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Education Is Activism

Personal Perspective: Writers and activists plant seeds of change that grow into a movement.

Key points

  • It's hard for educators and activists to measure their impact.
  • Educating about psychology is inherently activism, helping people understand and transform their world.
  • The most powerful and sustainable activism is accomplished collectively.

Sometimes, we Psychology Today bloggers wonder if our work is making a difference. Who reads these words we labor over, and are we helping anyone?

Kathleen Bogart
Education is activism mug
Source: Kathleen Bogart

As a parting gift before graduation, my PhD student Sydney Tran gave me a mug with a simple phrase printed on it: “education is activism.” When I question the impact of my work, it reminds me that my teaching and writing is in itself activism. It underscores the value of what I do and reassures me that it is enough.

Over the past month, three different colleagues have reached out to me with variations on the same question: How do I become an advocate and how do I know if I’m being effective? I told each of them about the mug.

While writing this post, I reached out to Sydney and asked her to share what “education is activism” meant to her. She said. “I think the teaching of psychology as a whole is inherently activism. After all, we're teaching students about the many influences on and explanations of human behavior. When we teach about topics such as the psychology of disability, we encourage students to think differently about topics and experiences they may have never questioned before. Maybe they're like me and didn't have the language to talk about these topics before, and now they do. We provide them with the tools to think critically about their worlds."

I consider this blog to be an extension of my classroom and my lab. One way this blog embodies education as activism is by making information about the psychology of disability freely accessible. Here, we post plain-language summaries of all the research published from my lab. Science is often behind paywalls or otherwise inaccessible due to jargon. In my lab, we value conducting research by and for people with disabilities, and we want to be sure that our participants, and their broader communities, get to engage with and learn from the research we’ve conducted together.

Impacting just one person is enough! But evidence that you’re made a difference is hard to come by. Every now and then, someone contacts me to tell me one of my posts resonated with them. One person used my writing to advocate for reasonable accommodations at their workplace.

Some of the most rewarding individual impacts are my graduate students, who I often have a deep mentoring relationship with for at least five years. My former students, including Sydney, now teach new generations, conduct research to improve the lives of disabled people, and advocate for better healthcare.

Another tangible illustration of impact comes from my classroom. On the first day of every new class I teach, I share a bit about myself and why I choose to be a psychologist. I want students to know that professors are people too. Maybe they have personal experiences or interests that drew them to psychology. Validating that can help them feel like they belong in the field. I explain that I was born with a rare neurological condition called Moebius syndrome, which results in facial paralysis and limited eye movement. Communicating differently made me fascinated with social interaction, and led me to the field of psychology. Discussing disability in class serves to increase representation and reduce disability stigma.

Advocacy is a long game! Over the past 15 years, I've taught thousands of university students, so my little college town has become a hotspot for Moebius syndrome awareness. When I met a brand-new freshman with Moebius syndrome starting at my university, I was filled with optimism and pride. This campus is likely the Moebius syndrome awareness capital of the world.

The main challenge cited by people with Moebius is a lack of public awareness. Ignorance about Moebius can lead to misunderstandings—mistaking facial paralysis for unfriendliness or unintelligence—or even thinking someone has a contagious or deadly condition. Learning about Moebius teaches people to consider expressive diversity—the many ways we communicate. Maybe this student won’t have to face the stares and false assumptions I did.

In contrast to those rare examples of direct impact, most of the time, I never know how much my individual contribution leads to change. And that’s the way it should be. It’s how I feel about my work in the classroom as well. While my students do pretty well on their tests and essays, I suspect they won’t retain the majority of what I teach them. Yet, I’ve planted some seeds that may grow in the right environment. The most powerful and sustainable activism is accomplished collectively. I only have the platform that I do because other activists before me laid the groundwork. The work of yet others still allows those seeds to take root, propagate, and grow.

Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have read this blog. They might retain a little seed of an idea about what ableism is. The next time they see an inaccessible space or a microaggression, they may question it. I’ll always wonder whether I’m doing enough. But when I take yet another sip of Irish breakfast tea, I’m reminded that I’m doing my small part in the collective fight against ableism.

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