Contact us if you are interested in covering a session as an Autistic Aucademy educator-learner with us (contact form at the bottom of the page).
More details:
Aucademy is a platform to educate all audiences on Autistic experience by Autistic educator-learners (largely our activity is on Facebook).
If you are interested in coming on a live or to prerecord a session for a live with us on a topic, please read the following.
Sessions are around an hour to two hours, streamed Wednesdays at 19:05 London GMT/BST (pre-recorded ahead of time is welcome if there’s any issues with live streaming or the time we stream). We ask guest educator-learners to join 15 mins early so we can explain the streaming studio we use and help answer questions you might have (NOTE: prior to September 2022 we used to livestream Saturdays).
We have educator-learners during the session itself, then it’s viewed after and people can share it publicly. We stream to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.
As a thank you, educator-learners donate small amounts to our speakers, so you would receive £20 for your contribution.
You are welcome to have a session where you present for all or part of the hour, or have an interview style session where one of the Aucademy team interview you with pre-arranged questions for structure, and/or take questions from educator-learners in the comments section – or a mix e.g. half hour presenting followed by discussion with Aucademy team members. It’s up to you and your style and communication needs.
Example session structures:
- Open live discussion with some pre-set questions (TRIGGER WARNING: addiction; mate crime; exploitation): Autistic people and crime: David educates Chloe
- Pre-recorded presentation (maintaining anonymity): Autistic & plurality (“Dissociative Identity Disorder”): Autistic Selves & James educate Aucademy
- Live part presentation, part discussion and Q & A (TRIGGER WARNING: discussion on Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and trauma): Navigating “autism interventions” & therapies: JayJay educates Aucademy
Example session, which includes a guest presentation and discussion.
The only set requirements to be an Aucademy educator-learner are:
- That you are Autistic
- That you agree with the fundamental ethos of Aucademy – which includes:
- Using identity-first language;
- Working within the principles of the neurodiversity paradigm;
- Accepting that educator-learners may be coming to Aucademy with different views to our ethos – it is our job to educate, but we are not here to enforce narratives.
Ultimately, we would like Aucademy educator-learners and collaborators who can be positive role models leading by example, and who can speak to our diverse educator-learners. Our educator-learners may be Autistic people, non-autistic people, families, professionals, teachers, employers – anyone! The diversity of our educator-learners will mean that we may encounter people who have very limited or problematic perceptions of Autistic experience, and it is our job to educate and lead by example, but it is not our job to foster heated debate.