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How to dissent. A guide (or companion)

Radikales Desadaptadas Collective. Octaedro Editorial.

Original title: How to dissent. A guide (or companion). First edition in Spanish: May 2024.

Authorship of the text: Radikales Desadaptadas Collective, composed of Leticia Barbadillo, Ignacio Calderón, Alejandro Calleja, Marta Casal, Concha Casasnovas, Susana Fajardo, María Luisa Fernández, Sandra Fernández, María José G. Corell, Sonia Hermida, Belén Jurado, Luz Mojtar, Carmen Moreno, Carmen Saavedra, Fernanda Valdés, and Paula Verde.

Image authorship: Paula Verde.
Inclusive Education. To want it is to create ithttps://creemoseducacioninclusiva.com/

All texts in this book carry the following license, unless otherwise specified: This publication is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License. You can consult the terms of this license by accessing: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This document is part of the R&D&I projects “Emerging Narratives on Inclusive Schooling from the Social Model of Disability. Resistance, Resilience, and Social Change” (RTI2018-099218-A-I00) and “Emerging Narratives for the Construction of Inclusive Schools” (PID2022-140193OB-I00), funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

ISBN: 978-84-10282-22-3. Ediciones OCTAEDRO, S.L.. Bailén Street, 5 – 08010 Barcelona. Telephone: 93 246 40 02. Email: octaedro@octaedro.com – www.octaedro.com.Open Access publication.

Index

  • Who creates this guide 
  • Introduction  
  • Steps 
    • Identify the situation
    • Offer alternatives and solutions
    • Inform yourself and gather documentation
    • Prepare yourself emotionally
    • Seek alliances
    • Resort to higher authorities
    • Document the process
    • Public denunciation
    • Evaluate the results (and consequences)
    • Add your name
  • Advice
  • Resources

Who created this guide

All the members of the Radikales Desadaptadas group have participated in the preparation, design, and creation of this guide in countless different ways. Each and every person in this collective is a family member of people with functional diversity and has had to exercise different forms of dissent on hundreds of occasions to fight for a more equitable and inclusive society.

Alejandro Calleja, Belén Jurado, Carmen Moreno, Carmen Saavedra, Concha Casasnovas, Fernanda Valdés, Ignacio Calderón, Leticia Barbadillo, María José G. Corell, María Luisa Fernández, Marta Casal, Paula Verde, Sandra Fernández, Sonia Hermida, and Susana Fajardo are mothers, fathers, or siblings of people labeled by disability, but also professionals in education, cultural management, healthcare, and other sectors who have contributed their diverse personal and professional experiences, as well as their perspectives and ways of being in the world, to this project.

All of them, through dissent, have opened, as they have often done, alternative paths to guide their daughters, sons, and siblings through the education system and in their daily lives, in a society that is still far from inclusive. They have achieved this through their small barricades, using both administrative and judicial channels, their online spaces through blogs and social media, but also through their perspectives and their daily activism on a small or large scale (from a conversation at the school gate to a network of demonstrations or complaints in the media).

Activism for equity, educational inclusion, and the rights of people labeled with disabilities has been the link that has united this group, which with this guide shares its experiences by raising its voice against all kinds of injustices: those that seem minuscule but end up suffocating us in our daily lives, those that make school an inhospitable place, those that relegate humanity to the background and sometimes hit us with full force. Because to dissent is a verb that all people in this group have conjugated on multiple occasions, aware that all human, social, economic, and cultural rights have always been won through dissent.

Introduction

We live in a world that praises consensus. We sanctify agreement and strive to achieve understanding in all areas: from the neighborhood council to labor legislation reform. As a consequence, we reject disagreement and detest dissent. And yet, dissent has been prohibited by all dictatorships, regardless of their nature. In totalitarian regimes, dissent has been punished, persecuted, and eliminated.

It is often stated that for a democracy to function, it is essential for the opposition to be strong and for its work to be as important as that of the government itself. Those who do not feel challenged tend to abuse power. And power tends to favor the privileged group. The entire social, political, and economic ecosystem will be woven around the interests of that group. Therefore, for minority groups, when not directly oppressed, dissent is the only path to achieving rights. And perhaps this is also the reason for the bad reputation of disagreeing, of dissent, of dissidence.

Dissent is the engine of social change and the conquest of rights. It questions the established order, the “it has always been done this way,” and, above all, the oppression that is normalized over certain groups discriminated against for reasons of sex, ethnicity, functionality, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic.

The dissent of many women who were deemed mad (and, as such, imprisoned or confined to psychiatric institutions) allows many of us who have come after to make decisions and take actions unthinkable in their time. The dissent of Gandhiled 500 million people to independence from colonial rule. Rosa Parks refused to comply with the law that forced her to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger and ignited one of the flames of the African American civil rights movement. Shortly after and on another continent, the dissent of Nelson Mandela against the South African apartheid regime led him to be convicted of terrorism and live imprisoned for almost three decades. In Stonewall, a group of people who dissented about whom they should love ignited a rainbow that millions of people have held onto ever since, people who, historically humiliated, now display the pride of being who they are. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo took up the mantle of dissent from their disappeared daughters and sons. In the Swat Valley, a fifteen-year-old girl named Malala was shot three times for disagreeing with the ban that prevented girls in her country from attending school.

