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Welcome to Facilitating on Purpose,
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where we explore ideas together about designing and
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facilitating learning.
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Join me to get inspired on your journey to becoming and
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being a great facilitator wherever you work.
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I'm your host, Beth Cougler Blom.
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Hello, welcome to Season 3 of the podcast.
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If you're just joining us, welcome.
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I'm glad you've decided to check out Facilitating on
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Purpose.
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If you have been a regular listener with us through S
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eason 1 and 2, thanks for coming back.
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I am so excited to bring Season 3 episodes to you.
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In this episode, you're going to meet my guest,
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Yasser Tamer.
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Yasser is a disability advocate, a researcher,
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and an accessibility consultant.
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Yasser is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree in
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the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the
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American University in Cairo.
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He has embarked on his facilitation journey through
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attending what's called the Mid-Year Festival, MyFest,
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something that I have now been able to be a part of as a
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participant and have enjoyed learning from all of the
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varied folks around the world, actually,
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that facilitate and participate in MyFest through a common
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connection.
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I was able to meet Yasser and invited him to come on the
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show, and I'm so pleased that I was able to do that.
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This conversation that I had with Yasser is all about how
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we can make caring learning environments for people with
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disabilities.
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I think it's an important conversation and a good one.
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Enjoy the show.
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Yasser, welcome to the podcast.
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Thanks so much for joining me today.
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Thank you so much, Beth.
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I'm so happy to be here.
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I'm so happy to chat about different things,
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facilitation and learning and disability.
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I'm more happy to always talk about disability when there's
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someone who's motivated like me to chat about these things.
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I'm so motivated and I know that you're going to teach me a
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lot today and give me food for thought.
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So let's get right into it and get started.
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As I think about our conversation today,
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I just want to know a little bit more about who you are in
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the world.
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Who are you, Yasser, in the world?
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And who are you right now as a facilitator?
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Yasser Yeah, that's interesting because I've never thought about facilitation when I was really young. My name is Yasser Tamer. I'm a student, I'm still doing my undergraduate degree here in Cairo, at the American University in Cairo, in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. And I'm a disability advocate.
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So that's really my part of my identity is that I do disability work all the time and I'm advocating always for the rights of people with disabilities in every context and all the opportunities and in the best way possible that I could do.
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To answer your question about who am I as a facilitator, I would just say it started for me, it was in 2022, I got to know one of my closest friends now, who is Professor Maha Bali, who is a professor of practice at the American University in Cairo as well.
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And she was doing the Mid-Year Festival, part of Equity Unbound, which is a grassroots movement, a community building resource for all educators and faculty developers and all people interested in education.
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And I found my interest in this and I found myself even more inclined to explore it. And then shortly after I got to know Professor Bali, it just went that she told me like, oh there's a Mid-Year Festival, are you interested to attend?
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And then I attended. That was in 2022. And when I attended that it just I felt like, oh wow, that's the community I feel like I belong to. And that's the way I want to grow myself and that's the way I want to see myself developing.
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That time I was only an attendee just like everybody else in the room, just like everybody in the community. It just had occurred that I was mostly a person who attended a lot of sessions in the program
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and then I took Professor Maha Bali's class, the class at AUC, the class that she teaches and part of that is the Soliya Connect program. And SULIA is an organization that does virtual exchange programs for students who are interculturally marginalized who are placed in different parts of the world.
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And it just connects people from the US and Europe with people from the Middle East and North Africa like myself. Because, as I said, I'm based in Egypt, I'm based in Cairo. I'm a person who never traveled abroad.
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So I took the SULIA program, I finished that program and then I took the facilitator training afterwards, you know, in the organization. The facilitator training, I took it because I felt like that really resembled the mid-year festival experience, the MyFest experience,
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we call it MyFest and then I took the facilitator training and I found myself really attached to how adults can be constructively, you know, facilitated and organized and communicated.
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Next MyFest came, 2023, and this time I worked as a co-organizer of the whole program. So I facilitated sessions, I led discussions, I hosted other people's sessions so I was actually responsible for welcoming participants into the room as a learning space holder
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and that's what the Intentionally Equitable Hospitality entailed which is the facilitation practice that a facilitator is responsible for holding the space.
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That's actually coined by also Professor Bali and one of
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the people who are responsible for the program,
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who are also one of the co -leaders, Mia Zamora,
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who is also a professor at Kean University.
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So I tried to imitate.
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I tried to be intentionally equitable.
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And I tried to be as mindful as possible with people and
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with being welcoming, with being included,
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like welcoming in the space,
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with being inclusive of whoever will come to my space.
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So that's in a nutshell,
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my way or my journey into my station.
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And I sort of feel very bad because I just summarized this
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in one, two minutes,
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but my feelings towards this journey are really great.
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It just goes beyond being explained in like two, three,
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four minutes.
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I don't mind at all,
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and I'm happy to hear about the journey because I feel like
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you got such an excellent start.
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I've heard of Maha Bali,
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I've heard her speak several times on particularly the
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Teaching in Higher Ed podcast that Bonni Stachowiak runs,
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and I think she's so widely respected in the world for
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probably many things, but wow,
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to have her as a collaborator, perhaps as a mentor,
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as you got started in your facilitation practice.
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It feels like you're pretty lucky,
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nice start to the facilitation world.
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Do you feel that?
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I would say I'm pretty lucky.
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I'm very fortunate to have someone like her with me in this
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world, every day just a learning experience.
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I'm going to really go back to this later, I know.
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But it's the way that you have something and then develops
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because you have a wonderful mentor who works to develop
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your innate skills in that particular area.
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I'm going to tell you something, three years ago,
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I just gave a class presentation and I was really not
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confident enough to give it.
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I stuttered. My language skills were very bad.
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I kept moving back and forth between my slides because I
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didn't have digital literacy skills.
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Speaking of Bonni Stachowiak, it's just also wonderful to, one of my very proud moments was that I was one of her guests on her podcast.
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When she sent me, I felt very proud that, oh, wow, just coming on one of the prominent teaching podcasts. Same as when I got this invitation to be on this podcast as well. It just feels so surreal to get to know people and to feel that what you're doing is recognized and that you're not only doing it for yourself as a person to develop and to learn, but you're holding an intentional space.
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You're emerging as not only a person,
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but you're emerging as a person who aspires to change
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something in the world and to be intentionally equitable.
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Absolutely.
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And I saw that you were on Bonni's podcast when I was
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researching you before we had this conversation and I was
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on it as well so we have that in common. But I do want to
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recognize that you have so much experience already that
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you're bringing to this practice because of your background
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in equity, disability,
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and inclusion and the lived experience that you bring to
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this work as well.
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Would you share a little bit more about you yourself and
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the skills and abilities that you bring as Yasser,
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the facilitator?
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Actually, just to disclaimer,
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which I actually forgot to mention is that I'm a totally
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blind person.
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I was born blind.
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I became blind due to a medical issue that happened when I
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was really a newborn.
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And then it was this way that I never saw something from
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that world, which gets me to your question actually.
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So the skills that I always feel like I want to bring into
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a facilitation practice is that you want to always apply an
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emergent strategy/intentional adaptation into your
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facilitation.
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So what does this mean? What this means to me is that we all go to spaces. We all recognize some barriers that might occur last minute into our facilitation. But being blind, just when we come to the room as facilitators, and then you'll find a blind person coming in as a participant,
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you start panicking,
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you start feeling the world is so bad that the session will
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not go smoothly because it's the,
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how can I just handle this person?
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And then by the way, it happens in the learning environments.
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Just one particular time, I can recall a professor who said, oh, how can I teach with you? So this is my goal. Just in facilitation I want to convey that I'm not different as a person, but maybe I'm different with my disability, but my disability has been imposed by the society. Because it was imposed by the society,
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let's work together to eradicate it and to try to make it inclusive and to try to start on this journey to make me welcomed and make me feel that there is no such inequality in your space. So I hope that answered your question about what I bring.
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I bring all the skills that everyone brings actually. So whatever everybody is required to be, everybody is required to be warm. So that's one of the key elements in facilitation, right? I try to be warm.
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I try to be motivated.
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I try to be inspired by what people's thoughts are.
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I try to be creative.
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I try to be critical thinker.
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I try to be intellectually ready to meet whatever the world
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is bringing.
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And then that's the sort of skills that they would focus
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on.
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But my asset is always about how to recognize the
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disability community when they are attending your space or
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when they are coming to your space.
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Yes.
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You mentioned the fear that maybe we have as instructors or
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facilitators of learning when we realize that there is
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going to be someone in our classroom or in the room that
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has a disability and maybe we're not prepared for that.
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I mean, I hope that we can get to a point where,
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when we learn that,
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we've already prepared for that and we just say to
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ourselves, okay, that's okay.
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They can participate fully in the thing that I've designed
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and planned to teach here or this experience I want to
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facilitate.
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So I don't think we're there yet,
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but we're working towards that.
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And this is part of the biggest part of your work or some
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of it?
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Very much so. We are not yet there and we will never be
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there because we can't be 100% inclusive,
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but we can do the very basic stuff to be.
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And then the golden rule was the advice that I always give
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to people is that always ask, always ask,
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ask people whatever they need,
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ask people what do they need from you to make their life
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more easier.
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If you ask and you end up feeling you kind of can't
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understand,
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ask again. Or if you researched and you feel like, okay, you did the very basic one stuff, but then the basic stuff are not really optimal for the person or was different in your space, ask.
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And when you ask, they will tell you what they need.
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And then when you do what they need,
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so you're 100% inclusive for them.
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You're 100% inclusive for them,
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but you might not be 100% inclusive for me.
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If I have Beth in my podcast and ask this, okay,
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what do you need back from me?
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And then she said, oh,
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I just need closed captioning enabled because I'm a hard of
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hearing person.
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Okay, I enabled closed captioning for Beth.
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But if X would come to me then afterwards and says,
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this is not inclusive,
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although I've enabled closed captioning from last time,
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still, you haven't known their needs.
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You haven't known what the person needs from you to be
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included.
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And this is our role.
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It's always to serve the community the way they want us to
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serve them.
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And not to assume things that we carry from previous
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experiences.
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I hope that's understandable.
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I conveyed my point.
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Absolutely.
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And the word assumptions was coming up in my mind and then
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you said, don't assume.
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And so I think that's a great learning for us all that we
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can think we know what the person needs and maybe we do
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something to prepare,
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but we will never know because everybody is an individual,
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aren't they?
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So what I think a person needs is it could be what they
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need, but it might not be.
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And that's really important to find out. [Yes.] But if I'm
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designing a workshop or a course and I don't have access to
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a person or I just want to design inclusively so that
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everyone can come and participate in the experience I'm
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facilitating,
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what are some of the things that you want us to think about
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when we're in that design stage so that we can be
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inclusive?
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I designed courses at my universities.
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I worked with the Center for Learning and Teaching team to
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design courses for both faculty and teaching assistants.
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The thing that I myself look into is that who my audience
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are, who are my audience?
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And then if I don't know my audience,
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or if I'm creating something that is open for the world,
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then again,
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I just go ahead and do the most well-known accessibility
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requirements.
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So let's give this example.
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In facilitation,
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we as facilitators sometimes have handouts.
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Is this right?
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Yes, yes, for sure.
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Yeah, or or visuals of some kind.
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Yeah.
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I'm going to elaborate on visuals later.
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But we have handouts here.
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The UDL, you have Google Slides, whatever.
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The handouts would always include
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visuals, or not, depending on your time. So what do you need to do?
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You need, for example, to do alternative text.
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That's the very basic.
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For someone who's blind,
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it's just to do alternative text for them so their screen
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readers can recognize the visual that you're including.
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If you have a document,
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you have to go ahead and use headings.
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You have to use hyperlinks and label the hyperlinks as
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clearly as possible instead of saying, click here.
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So what is this here?
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What is this here talking about?
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If you tell me, click on this video,
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so I know that this link is a video.
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If you have a document,
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then you have to make sure that you're using a sensory font
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so everybody will not be irritated by your font.
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It's just visually comfy for them.
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So the way that they see it goes well with the site.
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So colour contrast, font, accessible font.
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Colour contrast is like, OK,
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you use a good colour that is comfortable for the eye.
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Both applies to slides and docs and all that in the actual
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facilitation of an activity and that something happens a
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lot of times.
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And you're sharing the screen on Zoom or whatever platform
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that you're hosting on, you start feeling, start saying,
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this points out to x, x, x, x, x.
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So what is this?
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For a blind person who cannot see the screen,
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they cannot really see what is this.
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Or if you're showing a photo and then they say,
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I'm showing a photo on the screen. If you guys can look at
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the photo and then tell me x, x,
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and then you deprive the person with visual impairment to
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know what is in the photo.
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So perhaps you have to say, OK, this photo, which is an x,
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x, x, x, x, x, x, full description.
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And then you now gave the description orally to the person.
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Or perhaps if you have a handout,
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you just include the description on the handout for the
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person.
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Or sometimes it's always helpful to include it in the chat.
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Why?
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Because, OK, if the person was blind, it's fine.
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They heard the description.
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But then we have another person who has a mental disability
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and they can't retain memory.
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So now send the description,
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but the person cannot really grasp because their memory is
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pretty short.
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Then if you include it in the chat, it's there.
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They can look at it whenever they want, however they want.
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They can even take notes.
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They can even take the chat message copy and then keep
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annotating.
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It's always helpful to keep it lasting for a long time and
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not deprive people of the deaf community.
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And this really happened to me, personally, in a session.
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We were just facilitating a session.
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We were just dealing with the people who are attending a
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session as normally as possible.
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We were just describing an activity.
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But we found out that a person who is in the participants
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is deaf.
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We didn't have closed captioning on.
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We didn't know that she's deaf.
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So what could we have done at that time is that either we
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lose or we lose, but we didn't, thankfully.
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What we did is that we kept adding things in the chat.
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By doing so,
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applied something called intentional adaptation,
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which Priya Parker talks about it in her book,
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The Art of Gathering.
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And then we intentionally adapted the session to suit her
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needs, to meet her learning goals,
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and to be able to at least welcome her the way we can in
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the best way possible.
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I like the idea of using the chat even more intentionally
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that I might be doing myself even because I've talked about
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this before in different ways,
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but we have chat post documents that we create where we pre-
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plan all of the chat posts that we want to go in there,
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right,
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like activities instructions and all that kind of stuff.
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It's always upsetting when people turn off the chat in
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their meeting.
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Yeah.
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Oh goodness.
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Yeah.
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But you're just making me think, okay, well,
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if I showed a photo, yes,
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I'm going to describe it verbally,
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but I also can pre-plan that I put a description of that
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photo in the chat.
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It just kind of ups the game a little bit from what I've
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even been doing to make more information go into the chat
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to be helpful.
