The Accommodation Problem

Extensions. Extra exam time. Online everything. Addressing the complex needs of students is creating chaos on campus

- SIMON LEWSE

When Nathan was in high school, his obsessive compulsive disorder derailed his education. He suffered from a version called pure obsessional, or pure O. Along with typical ocd rituals, like handwashing or hoarding, people with pure O are also plagued with unwanted mental imagery, much of it violent or grotesque.

Nathan (a pseudonym) never thought to ask his teachers in small-town Ontario for support, and he’s not sure he would’ve gotten any if he had. He failed grade-eleven math and grade-twelve English. He ended up moving to Toronto, where he waited tables, served at city hall, and worked for a queer publisher. Eventually, he finished high school and got grades high enough to be accepted, as a mature student, into the University of Toronto. This time, he was determined to thrive.

Nathan found that instructors expected a degree of mental toughness.

He remembers a philosophy class in which a student attempted to apply a certain thinker’s moral ideas to a recent news story about a serial killer. When the discussion veered into the lurid details of the case, Nathan’s ocd spiked. He felt the familiar symptoms — panic, light headedness, shortness of breath, despair.

A few days later, Nathan approached his instructor privately. “In the future,” he recalls asking, “can you keep the conversation on track?” Her response was firm. She explained that class discussions are sometimes unruly, and while she’d continue to moderate them as best she could, it wasn’t her job to anticipate each student’s sensitivities. Nathan didn’t argue with her. “I told myself: That’s just the way university works,” he says. “I’ve got to either sink or swim.”