The Dangers of Predictable Learning Variability: Challenging the Imagining of Disability in the Universal Design for Learning in Music Education

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I offer a loving critique (Paris & Alim, 2014) of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that focuses explicitly on its call to employ predictable learning variability in pedagogical preparation (Glass et al., 2013). I argue that predictable learning variability calls upon teachers to imagine disability and point to specific phenomena that may well occupy educators’ imaginations in relation to disability. I first offer an introduction to UDL, including how UDL could function in music classes. Then I explicate the concept of predictable learning variability and problematize how this facet of UDL calls on educators to imagine disability. Drawing upon Toni Morrison (1990), Deborah Bradley (2003), and Erica Meiners (2001), I explore what imagination might do. Subsequently, I examine how disability is represented in the public sphere and argue that phenomena such as inspiration porn, the narrative of the supercrip, overdisclosure, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) occupy the public imagination of disability. I suggest instead that educators direct their imaginations toward their pedagogy and hold high expectations in the classroom.