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Either you do a pre-planned,
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it's either you improvise and write it at the moment.
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You know why?
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Because sometimes people say very different things,
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very different things,
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and then it can inspire your description.
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It doesn't matter.
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What matters most is that you know that you have to include
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it in the chat.
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And sometimes, by the way,
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the chat doesn't stop and the chat doesn't really function
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when dealing with photos.
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You know, when you describe an activity,
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you can also include it in the chat.
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For example, Liberating Structures. And you have Liberating Structures and you say, okay, we're describing the following activity which will take X and the activity entails X and you will do X.
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Why not include bullet points in the chat so people also
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can, who doesn't really, even people,
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let's forget about disability,
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people who have weak language skills,
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who accents are very difficult for them so they can read
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it.
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So the chat is always wonderful.
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A handout is always wonderful if you're not comfortable to
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chat.
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A handout is always wonderful to include.
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Yeah,
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and I liked how you brought up the memory retention piece
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because putting things in the chat,
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how many times have we experienced that the group goes into
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the breakout room and people go,
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what are we supposed to be doing again?
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So they have it there.
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It's in the chat.
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They know they don't have to have held that in their mind
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for so long.
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00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:14,620
And while screen readers often pronounce the chat at the
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time it's being sent and this might also overlap with the
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voice of the facilitator,
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it's always advisable that the facilitator just stops
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talking for like a second or two until the chat is done or
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gives pauses, not stops talking.
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Like if people,
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if the facilitator recognizes that the chat is really is
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00:22:35,020 --> 00:22:39,360
going so quickly, it's just going on, it's just on fire,
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they can just do two things.
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00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:42,160
You can just give pauses,
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00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:46,140
give pauses and do nothing or just act as the reader.
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00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,720
I'm just going to read the chat out loud,
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00:22:48,940 --> 00:22:52,020
so just in case someone is driving or someone is not able
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to read.
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00:22:53,020 --> 00:22:57,140
That's a wonderful way for facilitators to get out of this
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00:22:57,140 --> 00:22:58,460
dilemma and then say, okay,
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00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,080
I'm going to read out some of the things that came in the
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chat to just see what people had said.
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00:23:03,660 --> 00:23:06,100
In case someone is driving or someone cannot read it,
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00:23:06,220 --> 00:23:07,260
so I'm going to read some of this.
400
00:23:07,620 --> 00:23:07,880
That's wonderful.
401
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,420
So let me think about how this works practically.
402
00:23:10,740 --> 00:23:14,220
So you're using a screen reader yourself to participate in
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00:23:14,220 --> 00:23:15,440
an online workshop, right?
404
00:23:15,700 --> 00:23:17,040
Or facilitate one.
405
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,560
And so you're listening to what's going on in the chat
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00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:22,400
through your screen reader.
407
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,980
And so the fact that the facilitator is talking and the
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00:23:25,980 --> 00:23:27,020
screen reader is talking to you,
409
00:23:27,020 --> 00:23:29,740
that is probably a little bit distressing sometimes.
410
00:23:29,740 --> 00:23:30,720
There's a lot going on.
411
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:32,720
So yeah, we have to help you out there.
412
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:38,680
I actually sometimes go out of sessions with a very bad
413
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:40,240
headache because of this.
414
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,920
Three voices are talking in my head, the facilitator,
415
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:46,920
the screen reader, and my phone screen reader.
416
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:49,540
It's a very important thing because sometimes I have to use
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00:23:49,540 --> 00:23:52,440
phone to take notes, to sometimes open Mentimeter,
418
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,220
to sometimes open the slides.
419
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:57,800
If we're doing a Slido, three,
420
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:03,140
four different things to talk in just a few minutes of the
421
00:24:03,140 --> 00:24:03,460
session.
422
00:24:03,460 --> 00:24:05,020
And then you have to handle this on your own.
423
00:24:06,140 --> 00:24:06,140
Yeah.
424
00:24:06,420 --> 00:24:08,680
Thanks for bringing up that extra device because you're
425
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:08,900
right.
426
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,160
People will say here, pull out your phones.
427
00:24:11,380 --> 00:24:12,400
We're going to do a Mentimeter.
428
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:15,860
And just to be conscious that that's a lot of devices that
429
00:24:15,860 --> 00:24:19,440
are now talking to a person or even just to engage with if
430
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:20,940
you are a sighted person.
431
00:24:20,940 --> 00:24:22,060
That's a lot, isn't it?
432
00:24:22,140 --> 00:24:22,960
And we need space.
433
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,000
It's another argument for putting more space in silence,
434
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,280
maybe in learning spaces as well.
435
00:24:29,340 --> 00:24:29,720
Yes.
436
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:35,120
Now you talk a lot, I think, about caring for people.
437
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,640
So put your facilitator hat on now as the facilitator and
438
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,760
you're crafting this caring learning environment for
439
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:43,060
people.
440
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:44,960
What does that mean to you?
441
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:47,560
You talk about hospitality and learning spaces as well.
442
00:24:47,860 --> 00:24:51,580
So what does it mean to foster care and hospitality in
443
00:24:51,580 --> 00:24:52,340
learning spaces?
444
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:53,720
Maybe things you haven't said yet.
445
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,540
I actually wrote an article for the Mind Brain Education
446
00:24:57,540 --> 00:24:59,840
magazine, thanks to Heather Kretschmer,
447
00:24:59,980 --> 00:25:03,600
who was also an English teacher who works in Germany.
448
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:05,540
She invited me to write this piece.
449
00:25:06,360 --> 00:25:09,260
And I actually drew on the intentionally equitable
450
00:25:09,260 --> 00:25:12,040
hospitality by Dr.
451
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:12,960
Bali and Dr.
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00:25:13,140 --> 00:25:13,380
Zamora.
453
00:25:13,980 --> 00:25:17,080
I drew on Verna Rossi's book, Inclusive Learning Design.
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00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,860
And she says one of the things that she brings up is she
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00:25:20,860 --> 00:25:26,300
divides inclusion or inclusive into an acronym which is
456
00:25:26,300 --> 00:25:29,620
intentionally equitable, co-creating, liberating,
457
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:34,020
user-friendly, socially responsible, integrative,
458
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:36,720
and value-based, and ecological.
459
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,460
And I think these nine values are the representative of
460
00:25:40,460 --> 00:25:41,060
cares.
461
00:25:41,540 --> 00:25:44,020
I just need to credit that again to Dr.
462
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,340
Verna Rossi, who works in the UK,
463
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,540
who is a learning designer.
464
00:25:48,540 --> 00:25:51,220
She's the author of the Inclusive Learning Design book.
465
00:25:52,420 --> 00:25:55,540
But for me, if I could reflect on these points,
466
00:25:55,760 --> 00:26:02,020
is that all these points I tried at least integrating them
467
00:26:02,020 --> 00:26:06,900
into my practice or receiving them as part of something or
468
00:26:06,900 --> 00:26:10,520
as a part of a caring environment that I was in.
469
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:14,180
For example, I took a class of literature and cinema.
470
00:26:14,940 --> 00:26:18,040
And I'm not that person who can watch films.
471
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,920
Even if they are packed up with audio descriptions.
472
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,240
And I took that class because, honestly,
473
00:26:23,460 --> 00:26:24,960
I took it because I loved the professor.
474
00:26:25,220 --> 00:26:26,480
I learned a lot from the professor.
475
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,180
I just took it because I loved the cinemas.
476
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:30,700
I loved the variety.
477
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:31,620
But mind all that, she just, the movie, the films were all not audio described digitally. But the way we handled it is that she acted as an audio describer.
478
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,160
We used to sit together in class besides each other.
479
00:26:45,180 --> 00:26:48,040
And then she used to describe all the scenes while they
480
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:49,080
were screened.
481
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,860
And this is sort of how the intentionally equitable.
482
00:26:54,020 --> 00:26:55,060
She was intentionally equitable.
483
00:26:55,300 --> 00:26:58,780
She also, she let me co-create the class with her.
484
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:03,300
So in case there was something very hard and in the class,
485
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:03,980
she let me, okay,
486
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,260
let's co-create this together to be inclusive for the whole
487
00:27:08,260 --> 00:27:10,680
class and for you as well.
488
00:27:11,220 --> 00:27:11,640
And by the way,
489
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,340
the element of co-creation was went above and beyond even
490
00:27:15,340 --> 00:27:20,320
with Dr. Bali because the work that I co-designed courses
491
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,880
with her and her team from the Center for Learning and
492
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,760
Teaching is just the way of co-creation that I co-create
493
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:28,800
with them as a student,
494
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,780
as a person with lived experience in disability and as a
495
00:27:33,780 --> 00:27:37,860
person with values that are related to disability.
496
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,780
I think socially responsible also contributes to this,
497
00:27:41,940 --> 00:27:44,740
that I'm socially responsible for these marginalized people
498
00:27:44,740 --> 00:27:48,360
that I want to bring my experience for,
499
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,640
like in order to benefit them as much as possible.
500
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:55,200
And so this is how I think in summary,
501
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,260
as much as I could recall,
502
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:02,240
the inclusion means to me when it comes to being a person
503
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:07,420
who crafts. So I just think of those descriptions or
504
00:28:07,420 --> 00:28:11,100
criteria in which I think inclusion would be done.
505
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,340
It's actually not the, it's not everything,
506
00:28:14,340 --> 00:28:17,620
but at least that's how we can work with it.
507
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,960
I love that you speak so much about co-creating and it
508
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,380
makes me think about dismantling power structures.
509
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:27,240
And, you know,
510
00:28:27,340 --> 00:28:29,540
because you can have a professor and have a student and
511
00:28:29,540 --> 00:28:31,660
that could be very hierarchical and they don't work
512
00:28:31,660 --> 00:28:34,880
together to craft the learning experience together,
513
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,140
but you're telling me stories of the opposite that you have
514
00:28:39,140 --> 00:28:44,740
been drawing in and been drawn in to create with your
515
00:28:44,740 --> 00:28:45,180
faculty.
516
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:46,200
And, you know,
517
00:28:46,220 --> 00:28:48,760
now they're probably friends and colleagues and it's just
518
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:50,740
it is so equitable.
519
00:28:51,100 --> 00:28:54,960
So what's the word equalizing or balancing out of
520
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:56,900
experience and expertise?
521
00:28:58,000 --> 00:28:59,620
Yeah, it's actually equalizing.
522
00:28:59,740 --> 00:29:02,200
It's actually drawing on the most needed at the moment.
523
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,960
So I actually feel like it's also the element of co
524
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,700
-creation even between students together.
525
00:29:09,020 --> 00:29:12,780
So what I really wish to do is that I wouldn't stop at this
526
00:29:12,780 --> 00:29:13,120
point.
527
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:18,360
I just wish to create something where I even pay the favour
528
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:19,660
back to the whole world.
529
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:23,360
And then why not establish something that I can co-create
530
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:26,700
with people from different parts of the world that could
531
00:29:26,700 --> 00:29:31,700
benefit or help the society community that I can believe in
532
00:29:31,700 --> 00:29:35,660
people, like how people believed in me.
533
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,840
It's like I've had people who championed me,
534
00:29:41,060 --> 00:29:42,540
who believed in my dreams,
535
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,480
who didn't take my experiences for granted.
536
00:29:47,620 --> 00:29:52,380
So the element of co-creating is not always momentum.
537
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,700
It's just for the future as well.
538
00:29:56,300 --> 00:29:59,880
How can I take this element above and beyond and co-create
539
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:03,120
with people in order to keep the passion and the vibe
540
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:03,460
going?
541
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:04,200
I do see that as perhaps a strength of yours. You know, not knowing you very well, Yasser, we've just met. It's our second time meeting and talking with each other. But in looking at what you put out in the world, it does seem clear to me that you really care about sharing your expertise and well, these things that are you're helping to co-create, you're really intent on sharing them out widely so that other people can benefit from them.
542
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,820
Does that seem like it describes you?
543
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:36,240
Yeah, very much so. It's just sharing, it's just keeping the loop going. It wouldn't be only Dr. Bali or her team, it wouldn't be only my other friends who helped me, it wouldn't be only me who even contributes to the field or to the momentum of disability inclusion or the, you know, hopefully going to be something that is developing and imagined and reimagined and defined and redefined in ways that hold everybody accountable and hold everybody responsible to take the whole vibe more and keep it going.
544
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:17,620
It's just,
545
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,960
if I end up being in this world for a few years doing
546
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:28,480
things until I die and then the passion is not shared,
547
00:31:29,020 --> 00:31:30,760
the element of co-creation is not shared,
548
00:31:30,940 --> 00:31:35,400
so that's too bad and I don't really hope for this to
549
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,100
happen, I don't aspire for this to happen,
550
00:31:37,180 --> 00:31:41,560
I just hope that there will be a lot more who can continue
551
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,900
on and on and on co-creating, believing in people,
552
00:31:45,020 --> 00:31:46,900
caring for them, caring for their needs,
553
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:50,100
including them and welcoming them in their spaces.
554
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:51,480
Mm-hmm.
555
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,980
I think you talk a lot about communities and you're,
556
00:31:56,140 --> 00:31:57,680
you've been talking a lot about it,
557
00:31:57,680 --> 00:31:59,380
but not actually saying the word community,
558
00:31:59,380 --> 00:32:03,380
but you've perhaps received the support of a community
559
00:32:03,380 --> 00:32:04,060
around you,
560
00:32:04,060 --> 00:32:07,340
but you're contributing to that community as well,
561
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:08,220
for sure.
562
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:10,540
Can you say something about just the importance of
563
00:32:10,540 --> 00:32:14,580
communities and for all of us as we learn about inclusion
564
00:32:14,580 --> 00:32:18,320
and try to do more effective work in this way?
565
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,420
For someone to recognize the value and significance of
566
00:32:21,420 --> 00:32:25,240
community in their lives, I think, ask yourself,
567
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:32,740
who are the people with whom I always feel a strong bond
568
00:32:32,740 --> 00:32:33,260
towards?
569
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:35,320
I hope I'm framing the question right,
570
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,600
but I'm actually thinking about it in the sense of,
571
00:32:38,860 --> 00:32:43,840
who are those that I always tend to feel very close,
572
00:32:44,020 --> 00:32:46,140
and without any reservations and boundaries,
573
00:32:46,140 --> 00:32:50,140
I feel like everything melts down to being comfortable and
574
00:32:50,140 --> 00:32:52,800
being very open and free,
575
00:32:53,260 --> 00:32:56,080
liberating and rejuvenating, if
576
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,580
I can use this word. That's the element of community for
577
00:33:00,580 --> 00:33:00,780
me,
578
00:33:00,900 --> 00:33:06,780
is just with different people from different parts of the
579
00:33:06,780 --> 00:33:07,020
world.
