Community Conversations with Leah Kelley, Ed.D

oin us for our latest Community Conversation with Leah Kelley, Ed.D. This conversation is aimed at teachers, parents and others interested in disability inclusion in our community!

Leah Kelley is a captivating storyteller, who invites participants to consider how the way we view disability shapes our practice. She weaves her lived-experience as an educator and researcher who identifies as disabled, and parent of an Autistic son (now an adult), with the ideas of disability studies, exploring how we might engage and navigate conversations about practice and pedagogy and ways of seeing and considering disability as a part of the full range of human experience. The influence of ableism, the importance of the language we use, and various models of disability (Medical Model, Social Model, Identity or Pride Mode, and Human Rights Model) will be explored and discussed as these inherently shape our approach, understanding, and response to people with disabilities. As educators working with students with disabilities/disabled students, or families/parents of children with disabilities/disabled children, we have the opportunity to guide and support students in embracing pride, cultivating advocacy and self-understanding, and welcoming students as being fully and perfectly who they are, in this moment… and then we build from there.