The elephant in the classroom

Abstract

Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFE/ME) is an invisible disability that forces researchers to delineate new boundaries between illness and impairment, and between medical knowledge and patients’ experience. As a neurological impairment, this condition attacks memory and cognition, which paradoxically become the focus of patients’ own accounts of their experience and understanding. This paper addresses the pedagogical implications of this invisible disability. Drawing on emergent research on the social ties and social memory of elephants, this paper compares the forgetting in and about invisible disabilities with the cultures of remembering and caring exemplified by the elephant who ‘never forgets’. Just as the elephant exemplifies the interdependency of social relations and memory, so teachers and administrators can acknowledge different kinds of memory and expectations of memory and social process in pedagogical environments.