Resistance through Reflexivity

Since its inception, public education has served the purpose of replicating cultural norms, including assumptions of normalcy and technical rationality rooted in a pathology paradigm. Teacher-educators are integral to interrupting and/or perpetuating this cycle in higher education and in the classrooms teacher candidates (TCs) will facilitate. This study explores the implications and possibilities that can emerge when thinking and practice reflect the neurodiversity paradigm instead. Using S-STEP methodology, three teacher-educators— including two neurominorities—in a collective critical inquiry examine (a) their practices and experiences enacting a pedagogy of care rooted in UDL and the neurodiversity paradigm and (b) impacts of their shifting practices on—and because of—teacher candidates (TCs). Findings reveal deep learning through alignment of theory and practice, collaborative unlearning of normalcy limitations, and reframing & enacting of post-normality orientations for teacher-educators and TCs. The paper concludes with a call to action, inspired by the transformation we witnessed in ourselves and our students through this work.