Case Study 2: Experiences with Mentoring

Note: For this case study, I will be speaking from lived experience.

Returning to education has forced me to reexamine many aspects of learning. Particularly in regards to identity, before I was a teacher and now I am a student. I am also a student of colour. And a queer student too! There is one area, however, I have struggled to identify with: I am a disabled student.

At university, the first time round, I received accommodations such as extra time on assignments. My contact with UAL Disability Services was short and sweet: I got some time off and a bit of sympathy if I emailed in sick to my lecturers. This time I was also offered something new to me: specialist mentoring.

Supplied by Randstad, these mentors provide individualised student-led advice and support. They are not counsellors or health care workers. (‘Student Support | Randstad UK’, 2021.) My initial reaction to the idea of mentoring was, ‘Do I look like I need help?’ I have always thought of myself as very capable, this was a service for someone else and not me.

I also worried about ‘wasting’ the limited time available to me, I work as a lecturer, a freelance illustrator, and have a part-time job as a dog walker on top of everything.

At first, I only consented to a session out of academic curiosity. I wanted to know what resources my students had access to so that I could give an informed recommendation.

My first session was an overview of what makes studying difficult for me, particularly in relation to my long term illness. My mentor and I spoke at length and in detail, as I described my circumstances, I made a series of realisations:

First, all my life I have been praised for persevering through the pain my illness causes. When I grit my teeth I am described as ‘strong’ and ‘resilient’ for ‘fighting’ my disability. (Combative phrasing that suggests at the end of the day there will be a winner and loser.) I have received negative feedback when advocating for my body. Rest is laziness, self-advocacy is inconvenient, boundaries are stubbornness. 

Secondly, while I intellectually understood the social model versus the medical model, I did not apply the same logic to my own disability. Barbara Lisicki, a disabled comedian, describes the model as:

Disability is created by physical, organisational and attitudinal barriers and these can be changed and eliminated.

‘The Social Model of Disability Factsheet’, Inclusion London, 2013. 

I viewed my body the barrier to study. Accepting it for what it is and treating my body with care – not kicking it’s butt in hand to hand combat – would be far kinder. I needed to deconstruct my internalised ableism.

UAL’s Disability Service follows the social model too, which is why I was able to receive mentoring at no cost. The mentoring sessions have been truly eye opening. We speak holistically and don’t compartmentalise. It has made a noticeable shift in my attitude towards my disability and my studies.

Many of my students will have gone through this same process. I will recommend mentoring to my students with disabilities and I would like to, where appropriate, share my personal experience with them.

I would like to leave you with this quote below from Thomas Shakespeare, a sociologist with achondroplasia:

When it comes to disability, patient empowerment can be beautiful. I notice how people sit differently after I explain to them that many of their problems are down to social barriers, not the disability itself. They leave the room differently from how they entered because of the power of this understanding of disability.

‘Recognising Lived Experience Is Essential to Empowering Disabled Patients’, 2022.