Jar of Whimsy

content & contemplation

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Huge thanks to @thenib for having me make this comic! If Tumblr’s resizing makes parts illegible, you can also read the nicer original version over on The Nib’s website: “Fatness, Femininity, and the Media We Deserve”

[bigfatscience]

Representation matters.

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Moana masterpost

SO! I’ve been talking to my uncle about Moana. My uncle is a professor at a college in Hawai’i, and let’s just say he has really extensive knowledge on South Pacific culture (he has his phD in this stuff folks). He literally breathes and lives for talking about South Pacific culture, and so naturally I automatically trust his knowledge/word, and these are some of the things we’ve discussed. I’ve been asking him a lot of questions, and in my haste of being really guarded towards this franchise, I’ve made errors on a lot of things from this post. So here is an updated version! It’s really really long, so I’ll put it under a read more!

Keep reading

[reservoircat]

With nearly 20% of Americans experiencing disability in their lifetimes, it becomes essential for the classroom teacher to properly create an authentic, inclusive understanding of disability in their students’ minds. Despite strides made in disability rights, many children’s books, especially the classical canon of children’s literature, still express problematic and harmful views of disability. Much of the literature available posits disability as a punishment or a tragedy, something to be cured or overcome in order to gain acceptance. This inauthentic, harmful view of disability is unacceptable in the modern classroom. This study proposes to analyze students’ and educators’ biases and prejudices surrounding disabilities. It intends to confront these prejudices by creating an understanding of what is and what isn’t acceptable treatments of disability in fiction and nonfiction texts, through interviews, rubrics, and observations. By this change to disability portrayal in the media of the classroom, change will also begin in the schema of both educators and students with regards to disability.

My thesis proposal stood! For anyone who wants to read thirty some odd pages about disability as it relates to children’s media, I’ve made the full thing freely available ^^

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Ooh! Exciting! 

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CREATURE LAB is back! 

This is one of the art classes I teach for kids. 

Creature Lab After a season away, bailey is so excited to be bringing Creature Lab back! Get ready for nine more weeks of stories and silliness! Combining excellent picture books, open-ended art projects, and a spirit of play and delight, this class gives children a space to unleash their imaginations and explore their artistic and theatrical whims. Drawing inspiration from everyday objects and encouraging collaboration, Creature Lab nurtures resourcefulness, empathy, and humor. Each Thursday students will get to create and bring to life a new creature - from sock puppets to robots, monsters to faeries to otherworldly beings yet to be imagined. The Creature Lab philosophy is: 1. No Creature is Perfect, 2. All Creatures are Different, and 3. Every Creature is Good at Something.

[A photo of “Moray,” a popular sock-puppet character from an early season of creature lab. Moray is a worried creature, with large google eyes, fluffy blue eyebrows, and a concerned frown].

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on looking “weird”

Such a cool thing about being disability-positive and working with kids is that once the taboo is lifted and they know you’re Disabled and fine with talking about it, some kids bring it up all the time in conversation. Which could definitely be annoying but I happen to find it SO fascinating. I babysit the same two kids (two and seven) three days a week in the mornings before school, and I’m learning so much from them via casual whimsical chats. The big kid is particularly full of curiosity about Disability, which I find endearing and compelling. I think it surprises her that I talk about my disability so casually, and recently she’s into wondering aloud whether any odd or unusual-looking thing has a disability and then side-eying me to catch my reaction. (I have a physical disability which causes me to have a smallish stature, double-jointed elbows, occasional limp, and overall kind of a quirky appearance which we have discussed a little bit). I haven’t been sure how to unfold that conversation when she mentions it in this way so today I gave it a shot:

“Hey this pancake mix looks weird! Maybe it has a ✨disability!✨” “That’s so interesting! Disability is for alive creatures but we do personify things a lot when we’re together. Why do you say it might have a disability?” “Oh I don’t know.” “Do you think people look weird when they have a disability?” “Uh um I dunno, but *you* certainly don’t look weird!” “Well, it does make me look different, which some people find weird. It’s not bad to look weird. But there are also invisible disabilities that don’t even affect the way people look.” “Oh yeah!” “Hey by the way am I the first disabled person you’ve ever met?” “Yeah.” “Haha cool, what an honor. Or guess I should say the first person whose disability you *know* about.” “Yeah because some people have invisible disabilities, right?”

There’s so much complexity to each of these interactions, and I always walk away from them wondering how I could’ve handled them better. One thing that I feel reassured by is that I have an ongoing relationship with this kid, meaning we get to have conversations about disability all the time as a casual part of our weekly interactions, ranging in nuance and humor and tone and style. Which honestly might be one of the most effective ways for me to help shape someone’s ideology about Disability. At least for now. (Some day I want to influence the masses via rad kid-lit and children’s media, but I’m not quite there yet!)

It interests me that she was quick to point out that my disability doesn’t make *ME* look weird, (even though objectively it kind of does, to some degree). I wonder if it has to do with her knowing me, so my appearance genuinely doesn’t seem weird to her, or if it has to do with her realizing that being “weird-looking” is stigmatized and not wanting to hurt my feelings. I’m curious about this little tangle around stigma, appearance, and weirdness. I say “It’s not bad to look weird,” which is an echo of another thing I always say around kids: “ahh, it’s good to be weird!” Because I think both are true. But I also don’t want the kids I work with going around telling disabled people “HEY! You look weird! But it’s not bad to look weird, y’know!” I want to influence their aesthetic by de-stigmatizing weirdness and difference, (I love it when I get to see that influence in action, like when they make a doodle and revel in its imperfections and asymmetries). But I also understand that all of that doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and that they could possibly really hurt someone by throwing around “weirdness” with the same casual nature that I treat it with. I’m not sure what the right way to handle this is, but I’m learning and refining all the time.

