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What is barrier-free all about?

This website has many ideas and links to other sites which will help learners, teachers and their families understand what barriers to learning are, and how and why to get over, under or around them! Remember these words of educator, Patricia Vail:

"learners are never looking for the easy way out of schooling, but the right way in"

What is a barrier?

To one person, a printed page is something that makes them feel happy. But to a person who has a visual disability or any kind of print reading challenge, that page is a barrier. A solution might be to have different ways to read the page: for example. changing the colour of the page, or listening to the text.

Hidden barriers - We can't see always see what people are feeling, but it is still real!

Often people don't really understand a barrier until it happens to them. So part of the goal of this site, is to help people understand what barriers might be and feel like. No two people are the same. But there are many options which will help people. You might even find a new way to do something that could help others.

Why don't people just use the services at schools, universities or work?

This is the heart of why making all classrooms barrier free is important. Ideally, people would use support services. But for some people, it is hard to accept that a learner is different. They might feel unhappy about needing help, or the family might think it is shameful or that a learner is "just not good at school".

The hardest thing for learners is the feeling that others believe they are not trying hard enough. Within a family, siblings have equal potential, but some may need to use a keyboard rather than a pen, or read with their ears, rather than their eyes. Everyone wants to succeed. It doesn't matter how we get information in and out, as long as we don't have a barrier in front of us.

Alexandra Burke is a part-time Lecturer at Shiga University, the University of Shiga Prefecture and Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University. Her research field is how people with neurodiversity encounter and can overcome barriers at all life stages. She was born into a multi-generational neurodiverse family and has chosen to be open about her educational journey to allow others to feel more comfortable exploring what is a "taboo" topic to many. Burke has worked extensively in the classroom setting supporting teachers and learners to change practice methods that will unlock the potential of this group.

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In 2024, she was awarded the Japan Association for Language Teaching Mid-Career Scholar - Research Award. She has received multiple "Michele Steele Best of JALT Awards" for Chapter presentations and also Best Poster Awards at JALT international and Online Conferences. Her goal is that any person with neurodiversity will have access to a welcoming educational environment and the assistive technology they need to thrive in society. She presents training workshops for teachers to help them build skills in barrier free instruction.

Burke came to teaching from a social policy background in the civil service in Australia where she worked on projects in law and public health. In particular, how people access services and removing barriers to people getting appropriate advice on staying healthy and working with their doctor to manage chronic health disease risks. Education, and how long people stay in education, is a major factor in long term health.