Scarcity logic
The belief that educational support is a finite resource to be rationed—used to justify exclusion, gatekeeping, and systemic neglect.
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Protecting the ledger over the learner: operationalising scarcity in BC School Districts
British Columbia’s public schools are mandated to provide inclusive education for all students, but they do so in a context of chronic resource scarcity. Scarcity in education means there are not enough funds, staff, skills, or services to fully meet all student needs. School districts have had to develop strategies to manage and ration what they do…
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Starving the future: how underfunding and poor education policy are functionally eugenics
From the safety of our northern vantage, it is easy to feel heartbroken and a little superior when we watch the dismantling of the American social welfare state—when we see libraries defunded, schools privatised, and healthcare withdrawn with brutal efficiency. We shake our heads at the cruelty of it, believing ourselves buffered by decency or…
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The children don’t see autism, they see meanness
How schools weaponise ableism through gendered care expectations. Harm amplified by systemic ableism The principal once told me, almost as an aside, that the children “don’t see autism, they see meanness.” It was meant as an explanation, but to me it landed as an indictment of a school culture—to let that ableist misunderstanding stand unchallenged.…
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What looks like a reward is often a repair
When a child returns from the office with gummy worms or a cartoon, it may look like a reward—but often, it is a repair. In a system built on scarcity, the smallest gesture of care is mistaken for indulgence. This essay reframes the narrative around “rewarding bad behaviour” to reveal what is actually happening beneath…
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The right amount of agony in BC schools
After watching my children endure eight years of institutional failure, eight years of exclusion disguised as discipline and support withheld under the language of inclusion, I have come to several conclusions. Certain forms of suffering—like being agonised inside—do not draw support because they do not disrupt the adult’s flow, do not demand intervention with noise…
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On teachers, trust, and the long unravelling of support
When my children were in kindergarten, they had a teacher who specialised in what I can only describe as an extremely curated performance of niceness—a kind of plasticky, high-fructose charm that made my skin crawl and my muscles tense from the moment I entered the room. Her voice slowed to a sing-song drawl as she…
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We stand with BC teachers
The BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) has launched a new ad campaign ahead of the provincial election to spotlight BC’s worsening teacher shortage and demand urgent government action. The campaign, titled Hire More Teachers, features TV and digital ads showing the real impact on students and calls for a fully funded workforce strategy similar to health…
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On free IVF: love and systemic neglect
BC is funding IVF, but not the care children need once they’re born. Love is enough. The system isn’t. This is betrayal dressed as hope.
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How it broke me open: the unbearable clarity of seeing things as they are
I know another reason the collective punishment incident was so devastating for me, like truly sent-me-spiralling kind of devastating, wasn’t just because of what was done to the kids (although yes, obviously that too), but because of what it broke in me, in how I’d been holding things together for so long with this scaffolding of…
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Trust as performance: when schools want deference, not dialogue
One of the most infuriating parts of being gaslit by my children’s elementary school was the repeated suggestion that I simply didn’t trust them enough. That the reason my child was struggling wasn’t because support was missing, or harm had occurred—but because I had failed to signal trust. Failed to pretend everything was fine. As…
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How schools misuse disability designations to deny support
When I asked why my child couldn’t have full-day support—the kind that made the difference between attending school and refusing to enter the classroom—I was told, “He’s not eligible.” Eligible only for part-time. Eligible only for half-days. Eligible, it turned out, to fall apart quietly in the coatroom, so the system could pretend he was…
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The end of the school year never feels like a celebration
We are scouring the comments for signs that our kids are OK. Supported. Happy. Trying not to spiral when we read ‘developing’ or ’emerging’ or don’t see the words, ‘It was a pleasure to have your child in my class this year.
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What would it really cost to fix the problem?
We talk so much about the cost of inclusion—as if it’s indulgent, optional, something that must be justified—but we rarely talk about the cost of exclusion. And those costs are everywhere: in emergency rooms, in overburdened case files, in classrooms where distress goes unseen. When schools can’t support disabled students, families fall apart trying to…
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We shouldn’t be enemies
I took my daughter for a manicure this week. She’s graduating from grade 7. A milestone. A moment that felt almost ordinary—slideshow, applause, plastic chairs, nervous grins—and yet there was nothing ordinary about what it took to get there. Vocabulary for what happened Class change She spent seven months of this school year outside the…
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On graduation and the grievability of disabled children
I’ll try to be normal at my daughter’s graduation, even as I grieve a system that quietly erased her twin and expects no one to notice.
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Language to start a revolution
Our library of tips offers a concise, alphabetically organised toolkit for recognising and challenging the systemic forces that shape student experiences in British Columbia’s public schools. Whether you’re new to education advocacy or a seasoned ally, this series—spanning the ABCs of engineered scarcity and the ABCs of regressive punishment, with the ABCs of access coming…
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What spoons can’t explain
The spoon theory was a revelation once. A metaphor for invisible disability. A way to say: I don’t have limitless energy. Every action costs. But like all metaphors, it eventually failed me. It suggests I have a drawer of spoons to begin with—something measurable, something I can manage. Something that implies I am in control.…
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The ABCs of engineered scarcity
A learning module for educators, caregivers, and community members resisting austerity logic in public systems. Engineered scarcity operates like a slow haemorrhage, draining public education of the resources it owes every child while masking that attrition behind soothing administrative dialects; this primer sets out to rupture that façade by naming, in alphabetical precision, the tactics…
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The scarcity script: how manufactured famine shapes public education
British Columbia’s public schools are not suffering from a natural shortage—they are operating under a system of manufactured scarcity. This blog explores how austerity, rationing logic, and institutional self-preservation create harm for disabled students and their families. Drawing on thinkers like David Graeber, Wendy Brown, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Mariana Mazzucato, it reveals how scarcity…
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Engineered famine in public education
In British Columbia schools today, we are not facing a behaviour crisis—we are facing a famine of care. This essay weaves together personal memory, systemic critique, and deep empathy for teachers and families alike to ask why our schools are starving the very relationships that children need to learn and thrive. It calls for an…
