information, and do it in a way that doesn’t make the student just decide to give up because holy crap, right??

And this part is *just* the textbook. I did this for all class materials-in all topics, in all formats, for every teacher, in every discipline. everything from astronomy, world history, american history, economics, biology, literature, art history, history of modern philosophy, poetry, and even a few things for extracurricular and clubs.

And you know what? A lot of the time professors would seem to think they’re doing everyone some kind of favor by giving us the books and materials like, the DAY before class starts. Or, y’know, sometimes like a week AFTER.

There’s a reason I decided to become staff in Disability Services rather than a professor as I’d originally intended-I was a disabled student too, and I wanted to do my best to prevent others from having to fight like I had to fight. I started out with like 5 people working under me to get the stuff scanned and processed and I was doing the final corrections, formatting, and image/diagram descriptions; by the time it was nearing its end it was just me literally flopping books on a scanner with one hand and typing with my fingers and wrist with the other.

They eliminated my department like 2 years ago, and I got laid off. **there’s** your “commitment” to accessibility in higher education.

That’s how the sausage gets made, my friends....and in this case, how it doesn’t.

It still frustrates me that Tumblr and folks my age view Bill Nye as like.. a progressive man of science. The thing is that Bill Nye shouldn’t have any credibility outside his field of engineering. He’s not a biologist, he’s not an astronomer, he’s just received a Bachelors in engineering. He has received honorary Doctorates, but some people receive hundreds of these and they really amount to micro-recognitions on a campus-by-campus basis. 

If you want to actually learn about the frontier of this stuff, hit the library. A scholarly database through a university is even better. 

But the mere sound of this one television personality honorary doctor with a BA in engineering taught me about biology should be plenty enough for folks to realize the problems here. But they won’t because he’s a childhood element and he says stuff that they want to here and that is more powerful than the desire to actually be as informed as possible.

Do you understand that he’s probably spent his entire career furthering his education and that a degree doesn’t really keep someone from being qualified to speak? Especially as a professional communicator, he probably has hundreds of people that he consults for stuff that he might not be an expert in? And that he’s motivated to educate himself on everything he says BECAUSE he’s a media representative for scientists and if he says something wrong he has literally millions of scientists who will correct or critique him?

Like did you know that pretty much everything he talks about is covered in the intro courses of whatever he is talking about? And that anytime he needs to go more in depth he usually leaves that to the actual experts? And that his job is to being an introductory concept to the masses to make them more scientifically literate and educated? His job is to get people interested in whatever topic he’s talking about so that they can actually go and do their own research and ask actual experts?

THIS.

As a science teacher whose job often involves trying to explain complicated concepts like climate change, human evolution, and dinosaur phylogeny to kids as young as 6, I can attest with some authority that the ability to take a complex scientific concept and distill it down so that it’s a) accessible to young audiences/laypeople, b) still accurate, and c) engaging as hell – that is a SKILL. And one that does not necessarily come as part of a PhD.

if you dont understand why i listen to the friendly man who specialises in accessible mass teaching, then i fully expect you to finance for me the 15 years of university youre demanding i do instead.

Also it is a little bit hilarious that OP focuses so much biology, which suggest they are referring to the newest bit of Bill Nye being affirmative about sex/gender not being the binary that is taught in high school sex ed - which is actually the scientific reality of biology, if you’re looking at the hundreds if not thousands of intersex variations in humans (hormonal, chromosomal, physical, etc)… like an actual biologist doesn’t have a leg to stand on arguing “sex is binary.”

But the minute a tv personality says science is against your bigoted worldview, out come the “he only has a BA, this man knows nothing, stop liking him.” LOL

Science writers often do not have advanced degrees when they are writing for publications. Teachers often don’t have advanced degrees when they break down concepts for kids. Have you ever read a scientific journal? Dry as hell and out of most people’s spheres of knowledge. You are talking about everyone doing the equivalent of advanced coursework on every issue. I’m too busy being an expert in my field to be an expert in everyone else’s fields. That’s why I rely on smart people to educate me. There is something wrong with my car. I am going to take it to a car expert at a shop. There are things wrong with the world. I am going to get educated at my level from people who know what the hell they are talking about, even if one is a science advocate and tv personality with scientists in his wheelhouse.