May ’68, the Prague Spring, the Tiananmen protests, ‘No to war’, Nunca Máis, LGBTQI+ Pride, the feminist March 8th, the 15M Movement, the social outbreak in Chile, the Black Lives Matter movement, or the recent rejection of mandatory veil laws in Iran… are all movements led by people who dissented and challenged the established order.

Social and rights conquests bear the signature of thousands of individuals and groups who have dissented. And yet, disagreement continues to have an enormously negative connotation in our society.

Possibly, the fear of disagreeing within the group stems from our ancestors and from a time when collaborating and reaching agreements had evolutionary benefits for humans. We come from living in herds in hostile environments, where being rejected by the group jeopardized survival. As with so many other issues, our social, habitat, and custom changes have been faster than our biology. And just as our bodies have not learned to feel the anxiety and stress that in the past could save our lives in a different way, neither have our societies learned to reposition disagreement within the group.

Agreeing with the majority has benefited us as a species. However, blind, unquestioning obedience has also led human beings to commit atrocities. We should find a balance and understand that disagreeing is not an attack, but a way for us to stop and think, as a group, if we are doing the right thing and heading in the right direction.

Both the collective that authored this guide and its potential readers live in a society where it seems easy to disagree. But that climate of freedom is not entirely real. A single, more or less dominant thought or ideology usually prevails, even though the tolerated variations of that official thinking lead us to believe we enjoy the freedom to disagree. Having that freedom guaranteed does not ensure that we can exercise dissent, nor that it will lead to real results and changes.

Furthermore, dissent within a small community (company, organization, family) is almost always more difficult to put into practice. The closer the group, the greater its capacity for pressure and the more it is expected that everyone will move in the same direction. This is especially true within an educational community, within the school.

School is not a place that welcomes dissent well. This often makes it resemble a totalitarian regime more than a democracy. Dissent is punished, persecuted, and eliminated in very subtle ways.

This guide aims to highlight the value of dissent and the need for disagreement within schools. Those of us who participated in its creation have experience in dissenting within its walls. We are a group made up of families and professionals, and our dissent has arisen from the violation of the rights of our family members or our students within the education system. We intend for this text to serve as a guide for dissent among the three sectors that make up the school: teaching staff, families, and students.

Dissenting teachers need confidence in what they are doing differently and the courage not to hide their disagreement with things that are not done as they should be. Families need knowledge to support their dissent and “legitimized” allies to back their demands. Students need examples of dissent and to conceive of the possibility of disagreeing in an environment that often provokes obedience and submission. We will try to unite all these needs into a single strategy that serves everyone.

But above all, we would like it to be understood that conflict can also be positive for the entire school ecosystem. That disagreeing is not equivalent to attacking, but rather to claiming rights that may be being violated or to pointing out the need for changes that help improve the learning and care that the school should offer.


Asch Experiment and Solomon Syndrome

In 1951, the pioneering social psychology researcher Solomon Asch conducted an experiment on group conformity. Or, what would be the same: on the fear of disagreeing. This experiment demonstrated how the environment and social pressure influence human behavior and can voluntarily lead people to make mistakes.

In Asch’s experiment, participants were told they were going to be part of a vision test and were shown a card with a line printed on it. Then, they were shown another card with three lines on it. They were asked to indicate which of the lines on the second card (a, b, c) was the same as the one on the first. In reality, within each group, there was only one real participant, as the rest of the people in it were in cahoots with the researcher. Although the solution was very obvious, the accomplices gave wrong answers, as they had agreed with the experiment conductor. The real subjects of the study had to give their answer after listening to the others.

While in the control group (without accomplices with the researcher), the error rate was less than 1%, in the experiment it reached 37%. 75% of the participants ended up giving incorrect answers at least once, and only 25% always gave the correct answer. The experiment demonstrated that group pressure led to wrong decisions even when it was evident that they were contrary to reality and common sense.

The fear of a person to stand out or disagree within the group for fear of rejection has been dubbed the Solomon syndrome. The subject would discard their own ideas and decisions and opt to think or do the same as the group. They would not dissent.

It is urgent to teach our children, boys and girls, to dissent. Because the opposite of dissenting is consenting, and we should prepare them not to consent to situations, facts, or actions they disagree with, that cause them pain, or even violate them. Teaching to dissent means valuing one’s own judgment at ages when peer pressure carries so much weight and can lead them to situations they don’t really want, with which they don’t feel comfortable, or that could harm them. We must teach them to say “I don’t.” And that, exactly, is what dissenting is.

Ultimately, the goal of this guide is to provide guidance on dissenting to anyone who needs to exercise it. But we are aware that dissent cannot be successful if those in power do not open themselves to listening to those who disagree in order to build a better school together. A school that does not accept injustice and that defends the rights of all. So this guide on “How to Dissent” should be complemented by another that could well be titled “How to Receive Challenges to My Work,” “How to Listen,” or “How to Question Myself if I Cause Suffering.”