580
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:11,780
But then I feel like the presence makes me happy.
581
00:33:12,460 --> 00:33:13,960
This is the community for me.
582
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:15,400
Unlike being, for example,
583
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,460
with people who are in the same community,
584
00:33:19,060 --> 00:33:22,580
physical community, I mean, from the same country,
585
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,420
and the element of love for the community is not really
586
00:33:27,420 --> 00:33:28,700
there, so that's not a community.
587
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,120
I wouldn't really say that's a community.
588
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,020
Mm, that's a nice way to say it.
589
00:33:33,300 --> 00:33:34,620
And you talk about being comfortable,
590
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:36,660
makes me think to ask you, okay,
591
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,940
so if you and I were going to facilitate something
592
00:33:38,940 --> 00:33:42,220
together, and we hadn't worked together yet,
593
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,860
how could I make you feel comfortable working with me?
594
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,020
And what would you do to make me comfortable working with
595
00:33:48,020 --> 00:33:48,300
you?
596
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:48,600
Like,
597
00:33:48,620 --> 00:33:51,940
what does that look like as we begin to develop our community
598
00:33:51,940 --> 00:33:52,500
together?
599
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:54,340
Honestly,
600
00:33:54,500 --> 00:33:58,500
I wouldn't talk about me as a person as yesterday because I
601
00:33:58,500 --> 00:34:04,580
tend to adapt with people easily and I feel like I'm that
602
00:34:04,580 --> 00:34:06,100
person who can open up easily,
603
00:34:06,500 --> 00:34:11,380
that person who's really comfortable to share things even
604
00:34:11,380 --> 00:34:13,100
with strangers whom I don't know,
605
00:34:13,380 --> 00:34:16,340
I can just talk about everything, really everything.
606
00:34:16,340 --> 00:34:18,480
I'm not that closed off,
607
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,699
but I would say if I'm facilitating something with a
608
00:34:21,699 --> 00:34:24,699
disabled person, but I don't know them,
609
00:34:24,900 --> 00:34:32,320
I will probably try to first examine closely from my
610
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,380
interactions with them how they deal with the world,
611
00:34:35,460 --> 00:34:37,060
how they like to talk,
612
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,760
how they like to do conversations and then ask them.
613
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,120
Because I repeated the word ask a lot,
614
00:34:44,900 --> 00:34:46,940
but it's really the key with everything.
615
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,040
It's actually the key even in physical help that when we
616
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,120
meet a disabled person in the streets struggling,
617
00:34:54,540 --> 00:34:57,360
we always advise against going and grabbing them
618
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:58,180
surprisingly.
619
00:34:58,820 --> 00:35:01,880
We always tell them ask, don't grab.
620
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,380
This is something that done by Amy Kavanagh.
621
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,920
It used to be a big campaign on Twitter, X, well,
622
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:09,380
Twitter formerly, X now.
623
00:35:10,140 --> 00:35:13,940
And then she used to advocate for the rights of women even
624
00:35:13,940 --> 00:35:17,000
through this campaign because she used to say, like, okay,
625
00:35:17,020 --> 00:35:17,660
I'm not really,
626
00:35:18,620 --> 00:35:22,280
I shouldn't be prone to harassment as a visually impaired
627
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:23,640
woman, as a disabled woman.
628
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:28,480
By being grabbed out of the motivation to help me.
629
00:35:28,740 --> 00:35:31,280
Go ahead and ask me first, what do I need?
630
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,540
And then the same concept could apply to facilitation,
631
00:35:34,780 --> 00:35:38,640
the same concept could apply to basically everything.
632
00:35:39,620 --> 00:35:41,380
Don't assume, but just ask.
633
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,780
What mistakes do you think I might make with maybe good
634
00:35:44,780 --> 00:35:48,100
intentions in working with you like making an assumption
635
00:35:48,100 --> 00:35:51,100
about something that are there common things that we should
636
00:35:51,100 --> 00:35:53,300
be on the lookout for and just stop doing.
637
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:54,360
I wouldn't really be personal with this question as well. I would say some people tend to be more offended by some language. So reviewing the language element is really important. Some people like those in the US, for example, like 'people with disabilities' and 'disabled people'.
638
00:36:14,860 --> 00:36:14,880
'Disabled people' is more favoured in the UK because they say that disability is ahead of us because of the society. The disability is created by the society, which is the social model of disability.
639
00:36:26,890 --> 00:36:27,070
Unlike the US, they say, okay, we value our disability, so our 'people with disabilities'.
640
00:36:32,690 --> 00:36:35,530
And then this is the language element.
641
00:36:36,030 --> 00:36:36,190
So sometimes the language element makes a huge sort of gap when we interact with people who are "different"/"disabled".
642
00:36:47,370 --> 00:36:49,490
But in terms of facilitation,
643
00:36:49,770 --> 00:36:53,790
I think not involving disabled people in the design would
644
00:36:53,790 --> 00:36:56,030
be a huge mistake believing that they cannot really
645
00:36:56,030 --> 00:36:58,230
contribute or it would be too much for them,
646
00:36:58,690 --> 00:37:02,110
that they cannot really handle work or tasks or whatever.
647
00:37:02,910 --> 00:37:05,170
I think also that's a huge mistake is that, okay,
648
00:37:05,330 --> 00:37:06,110
when we design,
649
00:37:06,730 --> 00:37:09,750
we often have to anticipate who is involved in the design
650
00:37:09,750 --> 00:37:11,850
and when and then we know that we have a personal
651
00:37:11,850 --> 00:37:12,270
disability,
652
00:37:12,390 --> 00:37:14,990
so then we have to go ahead and involve them and giving
653
00:37:14,990 --> 00:37:15,930
them the space.
654
00:37:16,350 --> 00:37:16,370
Okay,
655
00:37:16,450 --> 00:37:19,370
we don't have to also go back and assume that they can't
656
00:37:19,370 --> 00:37:22,610
facilitate basically just their presence and then they are
657
00:37:22,610 --> 00:37:24,150
present and then their presence will make it.
658
00:37:24,290 --> 00:37:25,990
No, they can do whatever they want.
659
00:37:26,070 --> 00:37:28,830
You just have to make sure that everything for them will
660
00:37:28,830 --> 00:37:29,570
work smoothly,
661
00:37:29,570 --> 00:37:32,570
that they have the accessible tools to facilitate,
662
00:37:32,950 --> 00:37:36,550
that the workshop content is accessible for them because
663
00:37:36,550 --> 00:37:40,010
sometimes when we exclude them from the design slash
664
00:37:40,010 --> 00:37:44,370
facilitation process, it will turn out to be inaccessible,
665
00:37:44,890 --> 00:37:47,450
it will turn out to be fully instead of beneficial,
666
00:37:47,870 --> 00:37:50,290
turn out to be ineffective and you can put it that way.
667
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:52,040
Yes, exactly.
668
00:37:52,620 --> 00:37:55,400
You've shared so many great suggestions.
669
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:57,160
I want to talk about activities.
670
00:37:58,060 --> 00:38:01,020
So when we're designing workshops or courses,
671
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,540
what do you want us to think about to make inclusive
672
00:38:04,540 --> 00:38:05,200
activities?
673
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,920
It just depends on what we are facilitating,
674
00:38:08,300 --> 00:38:11,240
but accessibility would be the heart of ideas when we
675
00:38:11,240 --> 00:38:12,480
create activities.
676
00:38:12,700 --> 00:38:14,620
It's that we have to create it accessible.
677
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:16,320
We have to make sure that it's accessible.
678
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:19,260
We have to make sure that we're doing something that would
679
00:38:19,260 --> 00:38:24,420
not be really presenter-centered or facilitator-centered,
680
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,480
but rather this is not really disability-related,
681
00:38:27,540 --> 00:38:30,640
but this is something that I would really be concerned
682
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:31,100
with.
683
00:38:31,300 --> 00:38:33,360
It's that if I'm creating something,
684
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,980
I would make sure that it's not facilitator-centered,
685
00:38:37,460 --> 00:38:38,800
but rather participant-centered,
686
00:38:39,140 --> 00:38:42,100
where the words of the participants are very important,
687
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,180
and they are actually one of the core tenets of the
688
00:38:44,180 --> 00:38:44,460
session.
689
00:38:45,300 --> 00:38:48,600
If I'm just speaking as a facilitator without hearing
690
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:49,100
people,
691
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,560
it wouldn't be too effective and it wouldn't be too welcomed.
692
00:38:53,180 --> 00:38:54,800
It feels so bad,
693
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,720
it feels so disconnecting and disconcerting for the
694
00:38:59,720 --> 00:39:00,240
attendees.
695
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:02,420
I talk a lot about that too,
696
00:39:02,720 --> 00:39:05,280
and I sometimes call it or ask the question,
697
00:39:05,820 --> 00:39:07,580
where does the content come from, you know,
698
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:08,860
does it have to come from,
699
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,860
we wouldn't even really say facilitator in that experience,
700
00:39:11,980 --> 00:39:12,220
would we,
701
00:39:12,340 --> 00:39:15,460
we'd probably just say lecturer or presenter or something,
702
00:39:15,580 --> 00:39:19,520
but how do we design so that all people are included and we
703
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,740
really hear more from the people in the room rather than
704
00:39:21,740 --> 00:39:24,260
the person standing up in front of it or leading it.
705
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:29,400
Maybe the word included wouldn't really be restrictive for
706
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,600
disability people only just including pretty much
707
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:33,120
everybody.
708
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:39,140
And we'd also liberate ourselves to be more welcoming for
709
00:39:39,140 --> 00:39:41,300
other things such as, for example,
710
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:46,480
we would say people are welcome to eat when they are in the
711
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:46,780
session.
712
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,560
People are welcome to go off camera in the session.
713
00:39:50,220 --> 00:39:53,100
People are welcome to bring their own kids in the session.
714
00:39:53,460 --> 00:39:55,140
So it wouldn't be like, okay,
715
00:39:55,300 --> 00:39:59,200
it's so bad and it's not working well and kids are good.
716
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,020
So why not excluding kids from the session?
717
00:40:02,420 --> 00:40:03,920
People are welcome to bring elders.
718
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,740
So some people are taking care of their elderly parents or
719
00:40:06,740 --> 00:40:10,620
are taking care of their elderly grandparents or such.
720
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:12,480
Why not excluding those?
721
00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:14,540
So why not including them instead?
722
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:19,760
Why not designing our content to adapt to those who are
723
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:23,460
different but they still want it to be there because they
724
00:40:23,460 --> 00:40:27,240
want to learn about they have some things to respond to in
725
00:40:27,240 --> 00:40:27,520
life.
726
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,580
Why do we always assume that everybody should be in front
727
00:40:30,580 --> 00:40:33,360
of the camera in their office opening their camera wearing
728
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,700
very formal clothes suits and stuff?
729
00:40:36,240 --> 00:40:36,380
No.
730
00:40:36,820 --> 00:40:38,620
If you want to attend my sessions in bed,
731
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,220
you're welcome to attend in bed and you're welcome to go
732
00:40:41,220 --> 00:40:41,660
off camera.
733
00:40:42,100 --> 00:40:45,000
You're welcome to leave without asking for an excuse.
734
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,240
You're welcome to say,
735
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:50,620
if the session is like two hours or more,
736
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:52,060
you're welcome to say, okay,
737
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,640
I'm going to leave by the hour if I'm creating breakout
738
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:55,080
rooms.
739
00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:01,180
So I as a facilitator feel it's important to create a quiet
740
00:41:01,180 --> 00:41:01,880
room for people.
741
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,320
That's something I've learned from Equity Unbound and from
742
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:09,620
a lot of facilitators and Equity uUnbound would do this.
743
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,300
Okay, they create the including Dr. Bali
744
00:41:12,660 --> 00:41:13,080
as well.
745
00:41:13,540 --> 00:41:17,520
They actually create a quiet room for people who are not in
746
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:18,060
the mood to talk.
747
00:41:18,420 --> 00:41:19,500
That's basically it, you know,
748
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,660
someone who's really not locked in the mood to talk to
749
00:41:23,660 --> 00:41:27,100
participants or partake in a specific activity or something
750
00:41:27,100 --> 00:41:27,760
like this.
751
00:41:28,300 --> 00:41:31,580
Someone who's deaf and they cannot really say it on the
752
00:41:31,580 --> 00:41:32,240
note,
753
00:41:32,500 --> 00:41:36,700
you know. Someone who is driving a car and they still care
754
00:41:36,700 --> 00:41:37,440
to attend,
755
00:41:37,980 --> 00:41:42,640
someone who's in a public space and they cannot really open
756
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:44,900
their, you know, mic and talk.
757
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,740
Someone who's not a good speaker of the language in which
758
00:41:48,740 --> 00:41:50,320
the session is held,
759
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,540
but they still wanted to listen because they believe that
760
00:41:53,540 --> 00:41:55,240
this will improve their language skills,
761
00:41:55,460 --> 00:41:56,820
which is important, by the way,
762
00:41:56,940 --> 00:41:58,760
is the listening improve listening skills.
763
00:41:58,760 --> 00:41:59,960
That's something we always know.
764
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,400
But if you put them on this part and let them talk, no,
765
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:05,900
I wouldn't think that's a good idea.
766
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,880
I'm so glad you mentioned all those different things and
767
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:10,380
there are so many more of them,
768
00:42:10,380 --> 00:42:12,820
but it helps all of us remember,
769
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:14,580
all the people listening to this episode,
770
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,260
remember that this thing that we want,
771
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,480
that is inclusive learning spaces,
772
00:42:20,620 --> 00:42:24,340
it's not just about ability or disability, is it?
773
00:42:24,660 --> 00:42:26,420
It's about circumstance.
774
00:42:26,940 --> 00:42:28,640
It's about context.
775
00:42:29,260 --> 00:42:31,900
It's about, yeah, feeling how you feel that day,
776
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:33,860
the technology you have.
777
00:42:33,860 --> 00:42:35,620
There's so many elements within,
778
00:42:35,620 --> 00:42:38,180
it's just not a disability thing, is it?
779
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,720
It's not a disability thing, but because, you know,
780
00:42:41,860 --> 00:42:43,940
the word inclusion is an umbrella term.
781
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:45,520
When we say now inclusion,
782
00:42:45,580 --> 00:42:47,440
it doesn't really signal only disability.
783
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:49,420
It signals a lot of things.
784
00:42:49,660 --> 00:42:53,000
It signals people who are minorities, people who are Black.
785
00:42:53,380 --> 00:42:56,080
Like mostly minorities in Europe/the Global West,
786
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,040
Christian minorities in the Global East.
787
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,880
And then, okay, what do we need from the world then?