This commentary is beautiful. 10/10

Being able to understand something very complex by reading academic papers about it is one skill set. Helping a bunch of other people with diverse learning styles and abilities understand something very complex? TOTALLY different skill set. Generating interest in a topic because you’re passionate about it? Again, another skill set.

GO 👏 THE 👏 FUCK 👏 OFF. Also, the American educational system is trash. I applaud this child’s parents for giving her a voice and standing up against bias authority.

(Can someone caption this?)

Classroom full of mostly black and brown students:

Black student: [unintelligible—and then]  …and then throwing everything away beneath it because it doesn’t pertain to you. I’m sorry —

White teacher: —you know what, I’m sorry -I’m sorry…

Black student: —No, no, no…I let you talk -I let you talk, you’re gonna let me talk.

[Other students gasps]

White student: Go ahead. Finish.

Black student: I’m sorry that this is the way that it is. You’re right, it is fucked up. But white people control everything…and that’s not fair. And when anybody, any other minority tries to say anything about it or change it, we’re complaining or we’re ungrateful or all this other stuff because we still have this or that. But then you say something about ‘Oh, I don’t want—there’s too many Latinos and there’s too many—’

White teacher: I didn’t say that—

[Various students disagree]

White teacher: I said I want to control the border!

Black student: You said you don’t want this to turn into a Latin country because there’ll be too many 

White teacher: I did not say that.

[Various students disagree]

Student 2: You said you want to preserve the American culture.

Black student: There is no American culture. American culture is EVERYTHING.

[Various students agree]

Random: Mayonnaise!

[Students laugh]

Black student: And because you are white and so closed-minded, you refuse to accept that, you refuse to accept—

White teacher: Don’t tell me I’m closed-minded—

Black student: Everything you’ve said to me is closed-minded.

White teacher: Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m closed-minded.

Black student: You don’t need to agree—I -I’ve had conversations with people that don’t agree with me, but if they at least listen and try to accept—you’re not accepting the truth.

White teacher: Why do I have to accept what you think is right?

Black student: You need to accept the truth! Not what I think is right, what is actually happening right—

White teacher: Well, let me tell you what I think. You said white people have been in control of everything….who is the president of the United States right now?!

Students: A black man!

*Various sounds of incredulity*

Black student: WITH A WHITE CONGRESS! WITH A WHITE SENATE! WITH WHITE EVERYTHING ELSE! HE DOESN’T HAVE THE CONTROL OF EVERYTHING!

Random: GO OFF 

Other Random: GO OFF–

*The class is in an uproar*

Random student: YOU ARE SO PRIVILEGED THAT YOU JUST DON’T SEE IT!

White teacher: Do we have to yell?!

Black student: Yes, because I’m mad.

FRY HIM

Oh but these are today’s “weak” millenial students who demand to be “coddled” right? At least, that’s what teachers turn around and say because suddenly their students aren’t afraid to disagree with authority

Power

This is the kind of environment students of color walk into every day, and are expected to learn in. I am 100% blown away by this student’s bravery.

All of my Spoonie Student Resources - Updated Spring 2017

For my student followers (and anyone else who could benefit from this info).

We’re (for the most part) a few weeks into our semesters now, so I thought it would be a good time to share some spoonie student resources.  I’ve written quite a bit on these topics over the past few years, so it feels relevant to collect all of that info in one place.  So, here we go, all of my spoonie student resources/advice, organized by category.

General Advice/Tips:

Communicating with Professors and others:

Surviving Campus Life:

Dealing with the Disability Services Office:

Productivity & Time Management:

Some Encouragement:

Picking a School:

Educationally-relevant Assistive Technology:

Email templates:

Example emails:

Oral Exams

Art & Other Reflections on Academic Ableism

Some personal experiences & reflections that may help you feel less alone:

Please feel free to share this (and/or any of the posts linked here) if you find it helpful!

Also, if there are other topics you’d like to know (more) about, feel free to send an ask.  (No promises on when I’ll  have time to write a full post, though.)

Black History Month!