Dissenting that saves lives

In the mid-19th century, the death rates among mothers due to puerperal fever (known as “childbed fever”) were terrifying. Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician working in a maternity hospital in Vienna with two delivery rooms. In Clinic 1, attended by obstetricians and medical students, mortality was up to five times higher than in Clinic 2, attended by midwives and nursing students. Semmelweis investigated the possible cause and discovered that the only difference was that the students in the first clinic attended births after attending classes in the autopsy room, practices that the aspiring midwives did not perform. He thus established a connection between cadaveric contamination and puerperal fever, and proposed thorough handwashing before attending to mothers to reduce the enormous mortality rate in that room.

When he presented this discovery to his colleagues, his ideas were not only rejected, but their author was branded as crazy. At the root of it lay the accusation that these doctors were responsible for the deaths of their patients. A deep depression caused by this public denigration and dismissal from the hospital eventually led Semmelweis to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he died at the age of 47 as a result of a beating by one of the guards. We could say that dissent led Dr. Semmelweis to a premature death, but he saved the lives of millions of women when his theories were later reviewed and accepted.

Those who did not dissent were the cabin assistants on United Airlines flight 173, which took off on December 28, 1978, from Denver Airport with 190 people on board. As they approached their destination in Portland, a problem occurred with the landing gear. For an hour, they flew in circles preparing for a possible emergency landing. The captain’s full attention was focused on the detected problem, and with it, that of the other two crew members, who did not realize that they were running out of fuel. And if they did, they did not want to dissent in order not to worry the authority, or they did not do so with enough force for it to take their warnings seriously. The result was 10 deaths and 21 serious injuries.

Following this accident, a training process for flight cabin personnel was initiated to improve coordination among its members, communicate more effectively, and reduce the captain’s errors. Airlines implemented a crew resource management (CRM) protocol that introduced improvements in interpersonal communication, which were intended to prevent hierarchy from hindering (either due to the fear imposed by professional distance or self-doubt) the contradiction of the highest authority in the cabin when errors were detected. Dissent on airplanes was officially established as a way to save lives.

Steps

  1. Identify the situation
  2. Offer alternatives and solutions
  3. Inform yourself and gather documentation 36
  4. Prepare yourself emotionally 42
  5. Seek alliances
  6. Resort to higher authorities
  7. Document the process
  8. Public denunciation
  9. Evaluate the results (and consequences)
  10. Add your name

Step 1. Identify the situation

Identify and isolate those practices or situations that make you uncomfortable. Try to understand the origin of those processes that cause you discomfort. It is okay to question whether you are right or not in wanting to change or reverse a certain situation, but never lose sight of the fact that other people also make mistakes, have prejudices, or get carried away by inertia. The process of dissent begins when we feel legitimized to at least doubt and want to know the reasons for actions that do not convince us.

If there are several situations, we must order them and prioritize their importance. Ideally, we would resolve everything at once, but it is better to choose one or two non-negotiable goals and invest all our time and energy in them.

Andrea’s Story

Andrea is a student with autism who does not have verbal language. Her family has no information about how her day goes at the school, how many hours she spends in the special classroom, which classes in the reference classroom she attends, what tasks/activities she does, who she interacts with, what she plays, who she sits with in the dining hall… Absolutely nothing. The agenda returns home blank every day. And every day, when Elena, her mother, picks her up at the school entrance and asks the person in charge of handing over the agenda how the day went, they always answer with a simple “fine.” Nothing more.

Furthermore, Andrea does not participate in the outings made by her reference class and sometimes not even in those of the specific classroom. Elena finds out about these excursions by chance and from comments she overhears from other mothers and fathers or children at the school gate.

Elena notices that almost every week some item from the materials her daughter takes to class in her pencil case goes missing. One day it’s an eraser shaped like a strawberry, another a glitter marker, another a pen her cousin brought her from Eurodisney… Her daughter cannot explain why they are missing.

On many of the days Elena goes to pick up her daughter, she notices the nudges, whispers, and stifled laughter from a group of girls in Andrea’s grade as they pass by. Elena wonders what happens and how those girls act within the school walls. Andrea cannot tell her anything.

Several problems have been raised, and Andrea’s family decides to prioritize the issue of communication with the school, as it would resolve several of the detected situations that cause them concern, pain, and unease.

Miguel’s Story

Miguel starts the school year as a History teacher at a new Secondary Education center. Among his 2nd B students is Gael, a boy diagnosed with fragile X syndrome. The administration warns Miguel that for the first few weeks, they will not have the special education specialist they requested for this student. Miguel comes from a school where diversity of all kinds was present in the classrooms, and he doesn’t see Gael’s presence in his classes as a problem. In fact, he believes that the diversity of profiles among his former students enriched him as a teacher because it forced him to make his classes more flexible and dynamic. During those weeks, Gael is participatory in his classes: he is attentive, he is participating, he is learning.

When the PT arrives at the center, Gael stops being present in classes. He spends almost the entire day in a separate classroom with him. This doesn’t just happen in History classes, but in most subjects, except for Music, Art, and Physical Education.