788
00:43:04,380 --> 00:43:08,420
Is that we would recognize where the inequality is situated
789
00:43:08,420 --> 00:43:11,080
and then try to, as much as possible,
790
00:43:11,420 --> 00:43:14,880
eliminate it by making inclusive environments.
791
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:20,060
I was really keen on talking about this idea of inclusion
792
00:43:20,060 --> 00:43:22,500
when you asked the previous question,
793
00:43:23,060 --> 00:43:26,380
because I just wanted to emphasize that it's not only about
794
00:43:26,380 --> 00:43:26,780
disability.
795
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:31,740
It's just everything else that works alongside this
796
00:43:31,740 --> 00:43:32,920
narrative.
797
00:43:33,720 --> 00:43:36,280
But I just mentioned these examples to make sure that,
798
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:36,700
you know,
799
00:43:37,140 --> 00:43:41,900
try to make the space for people to attend without you
800
00:43:41,900 --> 00:43:43,540
imposing on them different restrictions.
801
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:44,380
That's right,
802
00:43:44,460 --> 00:43:49,280
that they can show up as who they are with their whole
803
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,160
selves, whatever that is.
804
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:52,160
Yasser With their whole selves, with their guests, with their kids, with their parents. For example, a mother who's watching her child studying. Why do we have to deprive her from attending because she's watching her child?
805
00:44:04,220 --> 00:44:04,460
It just doesn't make any sense. That's an example. And many more are there that we, if we can speak about this, I think you and I can just record I think many episodes about this ideas of wrong practices and facilitations and all that.
806
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:21,300
Beth Yeah. And we're sort of judging things based on some sort of paradigm that's been put in our head from long ago or from our culture, wherever we're coming from. There's certain, you know, do's and don'ts that we think we have to adhere to.
807
00:44:34,860 --> 00:44:35,060
And it's wrong, isn't it? A lot of them from those days of yore. [chuckles]
808
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:41,060
Yes, it's wrong.
809
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:41,900
But actually,
810
00:44:41,980 --> 00:44:45,600
I would like to always acknowledge the challenges that the
811
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,360
facilitators themselves meet because there are a lot of
812
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:50,340
challenges or encounters.
813
00:44:50,900 --> 00:44:56,600
There are a lot of challenges that are really hard to go
814
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:56,940
along.
815
00:44:57,140 --> 00:44:58,680
And then one of them, for example,
816
00:44:58,780 --> 00:45:01,280
is that if someone is disrupting the flow of the community,
817
00:45:02,020 --> 00:45:03,600
how the facilitator would act,
818
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:06,720
are they going to disconnect them from the community,
819
00:45:06,900 --> 00:45:08,640
just protect the whole people,
820
00:45:09,260 --> 00:45:10,440
or are they going to shun them?
821
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:14,300
And I think it stems from being intentionally equitable as
822
00:45:14,300 --> 00:45:19,000
the idea of, in order to make it a safe space, as I said,
823
00:45:19,580 --> 00:45:22,640
and as Dr. Bali and Dr. Zamora put it,
824
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,980
in order to make it a safe space for all participants,
825
00:45:27,140 --> 00:45:29,200
I think it's important to,
826
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:33,680
part of the safety that you create is to eliminate all the
827
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,940
harms that come across your space.
828
00:45:37,380 --> 00:45:38,400
That's also a challenge,
829
00:45:38,580 --> 00:45:42,080
is that you need to protect your space.
830
00:45:42,240 --> 00:45:45,820
And if you face the protected, the space will be dangerous,
831
00:45:45,940 --> 00:45:47,980
and then people will not, by the time,
832
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,460
feel it's safe anymore for them to share their insights.
833
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:52,540
Absolutely.
834
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,380
So it's really, you mentioned being welcoming before,
835
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:58,820
but I think you've also mentioned in other spaces,
836
00:45:58,820 --> 00:46:02,060
it's about belonging and you just said safety.
837
00:46:02,460 --> 00:46:04,940
That's our ultimate goal, isn't it?
838
00:46:05,060 --> 00:46:06,400
That all learners feel that.
839
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:10,100
And we try to create that when we design and facilitate and
840
00:46:10,100 --> 00:46:13,060
sometimes we'll fail, but we keep learning how to do it,
841
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:13,400
don't we?
842
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,980
Yes, it's an ultimate goal to be learning,
843
00:46:17,220 --> 00:46:18,580
and it's an ultimate goal to belong.
844
00:46:19,660 --> 00:46:21,100
Speaking of belonging, actually,
845
00:46:21,240 --> 00:46:25,080
I would just recall the book, Belong, How to Find People,
846
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:26,300
by Radha Agrawal.
847
00:46:27,180 --> 00:46:29,520
It's called Belong by Radha Agrawal.
848
00:46:30,420 --> 00:46:33,240
Then this book talks about energy,
849
00:46:33,240 --> 00:46:37,460
that we bring a lot of energies to the spaces in which we
850
00:46:37,460 --> 00:46:39,700
inhabit and which we attend.
851
00:46:41,180 --> 00:46:48,620
I think that if we create the wholesome space or the space
852
00:46:48,620 --> 00:46:50,780
that is inclusive,
853
00:46:51,100 --> 00:46:56,340
I think it helps people bring their own energy in as much
854
00:46:56,340 --> 00:47:01,360
way as possible and as widely as possible,
855
00:47:01,900 --> 00:47:05,560
and in the most way comfortable as possible, I think,
856
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:07,020
to put it that way,
857
00:47:07,060 --> 00:47:09,680
is that we help people bring their own energies and moods
858
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:10,840
into the conversation.
859
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,420
That feels like a lovely place to start,
860
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:15,620
what you just said there,
861
00:47:15,860 --> 00:47:18,400
and I want to thank you for having this conversation with
862
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:23,520
me today and sharing a lot of your own experience and the
863
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,560
learning that you've done so far in this field,
864
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:28,740
but also what you've brought to it as well.
865
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,040
Thank you so much, Yasser, for chatting with me today.
866
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:36,420
I just want to thank you for giving me the space to talk
867
00:47:36,420 --> 00:47:42,760
and to just try to help put some of these points in this
868
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:47,980
podcast and to make it clear that we're all learning and
869
00:47:47,980 --> 00:47:49,840
we're all trying to be inclusive,
870
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:53,200
but there has to be the efforts and the intention to be.
871
00:47:53,940 --> 00:47:56,160
And I just want to thank you so much for giving me the
872
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:01,980
opportunity that you believed in my sort of little
873
00:48:01,980 --> 00:48:05,100
experience and to draw on them in this podcast that feels
874
00:48:05,100 --> 00:48:10,460
so much power and I'm feeling loved and I'm so grateful for
875
00:48:10,460 --> 00:48:13,000
the opportunity and I would just like to thank you again
876
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,540
for having me today, thank you.
877
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:16,800
Well, thank you.
878
00:48:17,340 --> 00:48:19,100
Your experience doesn't feel little to me.
879
00:48:19,500 --> 00:48:22,280
So I just want to say, say that, right?
880
00:48:22,380 --> 00:48:24,080
It feels very big and very important.
881
00:48:24,100 --> 00:48:27,080
So it's been wonderful to learn from you today.
882
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,600
Thank you so much and I really wish you all the best and
883
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:34,680
what I truly wish is that this this episode would help
884
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:38,960
someone you know change their attitude, behaviour, values,
885
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:39,420
beliefs.
886
00:48:40,140 --> 00:48:43,620
If it even makes someone smile I would be really happy
887
00:48:43,620 --> 00:48:44,220
about that.
888
00:48:44,420 --> 00:48:48,820
I would be really feeling that I did my job that I changed
889
00:48:48,820 --> 00:48:49,600
someone's even mood.
890
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:51,720
I love that.
891
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:53,480
It made me smile, absolutely,
892
00:48:53,780 --> 00:48:57,540
and you've helped really ground me and propel me forward
893
00:48:57,540 --> 00:49:00,560
too in my thinking around this topic.
894
00:49:01,460 --> 00:49:07,500
It's been great. [Thank you.] [Outro] As I look back on my
895
00:49:07,500 --> 00:49:10,840
conversation with Yasser and think about all of the things
896
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:13,300
that he taught me during our conversation,
897
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:17,200
I'm really struck by all of the resources that he mentioned
898
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:18,400
throughout the conversation.
899
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:21,100
I just want to remind you that in the show notes,
900
00:49:21,260 --> 00:49:24,340
I always put the resources that are mentioned in the
901
00:49:24,340 --> 00:49:25,680
episode in the show notes.
902
00:49:25,940 --> 00:49:28,360
You can see those hopefully through the app that you're
903
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:31,760
using to listen to the podcast or going to facilitatingon
904
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,360
purpose.com where I have show notes for every episode and
905
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:36,520
the transcripts as well.
906
00:49:36,700 --> 00:49:40,200
So go and check out all those resources and those great
907
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,860
books that Yasser mentioned in this episode.
908
00:49:42,860 --> 00:49:46,840
A couple of things I want to reflect back to you that were
909
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:48,180
things that Yasser said.
910
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:52,500
One of the things was the phrase he used about how his
911
00:49:52,500 --> 00:49:55,840
disability has been imposed by the society.
912
00:49:56,420 --> 00:49:59,680
I don't think we often think about a disability being
913
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,580
imposed by society such as how Yasser phrased it.
914
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,540
I'm so appreciative of the way he said that and just
915
00:50:07,540 --> 00:50:09,060
highlighting that for me.
916
00:50:09,420 --> 00:50:09,840
He said,
917
00:50:10,140 --> 00:50:13,020
I want to convey that I'm not different as a person,
918
00:50:13,340 --> 00:50:15,320
but maybe I'm different with my disability,
919
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:19,240
but my disability has been imposed by the society.
920
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:21,940
Because it was imposed by the society,
921
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:25,580
let's work together to eradicate it and to try to make it
922
00:50:25,580 --> 00:50:29,180
inclusive and to try to start on this journey to make me
923
00:50:29,180 --> 00:50:33,400
welcomed and make me feel that there is no such inequality
924
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,120
in your space.
925
00:50:35,780 --> 00:50:38,280
It's such a great thing that Yasser said.
926
00:50:38,420 --> 00:50:39,660
I mean everything he said was great,
927
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,640
but I think it's just an overarching,
928
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,640
wonderful statement to say this is something that society
929
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:51,720
has given us all to figure out what to do about so people
930
00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:54,960
can come to learning experiences no matter what's going on
931
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:55,460
for them.
932
00:50:55,920 --> 00:51:00,540
A disability in a physical way or something else that is
933
00:51:00,540 --> 00:51:02,080
present for them in their life.
934
00:51:02,340 --> 00:51:05,200
And how do we just keep trying to make every learning
935
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:07,480
experience inclusive for everyone?
936
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:10,480
On a related note, of course,
937
00:51:10,740 --> 00:51:13,880
Yasser just kept reminding me, you heard him do it,
938
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,360
that every single person is an individual.
939
00:51:17,940 --> 00:51:20,260
And so even though we might know someone who is blind,
940
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,880
we might know someone who is deaf or hard of hearing or
941
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,740
have something else that they're going through life with.
942
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:30,640
Just because we've met some person with whatever that
943
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:34,200
circumstance is doesn't mean that the strategies that will
944
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:37,900
work for the next person with perhaps the same situation,
945
00:51:38,460 --> 00:51:39,780
it doesn't mean they're going to work, does it?
946
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,940
So every time we need to check in with the particular
947
00:51:43,940 --> 00:51:46,520
person or group that we're working with and just say,
948
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:49,860
please tell me, you know, tell me what you need,
949
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:54,660
you particular person or you as a group and how can we keep
950
00:51:54,660 --> 00:51:57,960
doing this thing we call learning or providing learning or
951
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,680
creating learning spaces just that much better all the
952
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:01,880
time.
953
00:52:01,980 --> 00:52:03,260
It's very iterative, isn't it,
954
00:52:03,300 --> 00:52:06,140
as we continue to learn and grow in our facilitation
955
00:52:06,140 --> 00:52:10,080
practices and in our learning design practices around being
956
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:13,260
able to prepare for and then facilitate experiences.
957
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:14,340
So things again,
958
00:52:14,340 --> 00:52:18,620
Yasser for reminding me and all of us around the
959
00:52:18,620 --> 00:52:22,880
individuality that exists with disability and beyond.
960
00:52:24,420 --> 00:52:26,360
On the next episode of the podcast,
961
00:52:26,860 --> 00:52:30,140
I'm joined by Fernando Murray and Carolina Almeida.
962
00:52:30,660 --> 00:52:33,840
Fernando and Carolina and I have a great conversation about
963
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,500
a topic that will be wonderful to listen to right after
964
00:52:36,500 --> 00:52:36,980
this one.
965
00:52:37,220 --> 00:52:39,120
It's on safe learning spaces.
966
00:52:39,620 --> 00:52:42,320
I know both Fernando and Carolina through the Li
967
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:45,040
berating Structures community here in British Columbia.
968
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:48,420
They are both seasoned facilitators and I can't wait to
969
00:52:48,420 --> 00:52:50,000
share this conversation with you.
970
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:51,720
Catch us next time on the show.
971
00:52:51,900 --> 00:52:55,140
We will see you then. [Podcast outro] Thank you for
972
00:52:55,140 --> 00:52:57,220
listening to Facilitating on Purpose.
973
00:52:57,700 --> 00:52:59,760
If you were inspired by something in this episode,
974
00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:03,040
please share it with a friend or a colleague to help them
975
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,060
expand their facilitation practice too.
976
00:53:05,580 --> 00:53:06,560
To find the show notes,
977
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:10,220
give me feedback or submit ideas for future episodes,
978
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:13,300
visit facilitatingonpurpose.com.
979
00:53:13,780 --> 00:53:16,940
Special thanks to Mary Chan at Organized Sound Productions
980
00:53:16,940 --> 00:53:18,400
for producing this episode.
981
00:53:19,340 --> 00:53:19,940
Happy facilitating.
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,280
Welcome to Facilitating on Purpose,
2
00:00:04,680 --> 00:00:07,860
where we explore ideas together about designing and
3
00:00:07,860 --> 00:00:08,860
facilitating learning.
4
00:00:09,900 --> 00:00:13,320
Join me to get inspired on your journey to becoming and
5
00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:16,460
being a great facilitator wherever you work.
6
00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:18,740
I'm your host, Beth Cougler Blom.
7
00:00:21,100 --> 00:00:23,900
Hello, welcome to Season 3 of the podcast.
8
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:26,900
If you're just joining us, welcome.
9
00:00:27,460 --> 00:00:29,860
I'm glad you've decided to check out Facilitating on
10
00:00:29,860 --> 00:00:30,200
Purpose.
