College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations
Once a Dolphin, Never a Shrimp: A Memoir on Teaching, Belonging, and the Cost of Performing Normalcy
Term of Award
Spring 2026
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
Document Type and Release Option
Dissertation (restricted to Georgia Southern)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Committee Chair
Ming Fang He
Committee Member 1
William Schubert
Committee Member 2
Robert Lake
Committee Member 3
Peggy Shannon-Baker
Abstract
Teaching and belonging in educational spaces organized around expectations of normalcy carries a cost that rarely gets named. Schools reward composure, sameness, and control, shaping how professionalism is defined and who is recognized as competent. For educators whose ways of thinking, processing, and moving through the world do not align with these expectations, belonging must be negotiated rather than assumed. The purpose of this study is to examine how ableist expectations shape professional identity and experiences of belonging in education. Grounded in Critical Disability Studies (Davis, 1995; Linton, 1998; Siebers, 2008; Dolmage, 2017; Garland-Thomson, 2011; Price, 2011; McRuer, 2006; Kafer, 2013) and informed by DisCrit perspectives that examine how systems determine who is recognized, supported, and valued in educational spaces (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013, 2016), this study employs memoir as method (Pinar, 1975, 1994, 2012; Grumet, 1988; Miller, 2005; Britzman, 2003; hooks, 1994). Through narrative chapters, personal experiences as a neurodivergent learner and educator are examined to trace how expectations of professionalism, belonging, and competence are learned, performed, and reinforced over time. These narratives are paired with reflective analysis to position lived experience as a form of knowledge and critique (Couser, 2012; Rak, 2013; Johnson, 2005; Mooney, 2007). Six meanings emerged from this inquiry: normalcy is not neutral but socially constructed and institutionally reinforced; the identities of educators with learning differences must be affirmed beyond ableist standards that equate competence with the performance of normalcy; recognizing the hidden labor of performing normalcy reframes exhaustion as structural rather than personal and opens space to rebuild professional identity without self-erasure; inclusion does not guarantee belonging, and when belonging requires performance, unbelonging becomes a form of resistance; neurodivergent ways of thinking are strengths, not deficiencies, and a good teacher can exist because of those differences, not despite them; and memoir transforms personal memory into theoretical insight, evolving recursively as lived experience and Critical Disability Studies inform one another.
Recommended Citation
Francisco, M. A. (2026). Once a dolphin, never a shrimp: A memoir on teaching, belonging, and the cost of performing normalcy (Doctoral dissertation). Georgia Southern University.
Research Data and Supplementary Material
No
