Every January, LET’S meets their student(s) from the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice practicum course. Students are paired with local community organizations from January to April 2025.
LET’S was contacted by a Graduate Academic Assistant from the Social Justice Institute’s GRSJ practicum course. Within the email was an invitation asking us to participate in the practicum again. We have, in all combined previous years, had 9 practicum students. We were eager to have more in 2025.
In December of 2024, we were paired and connected with our students. In January, we met our 2 students and discussed project/deliverables and roles, and responsibilities. Both students were keen to work with LET’S. Flexibility and choice are paramount to the way that LET’S works, so we encourage students to choose from a selection of projects. Both students chose to work on research for LET’S workshops. To provide students with an idea of the work that we do, we teach a Disability Awareness workshop to them.
The Importance of Lived Expertise
Our workshop covers the definitions of disability, the barriers to diagnosis/disclosure, the history and advocacy behind the terms crip and mad, examples of ableism, information on how to make language less ableist, and more.
Following the workshop, Heather asked the students if they had any questions or if there was anything within the workshop that particularly resonated with them. 1 shared that they were quite upset. When asked why, they said that in all their years in university, learning about social justice issues, they hadn’t been taught about the terms crip or mad and the history, community, and meaning behind the reclaimed terms (terms that were once used in derogatory ways are taken back by the community they were weaponized against – like the 2SLGBTQIA+ community did with queer).
Lived expertise and knowledge directly from disability communities are vital perspectives, experiences, and histories are often overlooked and rarely covered in institutional settings. While institutional education certainly have its place and strengths, they must work to better integrate and welcome information from those of use with living and/or lived experience. When they don’t cover terms like crip or mad, entire lives and experiences are left unsaid.
Example of Importance of Crip Knowledge in Academia
From the paper Prioritizing Crip Futures: Applying Crip Theory to Create Accessible Academic Experiences in Higher Education by Emily J. Abrams Email, Colleen E. Floyd, and Elisa S. Abes
Ableist constructions of time are found in the pace of the academic day (Miller, 2020). In-person courses often demand full days of learning spanned across campus. With little time to travel to their next destination, late students are sometimes met with judgment and penalty. Travel time is often considered only when inclement weather threatens nondisabled students. Remote learning in the Covid-19 pandemic continued these ableist expectations. Without typical travel time, classes and meetings have often been scheduled continuously throughout the day with few breaks. Students have little agency over their time, as higher education demands more.
These ableist barriers contribute to disabled students taking on a contentious relationship with time. Operating on crip time in response to academic ableism, coded as rigor, is the time spent writing and reading into the late night; the time reading and re-reading course materials trying to comprehend; the days when one’s bed becomes their outfit; and the time lost in anxiety, fatigue, and sadness. It is classes missed due to appointments and the resulting attendance grades; and the hours spent negotiating accommodations and access, advocating for the right to an education. It is the time disabled students must care for their bodyminds as they are forced to take on a shape that does not fit the mold of the “model” student. Crip time can hurt. It can be confusing, lonely, and frustrating (Samuels, 2017), but it is educators’ responsibility to make space for it and contribute to the eradication of ableist barriers.
Colleen’s narrative shows how educators can contribute to crip time as liberatory. Crip time in practice rejects the scripts of laziness placed on disabled students, flipping the onus onto educators to examine and transform their practice. No longer should disabled students internalize ableist messaging. Instead, disabled students should be validated as knowers and comfortable to experience time however it manifests. As Colleen described, her discovery of crip time resulted in self-acceptance and the increased capacity to advocate for herself. These are the liberatory goals educators should hold for students. The nature of academic ableism means that crip time will not always be freeing, but if educators create space for and discuss crip time with disabled students, they do not have to internalize their temporal realities as deviant.