As Sure Would starts to take shape, these are some of the sources that influence our decisions:
Naturally, we will add to this list as we go, but this is enough to at least get the site up and running.
“In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”
— Dioum, B. (1968) Paper presented at the General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources [IUCN] , New Delhi. Seattle Public Library Archive
“Grounded in empathic education and the concept of rightful presence, this study moved beyond dominant inclusion paradigms, such as the inequitable host-guest ‘hospitality’ relationship; crucially, the study design prioritized equitable communication access, ensuring that all participants’ stories were treated with equal reverence.
This qualitative study investigated the impact of an expansively designed Unified Robotics program on perceptions of three self-determination needs – competence (effective performance), relatedness (belonging and social engagement), and autonomy (equitable decision-making access) – among Autistic students, students with intellectual dis/abilities, and general education students. The study was enriched by an examination of parent perceptions of those same values in their children. Pre- and post-season interviews probed students’ perceptions, while field observations provided additional data on students’ self-determination expressions. The study also appraised perceptions of benefits and costs associated with participation in the intervention across all participants.
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This research highlights the transformative potential of empathic, expansively designed programs in fostering self-determination and rightful presence for all learners. It challenges traditional, dominant inclusion paradigms and emphasizes the importance of equitable, supportive educational environments for all students.”
“Prioritizing mothers’ observations of their disabled children’s lived experiences in special education offers us a crucial point of contact to check the pulse of a system upon which vulnerable children rely. Through my interviews with twenty-four mothers with children involved in special education across seven Oregon school districts, I sought to take that pulse and found it faltering. In my analysis, I put mothers’ perceptions of special education and resource scarcity in conversation with student exclusion and institutional harm. My findings suggest that mothers confront and hold up an underfunded and poorly implemented special education system that does not meet their children’s needs. Despite the rhetoric of inclusion, the current implementation of special education in these districts leads to student exclusion and other institutional harms, putting disabled children’s personhood at risk. These mothers are laboring in schools alongside staff to minimize harm and ensure inclusion and educational access for their children. Their stories reveal how special education relies on the invisible, unpaid, and devalued labor that they invest. The absence of other options combines with the fact that their children’s wellbeing is at stake, making maternal labor in special education compulsory. Compulsory labor is a reliably extractable resource that can offset resource scarcity in special education — propping up the system just enough to keep it going. Mothers are the tourniquet on a system that is bleeding out. It is common knowledge that a tourniquet is not a long-term solution; nevertheless, these mothers’ stories show how special education relies upon one as it struggles to serve and support students in the context of resource scarcity. Furthermore, this systemic reliance on unpaid maternal labor as their last resort reproduces the inequity, inadequacy, and inhumanity of a special education system where ableism is the starting point, and discrimination is rendered acceptable by the letter of the law. “
Russ Finch has a geothermal greenhouse. Kirsten Dirksen made a documentary.
The Contact Hypothesis suggests that exposure can reduce prejudice. Living library projects help to make such contact accessible by facilitating conversations for people whose experience with others might otherwise remain limited.
This notion falls under a much broader umbrella in which many familiarization projects exist, such as a musical instrument petting zoo. We would like Sure Would Forest to be a place where people can become more familiar with a wide variety of environments, tools, activities, and people.
No one should have to hide their divergence from the dominant paradigm.