2017 note: Hey, guys.  With Black History Month just around the corner, I wanted to repost this so that teachers have a chance to print the (FREE) poster before February so that it can be used as a classroom resource if anyone feels like it might be worthwhile to have on hand.  Let your teacher pals know! 2016 edit: a lot of teachers and librarians asked if there was a poster for this that they could buy.  Nope!  This post was made as an educational aid and teachers oughtn’t have to pay anything to get it in their classroom.  So here’s a link to download the poster’s print file to print it yourself: https://gumroad.com/l/Exvau I did include the series in my recent art book 555 Character Drawings, so if you want it in a book with a lot of other stuff, that’s available, too. http://crogan.bigcartel.com/product/555-character-drawings-preorders

My favorite parts of history (as might be obvious from my choice of subject matter when making books) are the ones that fall into easily-categorized genres, genres with associated visual iconographies. This is the sort of stuff I loved as a kid: pirates, knights, cowboys, explorers, romans and Egyptians and flying aces. Stuff you could find featured in a bag of toys or a generic costume. For Black History Month, I thought I might visit some of these adventure-leaning periods and pick a few historic black people from those eras to draw, just for fun. If you’re doing a project or report in school this month, you could do worse than to tackle one of these toughies.  Feel free to share some of these with youngsters that you know.  And call them youngsters, they LOVE that.

(longer write-ups under the break)

Keep reading

--->FREE CLASSROOM POSTER<---

It’s worth putting it this way: the reason the state of Arizona attacked Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program is because not only were its students graduating and going to college after taking this program, but also because poor Latino high school students were standing up for themselves and politically active from this knowledge. (Instead of just dropping out–the Latino dropout rate in TUSD is so high the district was found in violation of Brown v. Board of Education in 1978. Which is the whole reason they started the MAS program in the first place, because they recognized it was so effective in boosting graduation rates and desegregating the school). State Superintendent Tom Horne first went after the program in 2006, when students organized a event against the Sensenbrenner Bill and all the shit that was happening then, and they invited Dolores Huerta to speak and apparently at one point she said “Republicans hate Latinos.” Horne organized his own republican/anti-immigrant assembly and required all students come hear all his ppl talk about shit and didnt allow questions, so students protested at the event. So whats that? Brown high school students standing up against this crazy police state shit that the right wing is organizing to attack their families? Just as Tom Horne was planning to run for AZ Attorney General? No, we cant have that, not in our state. So thats literally what made him push all the bills targeting the program, saying it encourages kids to overthrow the American government and shit. Thats literally what scares and enflames the right wing so much that Horne won the election after his bill passed, and put a guy in charge of Arizona schools who believes Phoenix has been “nuclear bombed by illegal immigration.”

Critical ethnic studies programs gets students of color to graduate and stand up for themselves, and throw a wrench into this school to prison pipeline/white supremacy shit. That’s why it’s illegal, thats why all you hear about in school is this whitewahed shit. White supremacy needs whitewashed education to survive

Continue Reading.

A quick review:

1. You as a taxpayer pay for the salaries of academics, and among those who are scientists, their labs.  This is as it should be.

2. But then scientific research and academic papers are enclosed by private corporations like Elsevier behind pay walls and sold back to the public (public and university libraries, individuals, etc.) that paid for the labor behind these papers in the first place.

As a result…

3. The transmission of knowledge is slowed down.  One way this happens is common practice of imposing 6 month to 12 month ‘embargoes’ that limit access to journals.  If your library or institution can’t afford the high rates that these companies charge, you may have to wait a full year to access any number of journals.

4. Access to information becomes another source of inequality.

5. Students and even academics everywhere are unable to access information they need.

6. This might very well slow the pace of research in various areas, including urgent medical research.

7. The exorbitant fees charged by these academic publishing companies drain scarce university and public resources.

And for what purpose? 

Basically none.  Everything a company like Elsevier does could be done by the public sector at lower cost and done in such a way as to eliminate the castle walls that limit access to knowledge. 

The for-profit academic publishers really exist for no other reason than to parasitize public wealth for private gain.

4. Access to information becomes another source of inequality.

4. Access to information becomes another source of inequality.

4. Access to information becomes another source of inequality.

Oh hey I wrote a thing. Read it maybe?