Step 2. Offer solutions and alternatives

Look for ways to communicate with the other party and offer alternatives and possible solutions. Start with the easy part: even if you have everything prepared as if you were going to an audience in the Supreme Court, start the process as informally and kindly as possible. Request a meeting with the relevant person according to your situation at school (family, teacher, student). Try to frame what makes you uncomfortable as a question and sincerely try to understand why what is happening is happening. Cordiality is always desirable; make every effort to maintain it (in certain contexts it is difficult because any complaint is interpreted as a declaration of war), but do not allow it to become blackmail that forces you to give up defending your rights.

During these meetings, don’t be afraid to show the emotions the situation evokes in you: suffering in itself may not be an argument, but it’s important that those in charge are aware of the effects of their decisions.

Set your boundaries. It’s very likely that, due to your need for a situation to change, you’ll take on the responsibility of solving it personally if they allow you to. This is understandable, but it’s important to be aware that it’s not desirable. Your goodwill and collaboration (which are always welcome) should not become an excuse for individuals or structures to avoid their professional responsibilities. Always be available to facilitate, but without giving up on demanding that people take on their competencies in the matter and use the tools that they, as part of their professional work or the responsibility of their position, do have at their disposal.

If you’re lucky, it all ends here. Your dissent is not just opposition; you’ve shown your willingness to collaborate in offering solutions to the problem. If the other party is willing to listen, acknowledge the wrongness of the situation, and rectify it, the rest of the points in this guide would no longer be necessary.

Although many situations end up in point 2, as experience has unfortunately shown those of us who are creating this guide, this is not the norm but the exception. Follow the remaining six steps we propose in this document.

Andrea’s Story

Returning to the problem raised in the example from step 1, we propose improving communication through the student’s planner. Andrea’s father and mother request a meeting with her tutor, the Guidance Department, and the other individuals responsible for their daughter. They explain the situation and the need to know how Andrea’s life at school is going, the need for information.

by their family. It is most likely that their request will be heard and accepted, so they will allow a period of time to receive that information. If the situation is resolved, the conflict ends. But if that lack of information and communication persists, or only occurs in the first few days after the meeting and then gradually declines again, they will have to take other measures (steps 3 to 9).

Miguel’s Story

For his part, Miguel speaks with the PT to convey that Gael is one of his students and that he wants him to be in class with the rest of his classmates. He points out that both can participate in the educational process of this student and that he, as a specialist, can be in the classroom to help better address the diversity of students, including Gael.

Step 3. Inform yourself and gather information

Gather information about your rights and the legislation that supports them. You can find a selection of fundamental texts on the right to inclusive education in https://creemoseducacioninclusiva.com/defendemos/.

Inform yourself in depth about your rights as a professional, as a family, or as a student: locate all the regulations that may affect you (state, regional, from the school itself) and, if you have access, discuss your case with different professionals who can advise you.

Study and learn your reasons and arguments well. Prepare possible counterarguments that they might give you and rehearse responses. Look for alternatives and possible solutions, if possible with examples from places where they are implemented. Research. It may be useful to write everything down, organize it, and review it. Seek support: in the case of a family, if you are two adults in charge, always try to have both present for meetings and convey that communications are agreed upon; if you are a teacher, seek support from colleagues who may be in the same situation; and if it concerns a student, think about which other classmates your claim might benefit and who could support you.

Allow yourself to make mistakes. Don’t blame yourself for losing your temper in certain situations, for not having a key piece of information, for not mastering a deadline or procedure… You are a concerned mother or father, a professional committed to your work, or a young person wanting to defend their rights, not a professional robot of persuasion or administrative processes. Many things do not depend on you, and you will make mistakes. But in most cases, it is not your mistakes or successes that will determine a positive resolution of the situation. Ignorance, structural dynamics, and resistance to change are much more powerful than a single person, no matter how relentless they may be.

Miguel’s Story

Miguel’s conversation with the PT assigned to Gael does not have the outcome he was looking for. The PT rejects his proposal to enter the reference classroom because he believes that individual sessions with Gael are more effective if there is nothing and no one around to distract him.

Miguel then turns to the head of the Guidance Department, who also does not support him: Gael is better off working alone with the PT. She also claims that this student had shown “disruptive behaviors” during the previous school year that disrupted the course of classes, and for that reason the school had requested a preferred PT for him. Miguel notes that most of his classmates prefer Gael to be out of their classes and that the other students’ families also consider his presence in class detrimental.

Miguel suspects that these behaviors (which he has not shown with him during the first weeks of the course) may be due to the fact that the material and content of the classes are not adapted to Gael’s characteristics. He observes and records the hours Gael spends separately with the PT and confirms that the hours allowed by legislation for a student to spend outside the reference classroom are being far exceeded. He checks that the objectives and methodology specified in the curricular adaptations approved for Gael are also not being met.