11
00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:33,300
If you have been a regular listener with us through S
12
00:00:33,300 --> 00:00:35,720
eason 1 and 2, thanks for coming back.
13
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,580
I am so excited to bring Season 3 episodes to you.
14
00:00:39,900 --> 00:00:42,460
In this episode, you're going to meet my guest,
15
00:00:42,900 --> 00:00:43,900
Yasser Tamer.
16
00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:47,800
Yasser is a disability advocate, a researcher,
17
00:00:48,260 --> 00:00:50,100
and an accessibility consultant.
18
00:00:50,900 --> 00:00:54,180
Yasser is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree in
19
00:00:54,180 --> 00:00:57,060
the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the
20
00:00:57,060 --> 00:00:58,920
American University in Cairo.
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He has embarked on his facilitation journey through
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attending what's called the Mid-Year Festival, MyFest,
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something that I have now been able to be a part of as a
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participant and have enjoyed learning from all of the
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varied folks around the world, actually,
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that facilitate and participate in MyFest through a common
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connection.
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I was able to meet Yasser and invited him to come on the
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show, and I'm so pleased that I was able to do that.
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This conversation that I had with Yasser is all about how
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we can make caring learning environments for people with
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disabilities.
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I think it's an important conversation and a good one.
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Enjoy the show.
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Yasser, welcome to the podcast.
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Thanks so much for joining me today.
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Thank you so much, Beth.
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I'm so happy to be here.
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I'm so happy to chat about different things,
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facilitation and learning and disability.
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I'm more happy to always talk about disability when there's
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someone who's motivated like me to chat about these things.
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I'm so motivated and I know that you're going to teach me a
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lot today and give me food for thought.
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So let's get right into it and get started.
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As I think about our conversation today,
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I just want to know a little bit more about who you are in
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the world.
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Who are you, Yasser, in the world?
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And who are you right now as a facilitator?
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Yasser Yeah, that's interesting because I've never thought about facilitation when I was really young. My name is Yasser Tamer. I'm a student, I'm still doing my undergraduate degree here in Cairo, at the American University in Cairo, in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. And I'm a disability advocate.
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So that's really my part of my identity is that I do disability work all the time and I'm advocating always for the rights of people with disabilities in every context and all the opportunities and in the best way possible that I could do.
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To answer your question about who am I as a facilitator, I would just say it started for me, it was in 2022, I got to know one of my closest friends now, who is Professor Maha Bali, who is a professor of practice at the American University in Cairo as well.
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And she was doing the Mid-Year Festival, part of Equity Unbound, which is a grassroots movement, a community building resource for all educators and faculty developers and all people interested in education.
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And I found my interest in this and I found myself even more inclined to explore it. And then shortly after I got to know Professor Bali, it just went that she told me like, oh there's a Mid-Year Festival, are you interested to attend?
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And then I attended. That was in 2022. And when I attended that it just I felt like, oh wow, that's the community I feel like I belong to. And that's the way I want to grow myself and that's the way I want to see myself developing.
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That time I was only an attendee just like everybody else in the room, just like everybody in the community. It just had occurred that I was mostly a person who attended a lot of sessions in the program
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and then I took Professor Maha Bali's class, the class at AUC, the class that she teaches and part of that is the Soliya Connect program. And SULIA is an organization that does virtual exchange programs for students who are interculturally marginalized who are placed in different parts of the world.
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And it just connects people from the US and Europe with people from the Middle East and North Africa like myself. Because, as I said, I'm based in Egypt, I'm based in Cairo. I'm a person who never traveled abroad.
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So I took the SULIA program, I finished that program and then I took the facilitator training afterwards, you know, in the organization. The facilitator training, I took it because I felt like that really resembled the mid-year festival experience, the MyFest experience,
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we call it MyFest and then I took the facilitator training and I found myself really attached to how adults can be constructively, you know, facilitated and organized and communicated.
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Next MyFest came, 2023, and this time I worked as a co-organizer of the whole program. So I facilitated sessions, I led discussions, I hosted other people's sessions so I was actually responsible for welcoming participants into the room as a learning space holder
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and that's what the Intentionally Equitable Hospitality entailed which is the facilitation practice that a facilitator is responsible for holding the space.
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That's actually coined by also Professor Bali and one of
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the people who are responsible for the program,
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who are also one of the co -leaders, Mia Zamora,
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who is also a professor at Kean University.
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So I tried to imitate.
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I tried to be intentionally equitable.
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And I tried to be as mindful as possible with people and
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with being welcoming, with being included,
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like welcoming in the space,
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with being inclusive of whoever will come to my space.
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So that's in a nutshell,
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my way or my journey into my station.
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And I sort of feel very bad because I just summarized this
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in one, two minutes,
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but my feelings towards this journey are really great.
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It just goes beyond being explained in like two, three,
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four minutes.
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I don't mind at all,
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and I'm happy to hear about the journey because I feel like
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you got such an excellent start.
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I've heard of Maha Bali,
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I've heard her speak several times on particularly the
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Teaching in Higher Ed podcast that Bonni Stachowiak runs,
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and I think she's so widely respected in the world for
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probably many things, but wow,
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to have her as a collaborator, perhaps as a mentor,
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as you got started in your facilitation practice.
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It feels like you're pretty lucky,
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nice start to the facilitation world.
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Do you feel that?
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I would say I'm pretty lucky.
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I'm very fortunate to have someone like her with me in this
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world, every day just a learning experience.
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I'm going to really go back to this later, I know.
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But it's the way that you have something and then develops
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because you have a wonderful mentor who works to develop
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your innate skills in that particular area.
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I'm going to tell you something, three years ago,
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I just gave a class presentation and I was really not
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confident enough to give it.
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I stuttered. My language skills were very bad.
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I kept moving back and forth between my slides because I
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didn't have digital literacy skills.
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Speaking of Bonni Stachowiak, it's just also wonderful to, one of my very proud moments was that I was one of her guests on her podcast.
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When she sent me, I felt very proud that, oh, wow, just coming on one of the prominent teaching podcasts. Same as when I got this invitation to be on this podcast as well. It just feels so surreal to get to know people and to feel that what you're doing is recognized and that you're not only doing it for yourself as a person to develop and to learn, but you're holding an intentional space.
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You're emerging as not only a person,
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but you're emerging as a person who aspires to change
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something in the world and to be intentionally equitable.
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Absolutely.
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And I saw that you were on Bonni's podcast when I was
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researching you before we had this conversation and I was
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on it as well so we have that in common. But I do want to
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recognize that you have so much experience already that
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you're bringing to this practice because of your background
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in equity, disability,
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and inclusion and the lived experience that you bring to
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this work as well.
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Would you share a little bit more about you yourself and
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the skills and abilities that you bring as Yasser,
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the facilitator?
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Actually, just to disclaimer,
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which I actually forgot to mention is that I'm a totally
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blind person.
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I was born blind.
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I became blind due to a medical issue that happened when I
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was really a newborn.
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And then it was this way that I never saw something from
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that world, which gets me to your question actually.
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So the skills that I always feel like I want to bring into
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a facilitation practice is that you want to always apply an
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emergent strategy/intentional adaptation into your
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facilitation.
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So what does this mean? What this means to me is that we all go to spaces. We all recognize some barriers that might occur last minute into our facilitation. But being blind, just when we come to the room as facilitators, and then you'll find a blind person coming in as a participant,
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you start panicking,
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you start feeling the world is so bad that the session will
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not go smoothly because it's the,
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how can I just handle this person?
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And then by the way, it happens in the learning environments.
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Just one particular time, I can recall a professor who said, oh, how can I teach with you? So this is my goal. Just in facilitation I want to convey that I'm not different as a person, but maybe I'm different with my disability, but my disability has been imposed by the society. Because it was imposed by the society,
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let's work together to eradicate it and to try to make it inclusive and to try to start on this journey to make me welcomed and make me feel that there is no such inequality in your space. So I hope that answered your question about what I bring.
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I bring all the skills that everyone brings actually. So whatever everybody is required to be, everybody is required to be warm. So that's one of the key elements in facilitation, right? I try to be warm.
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I try to be motivated.
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I try to be inspired by what people's thoughts are.
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I try to be creative.
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I try to be critical thinker.
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I try to be intellectually ready to meet whatever the world
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is bringing.
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And then that's the sort of skills that they would focus
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on.
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But my asset is always about how to recognize the
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disability community when they are attending your space or
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when they are coming to your space.
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Yes.
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You mentioned the fear that maybe we have as instructors or
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facilitators of learning when we realize that there is
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going to be someone in our classroom or in the room that
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has a disability and maybe we're not prepared for that.
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I mean, I hope that we can get to a point where,
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when we learn that,
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we've already prepared for that and we just say to
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ourselves, okay, that's okay.
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They can participate fully in the thing that I've designed
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and planned to teach here or this experience I want to
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facilitate.
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So I don't think we're there yet,
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but we're working towards that.
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And this is part of the biggest part of your work or some
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of it?
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Very much so. We are not yet there and we will never be
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there because we can't be 100% inclusive,
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but we can do the very basic stuff to be.
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And then the golden rule was the advice that I always give
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to people is that always ask, always ask,
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ask people whatever they need,
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ask people what do they need from you to make their life
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more easier.
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If you ask and you end up feeling you kind of can't
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understand,
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ask again. Or if you researched and you feel like, okay, you did the very basic one stuff, but then the basic stuff are not really optimal for the person or was different in your space, ask.
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And when you ask, they will tell you what they need.
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And then when you do what they need,
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so you're 100% inclusive for them.
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You're 100% inclusive for them,
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but you might not be 100% inclusive for me.
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If I have Beth in my podcast and ask this, okay,
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what do you need back from me?
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And then she said, oh,
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I just need closed captioning enabled because I'm a hard of
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hearing person.
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Okay, I enabled closed captioning for Beth.
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But if X would come to me then afterwards and says,
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this is not inclusive,
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although I've enabled closed captioning from last time,
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still, you haven't known their needs.
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You haven't known what the person needs from you to be
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included.
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And this is our role.
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It's always to serve the community the way they want us to
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serve them.
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And not to assume things that we carry from previous
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experiences.
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I hope that's understandable.
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I conveyed my point.
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Absolutely.
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And the word assumptions was coming up in my mind and then
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you said, don't assume.
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And so I think that's a great learning for us all that we
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can think we know what the person needs and maybe we do
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something to prepare,
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but we will never know because everybody is an individual,
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aren't they?
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So what I think a person needs is it could be what they
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need, but it might not be.
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And that's really important to find out. [Yes.] But if I'm
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designing a workshop or a course and I don't have access to
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a person or I just want to design inclusively so that
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everyone can come and participate in the experience I'm
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facilitating,
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what are some of the things that you want us to think about
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when we're in that design stage so that we can be
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inclusive?
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I designed courses at my universities.
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I worked with the Center for Learning and Teaching team to
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design courses for both faculty and teaching assistants.
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The thing that I myself look into is that who my audience
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are, who are my audience?
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And then if I don't know my audience,
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or if I'm creating something that is open for the world,
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then again,
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I just go ahead and do the most well-known accessibility
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requirements.
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So let's give this example.
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In facilitation,
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we as facilitators sometimes have handouts.
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Is this right?
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Yes, yes, for sure.
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Yeah, or or visuals of some kind.
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Yeah.
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I'm going to elaborate on visuals later.
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But we have handouts here.
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The UDL, you have Google Slides, whatever.
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The handouts would always include
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visuals, or not, depending on your time. So what do you need to do?
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You need, for example, to do alternative text.
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That's the very basic.
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For someone who's blind,
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it's just to do alternative text for them so their screen
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readers can recognize the visual that you're including.
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If you have a document,
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you have to go ahead and use headings.
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You have to use hyperlinks and label the hyperlinks as
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clearly as possible instead of saying, click here.
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So what is this here?
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What is this here talking about?
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If you tell me, click on this video,
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so I know that this link is a video.
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If you have a document,
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then you have to make sure that you're using a sensory font
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so everybody will not be irritated by your font.
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It's just visually comfy for them.
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So the way that they see it goes well with the site.
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So colour contrast, font, accessible font.
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Colour contrast is like, OK,
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you use a good colour that is comfortable for the eye.
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Both applies to slides and docs and all that in the actual
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facilitation of an activity and that something happens a
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lot of times.
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And you're sharing the screen on Zoom or whatever platform
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that you're hosting on, you start feeling, start saying,
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this points out to x, x, x, x, x.
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So what is this?
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For a blind person who cannot see the screen,
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they cannot really see what is this.
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Or if you're showing a photo and then they say,
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I'm showing a photo on the screen. If you guys can look at
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the photo and then tell me x, x,
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and then you deprive the person with visual impairment to
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know what is in the photo.
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So perhaps you have to say, OK, this photo, which is an x,
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x, x, x, x, x, x, full description.
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And then you now gave the description orally to the person.
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Or perhaps if you have a handout,
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you just include the description on the handout for the
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person.
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Or sometimes it's always helpful to include it in the chat.
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Why?
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Because, OK, if the person was blind, it's fine.
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They heard the description.
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But then we have another person who has a mental disability
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and they can't retain memory.
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So now send the description,
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but the person cannot really grasp because their memory is
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pretty short.
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Then if you include it in the chat, it's there.
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They can look at it whenever they want, however they want.
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They can even take notes.
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They can even take the chat message copy and then keep
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annotating.
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It's always helpful to keep it lasting for a long time and
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not deprive people of the deaf community.
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00:19:05,120 --> 00:19:09,240
And this really happened to me, personally, in a session.
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We were just facilitating a session.
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We were just dealing with the people who are attending a
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session as normally as possible.
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We were just describing an activity.
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But we found out that a person who is in the participants
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is deaf.
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We didn't have closed captioning on.
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We didn't know that she's deaf.
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So what could we have done at that time is that either we
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lose or we lose, but we didn't, thankfully.
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What we did is that we kept adding things in the chat.
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By doing so,
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applied something called intentional adaptation,
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which Priya Parker talks about it in her book,
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The Art of Gathering.
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And then we intentionally adapted the session to suit her
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needs, to meet her learning goals,
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and to be able to at least welcome her the way we can in
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the best way possible.
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I like the idea of using the chat even more intentionally
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that I might be doing myself even because I've talked about
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this before in different ways,
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but we have chat post documents that we create where we pre-
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plan all of the chat posts that we want to go in there,
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right,
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like activities instructions and all that kind of stuff.
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It's always upsetting when people turn off the chat in
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their meeting.
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00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:29,680
Yeah.
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Oh goodness.
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Yeah.
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But you're just making me think, okay, well,
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if I showed a photo, yes,
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I'm going to describe it verbally,
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but I also can pre-plan that I put a description of that
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photo in the chat.