Basically what I want to figure out how to say in a kid-friendly way is:

It’s not bad to look weird and not weird to look bad [thinking about Mia Mingus’ Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability], but if you say someone looks weird or bad they might feel mad or sad because the idea of “normal” is a powerful story that can hurt a lot of people who don’t fit into it, so it’s important to be sensitive and respectful about people’s bodies (honestly, maybe better not to comment on people’s appearances? But then that further stigmatizes it so I don’t even know), while also celebrating that bodies are weird and different and complex and amazing! Basically, a person’s value has nothing to do with how they look or how they move or what their ability or disability is or how “normal” they are because the idea of “normal” is pretty much a made-up thing anyway.

Hmm. Feeling like there’s a long way to go for me in untangling this one and smoothing it into an interaction I feel good about. But it’s a start! 

weirdos & wallows, 

bailey blue 

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Children’s literature can be an important playground for kids to think critically and conceive of a better world. Kitty Webster explores what’s out there for little rebels to read

I agree that diversely depicted human beings are *super important* and should be prioritized more and also that there are some incredibly helpful ways of reaching people with allegorical animals and fantasy creatures. Sort of in the way that puppets offer different possibilities and modalities than human bodies, doesn’t mean one should replace the other. Lots to think about! 

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Definitely not free of problematics - this article lends some history and insight into Dr. Seuss’ anti-war and political ideologies and also acknowledges his own racism. Not a fan of the ableist “anti-crazy” phrase but glad to learn more about Dr. Seuss as a mega force in the field of kid-lit. Wanting to educate myself and gather ideas and inspiration in creating whimsical content that is also subversive and radical. 

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when kids are jealous of my sweet wheels

As a wheelchair-user working with young kids, one of the trickiest things about engaging non-disabled children in a disability-positive way is navigating the common response they have that they wish *they* could use a wheelchair too. A lot of disabled people I know find this annoying, which is totally understandable. (LOOK KID, don’t you know how frustrating it is to try and move through this absurdly inaccessible world on wheels?!). But I actually find it rather endearing, because it tells me is that this child finds me and my wheels approachable, interesting, and unintimidating - even that they want to be like me in some way. This can unfold in problematic ways, I want to unpack that more at some point in other posts. But I also think it is a unique opportunity to shape how people feel about disability. 

In these moments, I feel a lot of pressure and tension in trying to stay positive about disability while also acknowledging that my wheelchair is a tool, not a toy, and that being disabled in an ableist world is not a walk in the park (literally nor figuratively). For me, it’s a top-priority to train non-disabled kids out of a pity-response or a feeling of negativity about disability, and *then* to give them a more nuanced and complex understanding of disability. Anyway this particular wheelchair-envy came up recently with a seven-year-old I work with and I’m always looking for ways to refine and improve my approach to these conversations. Here’s what I’m working on right now: 

[I’m a part-time wheelchair user and I brought it to work on this particular day because I had a stress-fracture in one of my legs, and she’s sulking a bit that she doesn’t get to ride around in my chair, after I let her sit in it for a minute to feel it out]

- So you like my wheelchair?

- Yes, I wish *I* had one!

- Yeah I can see that! Why do you want to have a wheelchair?

- Because it seems really fun! 

- Uh huh. What seems fun about it?

- It just seems fun to ride around on wheels.

- I agree, and I’m so glad that you can ride around on wheels when you ride your bike or scooter or rollerblades. I bet that’s really fun too!

- It’s not the same though. 

- What’s different about it?

- I don’t know, you just don’t get to do it all the time.

- I think I see what you mean. Are you saying that things are really fun when they’re new and different?

- Yeah!

- I agree! My wheelchair is fun to me sometimes, but it’s not new and different anymore because it’s just a normal part of how my body moves. I imagine that walking is probably not that exciting to you anymore because it’s a normal part of how *your* body moves. So if you used a wheelchair *all* the time, it might seem less fun because it’s a normal part of you. In fact, the world is not very accessible, which makes it hard to get around in a wheelchair sometimes, so that can even be the opposite of fun! 

But even though you’re used to your body and it’s normal to you, I bet it still feels fun sometimes to run really fast or do somersaults, right? Those are things that my body doesn’t do. But it does feel fun to ride down hills on my wheelchair sometimes or glide around on a smooth floor. Wheelchairs *are* fun and cool, but it’s also good to remember that they are a tool, not a toy. For a wheelchair-user, their chair is a part of their body, and we already know how important it is to respect people’s bodies! Just like you wouldn’t sit on your friends arm or grab their legs while they’re trying to walk, you don’t want to sit on your friend’s wheelchair or push them around without asking. But you probably already know a lot of this, because you’re so great at being a respectful person and a good friend!

Like I said, my #disabledagenda is #1. No Pity and #2. Nuance. In my work with children it is also important to me to recognize that they soak up a lot of society’s isms without it being their fault. Kids, while often so much more open-minded and open-hearted than adults, do still absorb a lot of problematic attitudes toward other humans, often before adults even get a chance figure out how to address it. It happens so fast. But I want to be sensitive in my approach to this because kids pick up on adult discomfort *so* easily, and if they’re feeling shamed for asking questions, being curious, messing up before they can wrap their heads around the dynamics of what’s even going on, I’m worried they’re going to internalize that taboo and it’s gonna be harder to engage them on these things as adults. 

I feel like I should reiterate that it is *not your job* as a wheelchair-user to think about this stuff or follow this script or write your own or educate non-disabled people or explain things to everyone. It is a lot of labor. But, recognizing that a lot of us are doing this labor anyway, I want to share how I am doing it in case it is helpful and *also* because I want to learn how to do it better. 

wheels & feels,

bailey blue