Ángela’s Story

Ángela is an Early Childhood Education teacher who does not want to use workbooks but prefers to work on projects based on her students’ interests and curiosity, creating her own materials. This causes problems with the school administration, which disagrees with her decision and prefers all teachers in the cycle to use the same textbooks. Ángela refers to the legislation, which specifies the objectives and academic curriculum for the course she teaches, but in no way states that textbooks are mandatory.

Step 4. Prepare yourself emotionally

Prepare yourself for the unfortunate likelihood that you will have to hear many things that convey contempt for you or your claim, or face a complete lack of understanding and an immense sense of powerlessness.

Dissent causes enormous emotional wear and tear. It’s almost a physical issue. Neuroimaging experiments (Gregory Berns, 2010) have shown that when we dissent, our brains exhibit the same physical reactions as when we feel fear. MRI scans revealed that dissenters experienced stress responses in the amygdala (the brain region associated with processing emotions), reflecting the fear that comes from disagreeing with the group. Conversely, conformists showed lower levels of mental stress, as their brains consumed less energy and resources by taking the shortcut of following the herd rather than thinking for themselves.

When we feel fear, our brain pushes us to move away from the source of that fear. That’s why it’s easier to agree than to dissent. Dissent frightens us (physically and literally), and therefore we prefer the security of agreeing with the group – even knowing that the collective decision is wrong – over the risk of being alone with our certainty.

For all these reasons, we insist on the need to prepare ourselves emotionally.

Mind your tone. The goal is to dissent with respect and tolerance, with the desire that the changes and reforms we wish to promote help make the school a better place, one that knows how to welcome and care for everyone.

Often, we take so long to express our dissent that by the time we do, the emotional burden is so great that it prevents us from doing so calmly, instead leading us to express extreme emotions: pain, anger… These are legitimate and valuable emotions that must be channeled intelligently. We can build upon them, but we must avoid letting our tone invalidate our demands and detract from the reason for our dissent.

It is true that often our interlocutor may respond with a passive-aggressive attitude (one that allows for a position of privilege, one that can be afforded by those in power in that context), which is not socially interpreted as the violence it truly is and can lead us to react with our own overt aggression. So, becoming aware to avoid losing one’s temper and composure is part of this prior emotional preparation.

Andrea’s Story

Elena, Andrea’s mother, is labeled a “problematic” parent by the school administration due to her persistent demands. Communication channels with those responsible for her daughter during school hours are increasingly closed off. Furthermore, the conflict with those in power at the school leads other families to distance themselves from her and her family because they do not want to be singled out or perceived as supporting this family in a way that could affect their own children.

Miguel’s Story

Miguel speaks with Gael’s family to explain that their son’s rights are being violated. However, his parents also do not trust Gael’s ability to learn and believe it is better for him to continue separately with the PT, “doing his own thing.” Miguel realizes that he is up against the management team, the Guidance Department, almost the entire faculty, the students’ families, and Gael’s own family. He is aware that pursuing his claims with the entire educational community of the school against him will undermine his credibility when dissenting before the Inspectorate and other educational authorities. He will be completely alone in this fight, which will lead to loneliness and isolation. He must choose between the emotional pain this may cause him or the pain he already experiences from witnessing the injustice the school is inflicting on Gael.

Ángela’s Story

Ángela, the Early Childhood teacher, knows that her determination to implement a different teaching and learning model in the classroom will not only lead to a conflict with the school principal but will also likely turn part of the faculty against her: those colleagues who prefer to stick to the system’s inertia and see their practice threatened if other families start demanding Ángela’s methodology. And even those colleagues who understand and share her demands might not dare to oppose the management team. Ángela must prepare for the social isolation that her dissent within the school may bring.

Step 5. Seek alliances

Seek alliances and other people in your same situation. Dissent processes tend to be prolonged and exhausting. Seek both emotional support and formal allies. Find people you can confide your distress to without shame and with whom you can analyze your actions without fear. Locate those members of the educational community who may share your point of view and who, ideally, can explicitly join your defense. They are hard to find, because dissenting is profoundly uncomfortable and frightening (sometimes justifiably so), which is why we usually only do it – at least at first – when we have no other choice.

Andrea’s Story

Elena contacts an inclusive education advocacy association for advice and guidance in her claim to ensure her daughter’s right to education is met. They offer her legal advice to support her claims and provide her with official templates to initiate various procedures with the Administration.

Ángela’s Story

Ángela knows that there are other teachers in Early Childhood Education who would like to take the same step as her, but they don’t dare to because of the reservations this decision might raise among other colleagues in the faculty and even due to possible confrontations. Ángela begins to approach two colleagues to form a common front so that her decision carries more weight against the reluctance of the rest of the teachers. She also knows that the new leadership of the AMPA is more involved in pedagogical issues than the previous one and has set among its objectives to encourage changes in learning. Ángela meets with its Board of Directors and also with the representatives of the families who are part of the school’s School Council to present her educational project firsthand and gain their support.

Step 6. Resort to higher authorities if necessary

Do not be afraid to resort to higher authorities. Use all the formal channels and tools at your disposal. This is not an individual problem, but something that affects the entire school – as there may be other families, teachers, or students in the same situation, or there could be in the future – and the education system as a whole. Do not be afraid to resort to higher authorities (Management Team, Inspection, Ministry of Education) or to family representation bodies (AMPA, School Council). It is an important part of their function. Provide all the information you can so that they understand the importance of the demand, as it is very likely that they are not familiar with this specific issue. Provide all the documentation you have been collecting.