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It just kind of ups the game a little bit from what I've
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even been doing to make more information go into the chat
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to be helpful.
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Either you do a pre-planned,
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it's either you improvise and write it at the moment.
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You know why?
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Because sometimes people say very different things,
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very different things,
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and then it can inspire your description.
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It doesn't matter.
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What matters most is that you know that you have to include
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it in the chat.
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And sometimes, by the way,
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the chat doesn't stop and the chat doesn't really function
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when dealing with photos.
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00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:17,800
You know, when you describe an activity,
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you can also include it in the chat.
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For example, Liberating Structures. And you have Liberating Structures and you say, okay, we're describing the following activity which will take X and the activity entails X and you will do X.
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Why not include bullet points in the chat so people also
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can, who doesn't really, even people,
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00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:38,500
let's forget about disability,
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people who have weak language skills,
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00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,180
who accents are very difficult for them so they can read
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it.
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00:21:45,100 --> 00:21:46,560
So the chat is always wonderful.
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00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:49,160
A handout is always wonderful if you're not comfortable to
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chat.
368
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:52,100
A handout is always wonderful to include.
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00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:52,800
Yeah,
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00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,120
and I liked how you brought up the memory retention piece
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because putting things in the chat,
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how many times have we experienced that the group goes into
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the breakout room and people go,
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what are we supposed to be doing again?
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00:22:04,380 --> 00:22:05,340
So they have it there.
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00:22:05,460 --> 00:22:05,980
It's in the chat.
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00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,660
They know they don't have to have held that in their mind
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for so long.
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00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:14,620
And while screen readers often pronounce the chat at the
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time it's being sent and this might also overlap with the
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voice of the facilitator,
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00:22:19,900 --> 00:22:24,200
it's always advisable that the facilitator just stops
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00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:28,440
talking for like a second or two until the chat is done or
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00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:30,020
gives pauses, not stops talking.
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00:22:30,500 --> 00:22:31,240
Like if people,
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if the facilitator recognizes that the chat is really is
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00:22:35,020 --> 00:22:39,360
going so quickly, it's just going on, it's just on fire,
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00:22:39,980 --> 00:22:41,020
they can just do two things.
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00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:42,160
You can just give pauses,
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00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:46,140
give pauses and do nothing or just act as the reader.
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00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,720
I'm just going to read the chat out loud,
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00:22:48,940 --> 00:22:52,020
so just in case someone is driving or someone is not able
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00:22:52,020 --> 00:22:52,440
to read.
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00:22:53,020 --> 00:22:57,140
That's a wonderful way for facilitators to get out of this
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00:22:57,140 --> 00:22:58,460
dilemma and then say, okay,
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00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,080
I'm going to read out some of the things that came in the
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00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:03,360
chat to just see what people had said.
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00:23:03,660 --> 00:23:06,100
In case someone is driving or someone cannot read it,
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00:23:06,220 --> 00:23:07,260
so I'm going to read some of this.
400
00:23:07,620 --> 00:23:07,880
That's wonderful.
401
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,420
So let me think about how this works practically.
402
00:23:10,740 --> 00:23:14,220
So you're using a screen reader yourself to participate in
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00:23:14,220 --> 00:23:15,440
an online workshop, right?
404
00:23:15,700 --> 00:23:17,040
Or facilitate one.
405
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,560
And so you're listening to what's going on in the chat
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00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:22,400
through your screen reader.
407
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,980
And so the fact that the facilitator is talking and the
408
00:23:25,980 --> 00:23:27,020
screen reader is talking to you,
409
00:23:27,020 --> 00:23:29,740
that is probably a little bit distressing sometimes.
410
00:23:29,740 --> 00:23:30,720
There's a lot going on.
411
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:32,720
So yeah, we have to help you out there.
412
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:38,680
I actually sometimes go out of sessions with a very bad
413
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:40,240
headache because of this.
414
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,920
Three voices are talking in my head, the facilitator,
415
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:46,920
the screen reader, and my phone screen reader.
416
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:49,540
It's a very important thing because sometimes I have to use
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00:23:49,540 --> 00:23:52,440
phone to take notes, to sometimes open Mentimeter,
418
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,220
to sometimes open the slides.
419
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:57,800
If we're doing a Slido, three,
420
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:03,140
four different things to talk in just a few minutes of the
421
00:24:03,140 --> 00:24:03,460
session.
422
00:24:03,460 --> 00:24:05,020
And then you have to handle this on your own.
423
00:24:06,140 --> 00:24:06,140
Yeah.
424
00:24:06,420 --> 00:24:08,680
Thanks for bringing up that extra device because you're
425
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:08,900
right.
426
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,160
People will say here, pull out your phones.
427
00:24:11,380 --> 00:24:12,400
We're going to do a Mentimeter.
428
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:15,860
And just to be conscious that that's a lot of devices that
429
00:24:15,860 --> 00:24:19,440
are now talking to a person or even just to engage with if
430
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:20,940
you are a sighted person.
431
00:24:20,940 --> 00:24:22,060
That's a lot, isn't it?
432
00:24:22,140 --> 00:24:22,960
And we need space.
433
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,000
It's another argument for putting more space in silence,
434
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,280
maybe in learning spaces as well.
435
00:24:29,340 --> 00:24:29,720
Yes.
436
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:35,120
Now you talk a lot, I think, about caring for people.
437
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,640
So put your facilitator hat on now as the facilitator and
438
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,760
you're crafting this caring learning environment for
439
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:43,060
people.
440
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:44,960
What does that mean to you?
441
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:47,560
You talk about hospitality and learning spaces as well.
442
00:24:47,860 --> 00:24:51,580
So what does it mean to foster care and hospitality in
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00:24:51,580 --> 00:24:52,340
learning spaces?
444
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:53,720
Maybe things you haven't said yet.
445
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,540
I actually wrote an article for the Mind Brain Education
446
00:24:57,540 --> 00:24:59,840
magazine, thanks to Heather Kretschmer,
447
00:24:59,980 --> 00:25:03,600
who was also an English teacher who works in Germany.
448
00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:05,540
She invited me to write this piece.
449
00:25:06,360 --> 00:25:09,260
And I actually drew on the intentionally equitable
450
00:25:09,260 --> 00:25:12,040
hospitality by Dr.
451
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:12,960
Bali and Dr.
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00:25:13,140 --> 00:25:13,380
Zamora.
453
00:25:13,980 --> 00:25:17,080
I drew on Verna Rossi's book, Inclusive Learning Design.
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00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,860
And she says one of the things that she brings up is she
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00:25:20,860 --> 00:25:26,300
divides inclusion or inclusive into an acronym which is
456
00:25:26,300 --> 00:25:29,620
intentionally equitable, co-creating, liberating,
457
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:34,020
user-friendly, socially responsible, integrative,
458
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:36,720
and value-based, and ecological.
459
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,460
And I think these nine values are the representative of
460
00:25:40,460 --> 00:25:41,060
cares.
461
00:25:41,540 --> 00:25:44,020
I just need to credit that again to Dr.
462
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,340
Verna Rossi, who works in the UK,
463
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,540
who is a learning designer.
464
00:25:48,540 --> 00:25:51,220
She's the author of the Inclusive Learning Design book.
465
00:25:52,420 --> 00:25:55,540
But for me, if I could reflect on these points,
466
00:25:55,760 --> 00:26:02,020
is that all these points I tried at least integrating them
467
00:26:02,020 --> 00:26:06,900
into my practice or receiving them as part of something or
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00:26:06,900 --> 00:26:10,520
as a part of a caring environment that I was in.
469
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:14,180
For example, I took a class of literature and cinema.
470
00:26:14,940 --> 00:26:18,040
And I'm not that person who can watch films.
471
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,920
Even if they are packed up with audio descriptions.
472
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,240
And I took that class because, honestly,
473
00:26:23,460 --> 00:26:24,960
I took it because I loved the professor.
474
00:26:25,220 --> 00:26:26,480
I learned a lot from the professor.
475
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,180
I just took it because I loved the cinemas.
476
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:30,700
I loved the variety.
477
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:31,620
But mind all that, she just, the movie, the films were all not audio described digitally. But the way we handled it is that she acted as an audio describer.
478
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,160
We used to sit together in class besides each other.
479
00:26:45,180 --> 00:26:48,040
And then she used to describe all the scenes while they
480
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:49,080
were screened.
481
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,860
And this is sort of how the intentionally equitable.
482
00:26:54,020 --> 00:26:55,060
She was intentionally equitable.
483
00:26:55,300 --> 00:26:58,780
She also, she let me co-create the class with her.
484
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:03,300
So in case there was something very hard and in the class,
485
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:03,980
she let me, okay,
486
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,260
let's co-create this together to be inclusive for the whole
487
00:27:08,260 --> 00:27:10,680
class and for you as well.
488
00:27:11,220 --> 00:27:11,640
And by the way,
489
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,340
the element of co-creation was went above and beyond even
490
00:27:15,340 --> 00:27:20,320
with Dr. Bali because the work that I co-designed courses
491
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,880
with her and her team from the Center for Learning and
492
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,760
Teaching is just the way of co-creation that I co-create
493
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:28,800
with them as a student,
494
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:33,780
as a person with lived experience in disability and as a
495
00:27:33,780 --> 00:27:37,860
person with values that are related to disability.
496
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,780
I think socially responsible also contributes to this,
497
00:27:41,940 --> 00:27:44,740
that I'm socially responsible for these marginalized people
498
00:27:44,740 --> 00:27:48,360
that I want to bring my experience for,
499
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:50,640
like in order to benefit them as much as possible.
500
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:55,200
And so this is how I think in summary,
501
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:57,260
as much as I could recall,
502
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:02,240
the inclusion means to me when it comes to being a person
503
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:07,420
who crafts. So I just think of those descriptions or
504
00:28:07,420 --> 00:28:11,100
criteria in which I think inclusion would be done.
505
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,340
It's actually not the, it's not everything,
506
00:28:14,340 --> 00:28:17,620
but at least that's how we can work with it.
507
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,960
I love that you speak so much about co-creating and it
508
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,380
makes me think about dismantling power structures.
509
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:27,240
And, you know,
510
00:28:27,340 --> 00:28:29,540
because you can have a professor and have a student and
511
00:28:29,540 --> 00:28:31,660
that could be very hierarchical and they don't work
512
00:28:31,660 --> 00:28:34,880
together to craft the learning experience together,
513
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:39,140
but you're telling me stories of the opposite that you have
514
00:28:39,140 --> 00:28:44,740
been drawing in and been drawn in to create with your
515
00:28:44,740 --> 00:28:45,180
faculty.
516
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:46,200
And, you know,
517
00:28:46,220 --> 00:28:48,760
now they're probably friends and colleagues and it's just
518
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:50,740
it is so equitable.
519
00:28:51,100 --> 00:28:54,960
So what's the word equalizing or balancing out of
520
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:56,900
experience and expertise?
521
00:28:58,000 --> 00:28:59,620
Yeah, it's actually equalizing.
522
00:28:59,740 --> 00:29:02,200
It's actually drawing on the most needed at the moment.
523
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,960
So I actually feel like it's also the element of co
524
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,700
-creation even between students together.
525
00:29:09,020 --> 00:29:12,780
So what I really wish to do is that I wouldn't stop at this
526
00:29:12,780 --> 00:29:13,120
point.
527
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:18,360
I just wish to create something where I even pay the favour
528
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:19,660
back to the whole world.
529
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:23,360
And then why not establish something that I can co-create
530
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:26,700
with people from different parts of the world that could
531
00:29:26,700 --> 00:29:31,700
benefit or help the society community that I can believe in
532
00:29:31,700 --> 00:29:35,660
people, like how people believed in me.
533
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,840
It's like I've had people who championed me,
534
00:29:41,060 --> 00:29:42,540
who believed in my dreams,
535
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:46,480
who didn't take my experiences for granted.
536
00:29:47,620 --> 00:29:52,380
So the element of co-creating is not always momentum.
537
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,700
It's just for the future as well.
538
00:29:56,300 --> 00:29:59,880
How can I take this element above and beyond and co-create
539
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:03,120
with people in order to keep the passion and the vibe
540
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:03,460
going?
541
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:04,200
I do see that as perhaps a strength of yours. You know, not knowing you very well, Yasser, we've just met. It's our second time meeting and talking with each other. But in looking at what you put out in the world, it does seem clear to me that you really care about sharing your expertise and well, these things that are you're helping to co-create, you're really intent on sharing them out widely so that other people can benefit from them.
542
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,820
Does that seem like it describes you?
543
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:36,240
Yeah, very much so. It's just sharing, it's just keeping the loop going. It wouldn't be only Dr. Bali or her team, it wouldn't be only my other friends who helped me, it wouldn't be only me who even contributes to the field or to the momentum of disability inclusion or the, you know, hopefully going to be something that is developing and imagined and reimagined and defined and redefined in ways that hold everybody accountable and hold everybody responsible to take the whole vibe more and keep it going.
544
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:17,620
It's just,
545
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,960
if I end up being in this world for a few years doing
546
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:28,480
things until I die and then the passion is not shared,
547
00:31:29,020 --> 00:31:30,760
the element of co-creation is not shared,
548
00:31:30,940 --> 00:31:35,400
so that's too bad and I don't really hope for this to
549
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,100
happen, I don't aspire for this to happen,
550
00:31:37,180 --> 00:31:41,560
I just hope that there will be a lot more who can continue
551
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,900
on and on and on co-creating, believing in people,
552
00:31:45,020 --> 00:31:46,900
caring for them, caring for their needs,
553
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:50,100
including them and welcoming them in their spaces.
554
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:51,480
Mm-hmm.
555
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,980
I think you talk a lot about communities and you're,
556
00:31:56,140 --> 00:31:57,680
you've been talking a lot about it,
557
00:31:57,680 --> 00:31:59,380
but not actually saying the word community,
558
00:31:59,380 --> 00:32:03,380
but you've perhaps received the support of a community
559
00:32:03,380 --> 00:32:04,060
around you,
560
00:32:04,060 --> 00:32:07,340
but you're contributing to that community as well,
561
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:08,220
for sure.
562
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:10,540
Can you say something about just the importance of
563
00:32:10,540 --> 00:32:14,580
communities and for all of us as we learn about inclusion
564
00:32:14,580 --> 00:32:18,320
and try to do more effective work in this way?
565
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,420
For someone to recognize the value and significance of
566
00:32:21,420 --> 00:32:25,240
community in their lives, I think, ask yourself,
567
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:32,740
who are the people with whom I always feel a strong bond
568
00:32:32,740 --> 00:32:33,260
towards?
