Thread by @christapeterso

trying a thing this term where I tell my students how I will help them if they're floundering with missing papers instead of just how I will punish them

I think most of the students that miss major assignments and then stop responding to emails and fall of the earth are struggling with mental health or executive function disability stuff and the time to reach out to them is before it happens bc after they r avoiding their emails

I failed out of college the first time bc of not turning in papers because my brain doesn't work right! I didn't talk to professors bc idk it's not like anyone had policies that seemed open to it so I felt like I'd have to really EXPLAIN myself but I didn't understand myself! :(

When I became a TA and realized that rather than my baby self being world's weirdest girl this is a thing that happens basically every term that academia just is like🤷‍♀️about I had some feelings! I think even just knowing this was a THING could have made a big difference for me.

Many of those papers I never submitted I in fact had something that, from my perspective now, I could absolutely give a student a passing grade on if they just turned it in but I just was totally spinning my wheels trying to wrap it up bc of how ADHD works.

Working on my disability statement. It's a little long now, but I think typical university provided ones are insufficient in a lot of ways—like university disability stuff generally, they're normally aimed at legal compliance instead of really reaching & helping disabled students

Some of my concerns with my school's required statement, which is pretty typical. Many students that would qualify for accommodations of course don't automatically know that, and accessibility for them also means giving them the information they need!