Ángela’s Story

Ángela (the early childhood teacher who doesn’t want to use textbooks) turns to the Educational Inspectorate to validate and support her decision before the School Directorate.

Irene’s Story

Irene is a 3rd-year ESO student who has been chosen as class representative. She is excited and motivated by this responsibility and has plans to improve the class situation. However, her tutor assigns her tasks that have little or nothing to do with that role and, moreover, are not included in the official school document that regulates this position.

Irene ends up becoming a sort of secretary for that teacher, and many of her duties lead her to be perceived as a kind of “collaborator” by her classmates, rather than someone who looks out for their interests. For example, Irene has to note down which classmates arrive late to class and quantify the delay, remind them about exams if the teacher forgets, the exercises they need to correct each day, or assignments that must be handed in.

Irene explains the situation to her mother, who tells her that she must resolve it herself. So, Irene decides to speak with the school principal, even though her classmates warn her that she will get into trouble. Surprisingly, the principal listens to her, agrees with her demands, and assures her that she will speak with the teacher so that she is assigned only and exclusively the duties she should perform as class representative.

Rubén’s Story

The new teacher of the 4th grade class where Rubén (a boy with Down syndrome) is enrolled rejects the presence of a student with his characteristics in the classroom. His rejection leads to neglect and mistreatment that progressively intensifies. Due to his characteristics, Rubén is unable to communicate the situation he is experiencing to his family, but they learn about it through the testimonies of his classmates, expressed by their parents. Rubén’s family informs the school administration of this situation. The administration not only sides with the teacher but also initiates proceedings to have Rubén transferred to a special education center.

Alejandro and Lucía, Rubén’s parents, refuse and opt for homeschooling before the transfer to a special center, while also appealing to various bodies such as the Provincial Directorate of Education or the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office. These bodies not only fail to help them resolve the situation but also initiate proceedings against them and report them for family abandonment due to their son being unenrolled. Rubén’s family then successively appeals to the High Court of Justice of their community, the Constitutional Court, and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, eventually reaching the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (you can read it here: https://bit.ly/3LSnB2d).

Step 7. Document the process

Document the entire process: log your requests, ask for minutes of meetings, request written communications, and if you feel it may be necessary, inform in advance that you will be recording conversations (remember that you do not have the right to disseminate them). What you are undertaking is a claims process, and it is important to formalize it to have guarantees that procedures are followed. These demands may be met with hostility and make you uncomfortable, but they are necessary. Think of them as a way to ensure that, even if everything is resolved positively and amicably, there is evidence, for the Administration and for others in similar situations, that there is much to improve in many places, that these may be structural issues, and not isolated cases.

Jaime’s Story

Jaime is an 8-year-old boy in 3rd grade. As the school year progresses, Sara and Damián notice that their son is increasingly unhappy about going to class and is suffering. They contact other families in the same classroom and find out that several other children are experiencing daily distress and feigning illnesses or discomfort to avoid going to school. The accounts of almost all the students in that class are consistent: the teacher constantly shouts, they have no relationship with him, he neglects to supervise tasks, shows complete apathy, and limits himself to the content and explanations in the textbook. But the worst part for everyone is the terrible classroom atmosphere. Punishments are frequent: children miss recess or receive notes for their families, threats of formal reprimands, and continuous admonishments. The families are desperate as they see their children losing the enthusiasm for school and learning that the group had shown until the previous year.

Several families try to address the situation individually through meetings with the teacher. Given the complete lack of results from these meetings, many families express their discontent to the school administration, both through phone conversations and written submissions with an official entry record. Finally, after months with no significant changes, Sara and Damián draft a letter, supported by the signatures of 90% of the families in the class, which they then submit through the official registry to the educational inspectorate. They accompany it with a list of the meetings held at the school and the written submissions presented there.

Step 8. Public complaint

Set yourself a time limit to see if the situation resolves after completing all the previous steps. If nothing changes, consider making the situation public through the media or social networks. It is painful, as well as tremendously unfair, to have to expose yourself publicly, but, unfortunately, it is often the most effective approach. Public pressure is sometimes the only sufficient motivation for certain individuals and structures to take responsibility. Even so, we insist that it is advisable to resort to this alternative as a last option, after exhausting the previous ones, and always preserving the dignity and privacy of the child.