569
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:35,320
I hope I'm framing the question right,
570
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,600
but I'm actually thinking about it in the sense of,
571
00:32:38,860 --> 00:32:43,840
who are those that I always tend to feel very close,
572
00:32:44,020 --> 00:32:46,140
and without any reservations and boundaries,
573
00:32:46,140 --> 00:32:50,140
I feel like everything melts down to being comfortable and
574
00:32:50,140 --> 00:32:52,800
being very open and free,
575
00:32:53,260 --> 00:32:56,080
liberating and rejuvenating, if
576
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,580
I can use this word. That's the element of community for
577
00:33:00,580 --> 00:33:00,780
me,
578
00:33:00,900 --> 00:33:06,780
is just with different people from different parts of the
579
00:33:06,780 --> 00:33:07,020
world.
580
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:11,780
But then I feel like the presence makes me happy.
581
00:33:12,460 --> 00:33:13,960
This is the community for me.
582
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:15,400
Unlike being, for example,
583
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,460
with people who are in the same community,
584
00:33:19,060 --> 00:33:22,580
physical community, I mean, from the same country,
585
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,420
and the element of love for the community is not really
586
00:33:27,420 --> 00:33:28,700
there, so that's not a community.
587
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,120
I wouldn't really say that's a community.
588
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,020
Mm, that's a nice way to say it.
589
00:33:33,300 --> 00:33:34,620
And you talk about being comfortable,
590
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:36,660
makes me think to ask you, okay,
591
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,940
so if you and I were going to facilitate something
592
00:33:38,940 --> 00:33:42,220
together, and we hadn't worked together yet,
593
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,860
how could I make you feel comfortable working with me?
594
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,020
And what would you do to make me comfortable working with
595
00:33:48,020 --> 00:33:48,300
you?
596
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:48,600
Like,
597
00:33:48,620 --> 00:33:51,940
what does that look like as we begin to develop our community
598
00:33:51,940 --> 00:33:52,500
together?
599
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:54,340
Honestly,
600
00:33:54,500 --> 00:33:58,500
I wouldn't talk about me as a person as yesterday because I
601
00:33:58,500 --> 00:34:04,580
tend to adapt with people easily and I feel like I'm that
602
00:34:04,580 --> 00:34:06,100
person who can open up easily,
603
00:34:06,500 --> 00:34:11,380
that person who's really comfortable to share things even
604
00:34:11,380 --> 00:34:13,100
with strangers whom I don't know,
605
00:34:13,380 --> 00:34:16,340
I can just talk about everything, really everything.
606
00:34:16,340 --> 00:34:18,480
I'm not that closed off,
607
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,699
but I would say if I'm facilitating something with a
608
00:34:21,699 --> 00:34:24,699
disabled person, but I don't know them,
609
00:34:24,900 --> 00:34:32,320
I will probably try to first examine closely from my
610
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,380
interactions with them how they deal with the world,
611
00:34:35,460 --> 00:34:37,060
how they like to talk,
612
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,760
how they like to do conversations and then ask them.
613
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,120
Because I repeated the word ask a lot,
614
00:34:44,900 --> 00:34:46,940
but it's really the key with everything.
615
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,040
It's actually the key even in physical help that when we
616
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,120
meet a disabled person in the streets struggling,
617
00:34:54,540 --> 00:34:57,360
we always advise against going and grabbing them
618
00:34:57,360 --> 00:34:58,180
surprisingly.
619
00:34:58,820 --> 00:35:01,880
We always tell them ask, don't grab.
620
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,380
This is something that done by Amy Kavanagh.
621
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,920
It used to be a big campaign on Twitter, X, well,
622
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:09,380
Twitter formerly, X now.
623
00:35:10,140 --> 00:35:13,940
And then she used to advocate for the rights of women even
624
00:35:13,940 --> 00:35:17,000
through this campaign because she used to say, like, okay,
625
00:35:17,020 --> 00:35:17,660
I'm not really,
626
00:35:18,620 --> 00:35:22,280
I shouldn't be prone to harassment as a visually impaired
627
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:23,640
woman, as a disabled woman.
628
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:28,480
By being grabbed out of the motivation to help me.
629
00:35:28,740 --> 00:35:31,280
Go ahead and ask me first, what do I need?
630
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,540
And then the same concept could apply to facilitation,
631
00:35:34,780 --> 00:35:38,640
the same concept could apply to basically everything.
632
00:35:39,620 --> 00:35:41,380
Don't assume, but just ask.
633
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,780
What mistakes do you think I might make with maybe good
634
00:35:44,780 --> 00:35:48,100
intentions in working with you like making an assumption
635
00:35:48,100 --> 00:35:51,100
about something that are there common things that we should
636
00:35:51,100 --> 00:35:53,300
be on the lookout for and just stop doing.
637
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:54,360
I wouldn't really be personal with this question as well. I would say some people tend to be more offended by some language. So reviewing the language element is really important. Some people like those in the US, for example, like 'people with disabilities' and 'disabled people'.
638
00:36:14,860 --> 00:36:14,880
'Disabled people' is more favoured in the UK because they say that disability is ahead of us because of the society. The disability is created by the society, which is the social model of disability.
639
00:36:26,890 --> 00:36:27,070
Unlike the US, they say, okay, we value our disability, so our 'people with disabilities'.
640
00:36:32,690 --> 00:36:35,530
And then this is the language element.
641
00:36:36,030 --> 00:36:36,190
So sometimes the language element makes a huge sort of gap when we interact with people who are "different"/"disabled".
642
00:36:47,370 --> 00:36:49,490
But in terms of facilitation,
643
00:36:49,770 --> 00:36:53,790
I think not involving disabled people in the design would
644
00:36:53,790 --> 00:36:56,030
be a huge mistake believing that they cannot really
645
00:36:56,030 --> 00:36:58,230
contribute or it would be too much for them,
646
00:36:58,690 --> 00:37:02,110
that they cannot really handle work or tasks or whatever.
647
00:37:02,910 --> 00:37:05,170
I think also that's a huge mistake is that, okay,
648
00:37:05,330 --> 00:37:06,110
when we design,
649
00:37:06,730 --> 00:37:09,750
we often have to anticipate who is involved in the design
650
00:37:09,750 --> 00:37:11,850
and when and then we know that we have a personal
651
00:37:11,850 --> 00:37:12,270
disability,
652
00:37:12,390 --> 00:37:14,990
so then we have to go ahead and involve them and giving
653
00:37:14,990 --> 00:37:15,930
them the space.
654
00:37:16,350 --> 00:37:16,370
Okay,
655
00:37:16,450 --> 00:37:19,370
we don't have to also go back and assume that they can't
656
00:37:19,370 --> 00:37:22,610
facilitate basically just their presence and then they are
657
00:37:22,610 --> 00:37:24,150
present and then their presence will make it.
658
00:37:24,290 --> 00:37:25,990
No, they can do whatever they want.
659
00:37:26,070 --> 00:37:28,830
You just have to make sure that everything for them will
660
00:37:28,830 --> 00:37:29,570
work smoothly,
661
00:37:29,570 --> 00:37:32,570
that they have the accessible tools to facilitate,
662
00:37:32,950 --> 00:37:36,550
that the workshop content is accessible for them because
663
00:37:36,550 --> 00:37:40,010
sometimes when we exclude them from the design slash
664
00:37:40,010 --> 00:37:44,370
facilitation process, it will turn out to be inaccessible,
665
00:37:44,890 --> 00:37:47,450
it will turn out to be fully instead of beneficial,
666
00:37:47,870 --> 00:37:50,290
turn out to be ineffective and you can put it that way.
667
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:52,040
Yes, exactly.
668
00:37:52,620 --> 00:37:55,400
You've shared so many great suggestions.
669
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:57,160
I want to talk about activities.
670
00:37:58,060 --> 00:38:01,020
So when we're designing workshops or courses,
671
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,540
what do you want us to think about to make inclusive
672
00:38:04,540 --> 00:38:05,200
activities?
673
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,920
It just depends on what we are facilitating,
674
00:38:08,300 --> 00:38:11,240
but accessibility would be the heart of ideas when we
675
00:38:11,240 --> 00:38:12,480
create activities.
676
00:38:12,700 --> 00:38:14,620
It's that we have to create it accessible.
677
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:16,320
We have to make sure that it's accessible.
678
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:19,260
We have to make sure that we're doing something that would
679
00:38:19,260 --> 00:38:24,420
not be really presenter-centered or facilitator-centered,
680
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,480
but rather this is not really disability-related,
681
00:38:27,540 --> 00:38:30,640
but this is something that I would really be concerned
682
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:31,100
with.
683
00:38:31,300 --> 00:38:33,360
It's that if I'm creating something,
684
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,980
I would make sure that it's not facilitator-centered,
685
00:38:37,460 --> 00:38:38,800
but rather participant-centered,
686
00:38:39,140 --> 00:38:42,100
where the words of the participants are very important,
687
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,180
and they are actually one of the core tenets of the
688
00:38:44,180 --> 00:38:44,460
session.
689
00:38:45,300 --> 00:38:48,600
If I'm just speaking as a facilitator without hearing
690
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:49,100
people,
691
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,560
it wouldn't be too effective and it wouldn't be too welcomed.
692
00:38:53,180 --> 00:38:54,800
It feels so bad,
693
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,720
it feels so disconnecting and disconcerting for the
694
00:38:59,720 --> 00:39:00,240
attendees.
695
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:02,420
I talk a lot about that too,
696
00:39:02,720 --> 00:39:05,280
and I sometimes call it or ask the question,
697
00:39:05,820 --> 00:39:07,580
where does the content come from, you know,
698
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:08,860
does it have to come from,
699
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,860
we wouldn't even really say facilitator in that experience,
700
00:39:11,980 --> 00:39:12,220
would we,
701
00:39:12,340 --> 00:39:15,460
we'd probably just say lecturer or presenter or something,
702
00:39:15,580 --> 00:39:19,520
but how do we design so that all people are included and we
703
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:21,740
really hear more from the people in the room rather than
704
00:39:21,740 --> 00:39:24,260
the person standing up in front of it or leading it.
705
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:29,400
Maybe the word included wouldn't really be restrictive for
706
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,600
disability people only just including pretty much
707
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:33,120
everybody.
708
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:39,140
And we'd also liberate ourselves to be more welcoming for
709
00:39:39,140 --> 00:39:41,300
other things such as, for example,
710
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:46,480
we would say people are welcome to eat when they are in the
711
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:46,780
session.
712
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,560
People are welcome to go off camera in the session.
713
00:39:50,220 --> 00:39:53,100
People are welcome to bring their own kids in the session.
714
00:39:53,460 --> 00:39:55,140
So it wouldn't be like, okay,
715
00:39:55,300 --> 00:39:59,200
it's so bad and it's not working well and kids are good.
716
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,020
So why not excluding kids from the session?
717
00:40:02,420 --> 00:40:03,920
People are welcome to bring elders.
718
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,740
So some people are taking care of their elderly parents or
719
00:40:06,740 --> 00:40:10,620
are taking care of their elderly grandparents or such.
720
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:12,480
Why not excluding those?
721
00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:14,540
So why not including them instead?
722
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:19,760
Why not designing our content to adapt to those who are
723
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:23,460
different but they still want it to be there because they
724
00:40:23,460 --> 00:40:27,240
want to learn about they have some things to respond to in
725
00:40:27,240 --> 00:40:27,520
life.
726
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,580
Why do we always assume that everybody should be in front
727
00:40:30,580 --> 00:40:33,360
of the camera in their office opening their camera wearing
728
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,700
very formal clothes suits and stuff?
729
00:40:36,240 --> 00:40:36,380
No.
730
00:40:36,820 --> 00:40:38,620
If you want to attend my sessions in bed,
731
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,220
you're welcome to attend in bed and you're welcome to go
732
00:40:41,220 --> 00:40:41,660
off camera.
733
00:40:42,100 --> 00:40:45,000
You're welcome to leave without asking for an excuse.
734
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,240
You're welcome to say,
735
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:50,620
if the session is like two hours or more,
736
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:52,060
you're welcome to say, okay,
737
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,640
I'm going to leave by the hour if I'm creating breakout
738
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:55,080
rooms.
739
00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:01,180
So I as a facilitator feel it's important to create a quiet
740
00:41:01,180 --> 00:41:01,880
room for people.
741
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,320
That's something I've learned from Equity Unbound and from
742
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:09,620
a lot of facilitators and Equity uUnbound would do this.
743
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:12,300
Okay, they create the including Dr. Bali
744
00:41:12,660 --> 00:41:13,080
as well.
745
00:41:13,540 --> 00:41:17,520
They actually create a quiet room for people who are not in
746
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:18,060
the mood to talk.
747
00:41:18,420 --> 00:41:19,500
That's basically it, you know,
748
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,660
someone who's really not locked in the mood to talk to
749
00:41:23,660 --> 00:41:27,100
participants or partake in a specific activity or something
750
00:41:27,100 --> 00:41:27,760
like this.
751
00:41:28,300 --> 00:41:31,580
Someone who's deaf and they cannot really say it on the
752
00:41:31,580 --> 00:41:32,240
note,
753
00:41:32,500 --> 00:41:36,700
you know. Someone who is driving a car and they still care
754
00:41:36,700 --> 00:41:37,440
to attend,
755
00:41:37,980 --> 00:41:42,640
someone who's in a public space and they cannot really open
756
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:44,900
their, you know, mic and talk.
757
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,740
Someone who's not a good speaker of the language in which
758
00:41:48,740 --> 00:41:50,320
the session is held,
759
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,540
but they still wanted to listen because they believe that
760
00:41:53,540 --> 00:41:55,240
this will improve their language skills,
761
00:41:55,460 --> 00:41:56,820
which is important, by the way,
762
00:41:56,940 --> 00:41:58,760
is the listening improve listening skills.
763
00:41:58,760 --> 00:41:59,960
That's something we always know.
764
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,400
But if you put them on this part and let them talk, no,
765
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:05,900
I wouldn't think that's a good idea.
766
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,880
I'm so glad you mentioned all those different things and
767
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:10,380
there are so many more of them,
768
00:42:10,380 --> 00:42:12,820
but it helps all of us remember,
769
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:14,580
all the people listening to this episode,
770
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,260
remember that this thing that we want,
771
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,480
that is inclusive learning spaces,
772
00:42:20,620 --> 00:42:24,340
it's not just about ability or disability, is it?
773
00:42:24,660 --> 00:42:26,420
It's about circumstance.
774
00:42:26,940 --> 00:42:28,640
It's about context.
775
00:42:29,260 --> 00:42:31,900
It's about, yeah, feeling how you feel that day,
776
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:33,860
the technology you have.
777
00:42:33,860 --> 00:42:35,620
There's so many elements within,
778
00:42:35,620 --> 00:42:38,180
it's just not a disability thing, is it?
