Teaching in Pandemic Times

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the author’s approaches to teaching over the past decade and how the pandemic engendered a significant overhaul of these approaches. The chapter analyzes traditional teaching methods for their ableism, expressed in their investments in meritocracy, compulsory wellness, and constructions of rigor, by performing an access audit on one of the author’s prepandemic syllabi. The chapter examines faculty pedagogical responses to the pandemic, which at times reveal an increased investment in these forms of ableism. The chapter then explores what it looks like to disinvest in these forms of ableism and center access and care in the classroom through a disability studies and disability justice framework that understands student mental health in the context of university expectations. The chapter ends with suggestions for reshaping course policies, assignments, and grading across disciplines.