Jacobo’s Story

Andrés is the father of Jacobo, a 6th-grade student who uses a wheelchair. During that final year of Primary school, he visits the center where his son will attend Secondary Education, which is the same one where his son’s classmates throughout his school life will enroll. The center has ramps and an elevator, but it does not have an adapted bathroom. So, Andrés meets with the Administration and the educational Inspectorate to request that the necessary renovations be carried out for the following school year. He regularly visits the center and confirms that the work has not started. The summer holidays are also not used to undertake them. The school year begins, and Jacobo’s family is forced to go to the institute throughout the morning to assist their son, as he needs to use an adapted bathroom in a building adjacent to the one where his aide (caregiver) cannot accompany him, as it is not part of the center’s facilities. Andrés continues to make claims to the Administration, the educational Inspectorate, and the Ministry of Education of his community. After six months, he manages to get the most important newspaper in his province to cover the story. Later, a radio station and several television channels also interview him and broadcast his complaint. Within a few days, the claim of Jacobo’s family goes viral on social media, and social pressure leads to the completion of the work that Andrés had requested from all possible instances and administrators for over a year.

Step 9. Evaluation of results (and consequences)

Analyze whether improvements have been made and review which specific actions may have helped resolve the situation for future claims or to assist other dissenters.

Otherwise, do not think that your effort has been in vain. It is possible that no matter how well you have dissented, no matter how much energy you have invested, no matter how much you have strived to conduct the process with kindness… the result is deeply unsatisfactory. Rest and think that these types of processes go far beyond their immediate effects. You don’t know if your claim will have opened a small crack for someone to start questioning their professional practice, or if it will have inspired another family to claim what they believe is fair. Perhaps, along the way, you yourself have discovered that you have more strength to face things than you thought, which helps you in another situation. Maybe none of that has happened, it’s true, because it takes many grains of sand to make a beach. And you have contributed yours.

Ángela’s Story

In the area where Ángela’s school is located, word has spread that there is a group of teachers doing things differently and outside of workbooks, and many teachers are requesting transfers to that school. Enrollment applications for the Early Childhood Education cycle are overflowing, and there are not enough spots for all the families who choose this school as their first option. Little by little, Ángela’s colleagues who do not wish to change their teaching methods end up requesting transfers to other schools where workbooks continue to be the backbone of learning. The principal retires, and one of the teachers who spearheaded the changes in Early Childhood Education along with Ángela takes over as the new principal. The school becomes a benchmark: students attend happily (which facilitates the learning process), staff are motivated (which facilitates the teaching process), and families are welcomed and become an active part of the school (which allows for the creation of a true educational community).

Irene’s Story

Irene partially resolves her particular situation: the tutor (given her refusal to do as demanded) decides to dismiss her from her position and replaces her with the deputy class representative who, unlike Irene, complies with the teacher’s demands without question. Irene’s dissent has not led to the situation being resolved justly, but it has strengthened Irene’s self-esteem, empowered her, and given her confidence that the school’s administration is open to listening to students’ demands. In fact, during that school year and the following ones, many classmates turn to her to raise various issues with the principal. Irene will meet with the principal regarding various demands from her class and as a representative of all the students in the school.

Jaime’s Story

Returning to the case of Jaime’s class tutor, whose practices and attitudes were reported to the educational inspectorate, the situation was resolved as follows: the inspector requested a report from the school’s administration, which turned out to be favorable to the teacher’s actions. Subsequently, the inspector suggested a meeting between the families, the tutor, and the administrative team. By that point in the school year, most families were already tired of the situation and, seeing no possibility of real dialogue with the tutor in the previous meetings, considered this potential encounter a waste of time. Finally, the meeting took place with the attendance of a small number of families. The response from the teacher and the administrative team was to directly attack a small group of children – including Jaime – labeling them as responsible for the existing unease in the classroom.

The families of those children present at the meeting were accused of instigating a conspiracy against the teacher, who, during that same meeting, threatened to report everyone who had supported the written complaint filed with the inspectorate. The teacher and the administrative team presented a united front, attacking the families, primarily Jaime’s parents, whom they considered the instigators of the entire process. This meant months of stress, sleepless nights, and continuous pressure for Sara and Damián. They felt that their dissent had not only failed to resolve the conflict but had worsened it. Furthermore, their relationship with the other families in the class also suffered, as, given the outcome, they blamed them for the situation that had arisen. Jaime’s family considered changing schools.

Rubén’s Story

RUBÉN’S STORY
Ten years after Alejandro and Lucía began their dissent process, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) rules that the Spanish State violated Rubén’s rights and discriminated against him when it removed him from mainstream school and tried to force him to attend a special education center. The ruling is devastating and urges the State to accelerate legislative reform – in accordance with the CRPD – and to adopt measures to consider inclusive education a right. The resolution comes too late for this family, but it lays the legal groundwork to guarantee the right to inclusive education that thousands of boys and girls will be able to benefit from (https://bit.ly/3fpEchD).

Step 10. Add your name

  • Whatever the final outcome, add your name to the list of individuals and groups who, by dissenting, have helped build a society where rights are achieved and fulfilled for all people.

All the stories documented in the examples in this guide are based on real situations. The names of their protagonists have been altered, except for those of the Calleja-Loma family (Alejandro, Lucía, and Rubén), to whose resistance and dignity this guide is dedicated. Their dissent has succeeded in highlighting the violation of rights that occurs in our education system and has laid the groundwork for families to demand the right to inclusive education for their children.