779
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,720
It's not a disability thing, but because, you know,
780
00:42:41,860 --> 00:42:43,940
the word inclusion is an umbrella term.
781
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:45,520
When we say now inclusion,
782
00:42:45,580 --> 00:42:47,440
it doesn't really signal only disability.
783
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:49,420
It signals a lot of things.
784
00:42:49,660 --> 00:42:53,000
It signals people who are minorities, people who are Black.
785
00:42:53,380 --> 00:42:56,080
Like mostly minorities in Europe/the Global West,
786
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,040
Christian minorities in the Global East.
787
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,880
And then, okay, what do we need from the world then?
788
00:43:04,380 --> 00:43:08,420
Is that we would recognize where the inequality is situated
789
00:43:08,420 --> 00:43:11,080
and then try to, as much as possible,
790
00:43:11,420 --> 00:43:14,880
eliminate it by making inclusive environments.
791
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:20,060
I was really keen on talking about this idea of inclusion
792
00:43:20,060 --> 00:43:22,500
when you asked the previous question,
793
00:43:23,060 --> 00:43:26,380
because I just wanted to emphasize that it's not only about
794
00:43:26,380 --> 00:43:26,780
disability.
795
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:31,740
It's just everything else that works alongside this
796
00:43:31,740 --> 00:43:32,920
narrative.
797
00:43:33,720 --> 00:43:36,280
But I just mentioned these examples to make sure that,
798
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:36,700
you know,
799
00:43:37,140 --> 00:43:41,900
try to make the space for people to attend without you
800
00:43:41,900 --> 00:43:43,540
imposing on them different restrictions.
801
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:44,380
That's right,
802
00:43:44,460 --> 00:43:49,280
that they can show up as who they are with their whole
803
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,160
selves, whatever that is.
804
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:52,160
Yasser With their whole selves, with their guests, with their kids, with their parents. For example, a mother who's watching her child studying. Why do we have to deprive her from attending because she's watching her child?
805
00:44:04,220 --> 00:44:04,460
It just doesn't make any sense. That's an example. And many more are there that we, if we can speak about this, I think you and I can just record I think many episodes about this ideas of wrong practices and facilitations and all that.
806
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:21,300
Beth Yeah. And we're sort of judging things based on some sort of paradigm that's been put in our head from long ago or from our culture, wherever we're coming from. There's certain, you know, do's and don'ts that we think we have to adhere to.
807
00:44:34,860 --> 00:44:35,060
And it's wrong, isn't it? A lot of them from those days of yore. [chuckles]
808
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:41,060
Yes, it's wrong.
809
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:41,900
But actually,
810
00:44:41,980 --> 00:44:45,600
I would like to always acknowledge the challenges that the
811
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,360
facilitators themselves meet because there are a lot of
812
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:50,340
challenges or encounters.
813
00:44:50,900 --> 00:44:56,600
There are a lot of challenges that are really hard to go
814
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:56,940
along.
815
00:44:57,140 --> 00:44:58,680
And then one of them, for example,
816
00:44:58,780 --> 00:45:01,280
is that if someone is disrupting the flow of the community,
817
00:45:02,020 --> 00:45:03,600
how the facilitator would act,
818
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:06,720
are they going to disconnect them from the community,
819
00:45:06,900 --> 00:45:08,640
just protect the whole people,
820
00:45:09,260 --> 00:45:10,440
or are they going to shun them?
821
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:14,300
And I think it stems from being intentionally equitable as
822
00:45:14,300 --> 00:45:19,000
the idea of, in order to make it a safe space, as I said,
823
00:45:19,580 --> 00:45:22,640
and as Dr. Bali and Dr. Zamora put it,
824
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,980
in order to make it a safe space for all participants,
825
00:45:27,140 --> 00:45:29,200
I think it's important to,
826
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:33,680
part of the safety that you create is to eliminate all the
827
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,940
harms that come across your space.
828
00:45:37,380 --> 00:45:38,400
That's also a challenge,
829
00:45:38,580 --> 00:45:42,080
is that you need to protect your space.
830
00:45:42,240 --> 00:45:45,820
And if you face the protected, the space will be dangerous,
831
00:45:45,940 --> 00:45:47,980
and then people will not, by the time,
832
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,460
feel it's safe anymore for them to share their insights.
833
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:52,540
Absolutely.
834
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,380
So it's really, you mentioned being welcoming before,
835
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:58,820
but I think you've also mentioned in other spaces,
836
00:45:58,820 --> 00:46:02,060
it's about belonging and you just said safety.
837
00:46:02,460 --> 00:46:04,940
That's our ultimate goal, isn't it?
838
00:46:05,060 --> 00:46:06,400
That all learners feel that.
839
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:10,100
And we try to create that when we design and facilitate and
840
00:46:10,100 --> 00:46:13,060
sometimes we'll fail, but we keep learning how to do it,
841
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:13,400
don't we?
842
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,980
Yes, it's an ultimate goal to be learning,
843
00:46:17,220 --> 00:46:18,580
and it's an ultimate goal to belong.
844
00:46:19,660 --> 00:46:21,100
Speaking of belonging, actually,
845
00:46:21,240 --> 00:46:25,080
I would just recall the book, Belong, How to Find People,
846
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:26,300
by Radha Agrawal.
847
00:46:27,180 --> 00:46:29,520
It's called Belong by Radha Agrawal.
848
00:46:30,420 --> 00:46:33,240
Then this book talks about energy,
849
00:46:33,240 --> 00:46:37,460
that we bring a lot of energies to the spaces in which we
850
00:46:37,460 --> 00:46:39,700
inhabit and which we attend.
851
00:46:41,180 --> 00:46:48,620
I think that if we create the wholesome space or the space
852
00:46:48,620 --> 00:46:50,780
that is inclusive,
853
00:46:51,100 --> 00:46:56,340
I think it helps people bring their own energy in as much
854
00:46:56,340 --> 00:47:01,360
way as possible and as widely as possible,
855
00:47:01,900 --> 00:47:05,560
and in the most way comfortable as possible, I think,
856
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:07,020
to put it that way,
857
00:47:07,060 --> 00:47:09,680
is that we help people bring their own energies and moods
858
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:10,840
into the conversation.
859
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,420
That feels like a lovely place to start,
860
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:15,620
what you just said there,
861
00:47:15,860 --> 00:47:18,400
and I want to thank you for having this conversation with
862
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:23,520
me today and sharing a lot of your own experience and the
863
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:26,560
learning that you've done so far in this field,
864
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:28,740
but also what you've brought to it as well.
865
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,040
Thank you so much, Yasser, for chatting with me today.
866
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:36,420
I just want to thank you for giving me the space to talk
867
00:47:36,420 --> 00:47:42,760
and to just try to help put some of these points in this
868
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:47,980
podcast and to make it clear that we're all learning and
869
00:47:47,980 --> 00:47:49,840
we're all trying to be inclusive,
870
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:53,200
but there has to be the efforts and the intention to be.
871
00:47:53,940 --> 00:47:56,160
And I just want to thank you so much for giving me the
872
00:47:56,160 --> 00:48:01,980
opportunity that you believed in my sort of little
873
00:48:01,980 --> 00:48:05,100
experience and to draw on them in this podcast that feels
874
00:48:05,100 --> 00:48:10,460
so much power and I'm feeling loved and I'm so grateful for
875
00:48:10,460 --> 00:48:13,000
the opportunity and I would just like to thank you again
876
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,540
for having me today, thank you.
877
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:16,800
Well, thank you.
878
00:48:17,340 --> 00:48:19,100
Your experience doesn't feel little to me.
879
00:48:19,500 --> 00:48:22,280
So I just want to say, say that, right?
880
00:48:22,380 --> 00:48:24,080
It feels very big and very important.
881
00:48:24,100 --> 00:48:27,080
So it's been wonderful to learn from you today.
882
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,600
Thank you so much and I really wish you all the best and
883
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:34,680
what I truly wish is that this this episode would help
884
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:38,960
someone you know change their attitude, behaviour, values,
885
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:39,420
beliefs.
886
00:48:40,140 --> 00:48:43,620
If it even makes someone smile I would be really happy
887
00:48:43,620 --> 00:48:44,220
about that.
888
00:48:44,420 --> 00:48:48,820
I would be really feeling that I did my job that I changed
889
00:48:48,820 --> 00:48:49,600
someone's even mood.
890
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:51,720
I love that.
891
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:53,480
It made me smile, absolutely,
892
00:48:53,780 --> 00:48:57,540
and you've helped really ground me and propel me forward
893
00:48:57,540 --> 00:49:00,560
too in my thinking around this topic.
894
00:49:01,460 --> 00:49:07,500
It's been great. [Thank you.] [Outro] As I look back on my
895
00:49:07,500 --> 00:49:10,840
conversation with Yasser and think about all of the things
896
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:13,300
that he taught me during our conversation,
897
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:17,200
I'm really struck by all of the resources that he mentioned
898
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:18,400
throughout the conversation.
899
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:21,100
I just want to remind you that in the show notes,
900
00:49:21,260 --> 00:49:24,340
I always put the resources that are mentioned in the
901
00:49:24,340 --> 00:49:25,680
episode in the show notes.
902
00:49:25,940 --> 00:49:28,360
You can see those hopefully through the app that you're
903
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:31,760
using to listen to the podcast or going to facilitatingon
904
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,360
purpose.com where I have show notes for every episode and
905
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:36,520
the transcripts as well.
906
00:49:36,700 --> 00:49:40,200
So go and check out all those resources and those great
907
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,860
books that Yasser mentioned in this episode.
908
00:49:42,860 --> 00:49:46,840
A couple of things I want to reflect back to you that were
909
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:48,180
things that Yasser said.
910
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:52,500
One of the things was the phrase he used about how his
911
00:49:52,500 --> 00:49:55,840
disability has been imposed by the society.
912
00:49:56,420 --> 00:49:59,680
I don't think we often think about a disability being
913
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:03,580
imposed by society such as how Yasser phrased it.
914
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,540
I'm so appreciative of the way he said that and just
915
00:50:07,540 --> 00:50:09,060
highlighting that for me.
916
00:50:09,420 --> 00:50:09,840
He said,
917
00:50:10,140 --> 00:50:13,020
I want to convey that I'm not different as a person,
918
00:50:13,340 --> 00:50:15,320
but maybe I'm different with my disability,
919
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:19,240
but my disability has been imposed by the society.
920
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:21,940
Because it was imposed by the society,
921
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:25,580
let's work together to eradicate it and to try to make it
922
00:50:25,580 --> 00:50:29,180
inclusive and to try to start on this journey to make me
923
00:50:29,180 --> 00:50:33,400
welcomed and make me feel that there is no such inequality
924
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,120
in your space.
925
00:50:35,780 --> 00:50:38,280
It's such a great thing that Yasser said.
926
00:50:38,420 --> 00:50:39,660
I mean everything he said was great,
927
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,640
but I think it's just an overarching,
928
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,640
wonderful statement to say this is something that society
929
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:51,720
has given us all to figure out what to do about so people
930
00:50:51,720 --> 00:50:54,960
can come to learning experiences no matter what's going on
931
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:55,460
for them.
932
00:50:55,920 --> 00:51:00,540
A disability in a physical way or something else that is
933
00:51:00,540 --> 00:51:02,080
present for them in their life.
934
00:51:02,340 --> 00:51:05,200
And how do we just keep trying to make every learning
935
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:07,480
experience inclusive for everyone?
936
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:10,480
On a related note, of course,
937
00:51:10,740 --> 00:51:13,880
Yasser just kept reminding me, you heard him do it,
938
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,360
that every single person is an individual.
939
00:51:17,940 --> 00:51:20,260
And so even though we might know someone who is blind,
940
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,880
we might know someone who is deaf or hard of hearing or
941
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,740
have something else that they're going through life with.
942
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:30,640
Just because we've met some person with whatever that
943
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:34,200
circumstance is doesn't mean that the strategies that will
944
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:37,900
work for the next person with perhaps the same situation,
945
00:51:38,460 --> 00:51:39,780
it doesn't mean they're going to work, does it?
946
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:43,940
So every time we need to check in with the particular
947
00:51:43,940 --> 00:51:46,520
person or group that we're working with and just say,
948
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:49,860
please tell me, you know, tell me what you need,
949
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:54,660
you particular person or you as a group and how can we keep
950
00:51:54,660 --> 00:51:57,960
doing this thing we call learning or providing learning or
951
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,680
creating learning spaces just that much better all the
952
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:01,880
time.
953
00:52:01,980 --> 00:52:03,260
It's very iterative, isn't it,
954
00:52:03,300 --> 00:52:06,140
as we continue to learn and grow in our facilitation
955
00:52:06,140 --> 00:52:10,080
practices and in our learning design practices around being
956
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:13,260
able to prepare for and then facilitate experiences.
957
00:52:13,640 --> 00:52:14,340
So things again,
958
00:52:14,340 --> 00:52:18,620
Yasser for reminding me and all of us around the
959
00:52:18,620 --> 00:52:22,880
individuality that exists with disability and beyond.
960
00:52:24,420 --> 00:52:26,360
On the next episode of the podcast,
961
00:52:26,860 --> 00:52:30,140
I'm joined by Fernando Murray and Carolina Almeida.
962
00:52:30,660 --> 00:52:33,840
Fernando and Carolina and I have a great conversation about
963
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:36,500
a topic that will be wonderful to listen to right after
964
00:52:36,500 --> 00:52:36,980
this one.
965
00:52:37,220 --> 00:52:39,120
It's on safe learning spaces.
966
00:52:39,620 --> 00:52:42,320
I know both Fernando and Carolina through the Li
967
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:45,040
berating Structures community here in British Columbia.
968
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:48,420
They are both seasoned facilitators and I can't wait to
969
00:52:48,420 --> 00:52:50,000
share this conversation with you.
970
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:51,720
Catch us next time on the show.
971
00:52:51,900 --> 00:52:55,140
We will see you then. [Podcast outro] Thank you for
972
00:52:55,140 --> 00:52:57,220
listening to Facilitating on Purpose.
973
00:52:57,700 --> 00:52:59,760
If you were inspired by something in this episode,
974
00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:03,040
please share it with a friend or a colleague to help them
975
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,060
expand their facilitation practice too.
976
00:53:05,580 --> 00:53:06,560
To find the show notes,
977
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:10,220
give me feedback or submit ideas for future episodes,
978
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:13,300
visit facilitatingonpurpose.com.
979
00:53:13,780 --> 00:53:16,940
Special thanks to Mary Chan at Organized Sound Productions
980
00:53:16,940 --> 00:53:18,400
for producing this episode.
981
00:53:19,340 --> 00:53:19,940
Happy facilitating.