Advice

  1. The main key to effective dissent is collective construction: the struggle is very difficult and hard if done alone. Look for allies, find people in similar situations, think about social processes rather than just your own case. When it’s not possible to do it with people close to you, seek alliances through social networks, for example.
  2. It’s often a marathon: dissent is a form of resistance. And resistance is different from speed. That’s why it’s important to find meaning in what you do beyond concrete, short-term results. We want a solution soon, but it’s not the only thing we’re pursuing.
  3. You are important, don’t lose sight of your health and how you feel throughout the process. Don’t chain together multiple dissent processes. Rest and choose your battles. Keep your head held high. Dissent can be an unrewarding task and can also cause discomfort in others, but you are defending a right against resistance to change in an unjust system.
  4. Dissent is a form of deep solidarity. Even though it often causes unpleasantness, emotionally exposing you to social voids and painful glances, there is always a loving gaze towards the reality we live in and the people who inhabit it. That’s why we want to improve it.
  5. Share what you have experienced, because our words become part of the reality we want to change. Write it down, record it, draw it, represent it. All of that becomes the memory of others who will begin their dissent on the back of your experience. And that is priceless.

Resources

Library

  • Alonso, M., Rascón, M. T., Calderón, I. and the Educational Community of CEIP La Parra (2023). How to do participatory action research. Ministry of Education and Vocational Traininghttps://tinyurl.com/24x82yml.
  • Calderón, I. and Habegger, S. (2012). Education, handicap and inclusion. A fight against an exclusionary school. Octaedro.
  • Calderón, I., Mojtar, L., Cabello, F. and Students for Inclusion Collective (2021). How to make your school inclusive. Ministry of Education and Vocational Training.https://tinyurl.com/ 29s8ok2v.
  • Cascón, P. (2001). Educating in and for conflict. UNESCO Chair on Peace and Human Rights.https://tinyurl.com/yqzm72nv.
  • Dahl, R. (2014). Matilda. Alfaguara.
  • Lindgren, A. (2005). Pippi Longstocking. Rabén & Sjögren. Mindell, A. (2015). Sitting by the Fire. DDX.
  • Moreno, M. (2002). Conflict Resolution and Emotional Learning. A Gender Perspective. Gedisa.
  • Moure, G. (2002). Lily, Freedom. SM.
  • Naranjo, J. (2020). Mariquita. An autobiographical story about homophobia. Sapristi.
  • Puig, M. (2003). The Kiss of the Spider Woman. Seix Barral. Rodríguez Jares, X. (2012). Education for Peace: Its Theory and Practice. Popular.
  • Romañach, J. (2009). Bioethics on the Other Side of the Mirror. Diversityhttps://tinyurl.com/yt4cqs6o.
  • Rosenberg, M. (2013). Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. PuddleDancer Press.https://tinyurl.com/yg2tpo9p.
  • Schmitz, J. and others (2018). Restorative practices for conflict prevention and management in education. Training guide. Progettomondohttps://tinyurl.com/yv2p76m4.

Video library

  • Inclusive education. Creating it is wanting it (Cecilia Barriga)
  • Crip Camp (James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham)
  • Suffragette (Sarah Gavron)
  • Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi)
  • My name is Harvey Milk (Gus Van Sant)
  • To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mullingan)
  • Matilda (Danny DeVito)
  • Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir)
  • Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant)
  • Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross)
  • Billy Elliot (Stephen Daldry)
  • Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton)
  • Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha)
  • Pippi Longstocking (Olle Hellborn)
  • Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis)
  • Muriel’s Wedding (P. J. Hogan)
  • Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Stanley Kramer)
  • The Principles of Care (Rob Burnett)
  • Thinking of Others (Noboru Kaetsu)
  • I am not your enemy (Robin Bissell)
  • I am one of you. Notes against the current (Roberto Sintes and Ignacio Calderón)

Blogoteca

Back cover

Activism for equity, educational inclusion, and the rights of people labeled by disability has been the link that has united the Radikales Desadaptadas collective to share, through this guide, their experiences raising their voices against all kinds of injustices: those that seem minuscule but end up drowning us day by day, those that make school an inhospitable place, those that relegate humanity to a secondary plane and sometimes hit us with all their might. Because disagreeing is a verb that all the people in this collective have conjugated on multiple occasions, aware that all human, social, economic, and cultural rights have always been won through dissent. Not doing so means accepting the permanence of the inequalities that crush us, and which are often understood as natural and inevitable.

These pages are, therefore, an invitation to dissent. To question the current order of things, which places some people in a subordinate and defenseless position. It is necessary for these voices to be heard in school and in other spaces where life unfolds, because they hold the key to humanizing and recreating them. This guide aims to accompany you in the process of disagreeing with injustices, thereby creating a community that builds new paths, new imaginaries, new destinies.

Radikales Desadaptadas is a collective made up of family members of people with functional diversity who have had to exercise different forms of dissent on hundreds of occasions to fight against different forms of oppression that hold them back. Mothers, fathers, or siblings of people defined by disability who have opened alternative paths to ensure their family members’ right to education is recognized, and who come together to build collective proposals based on inclusion and equity, under the umbrella of the social movement “Quererla es Crearla”.

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