How can I NOT be a self advocate?

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I'm starting this workshop about what it's like to be in special ed from a student's perspective. Mainly because I don't want other people to be as f!cked up as me. The reason I don't want it to be self-advocacy is because I want people to focus on the content, not me. I also want to apply this to a wide variety of people. Not just high functioning people or people who share my label. I'm also hoping for this workshop to be able to go on without me. I'm not even sure I'm comfortable calling myself an advocate. I probably won't be doing this for a long time.

It will be really hard to want anything, and talk, but not advocate.

Maybe identify some aspects of special ed that you find f'd up, that others told you that they found f'd up.

I think it is good that you want people to focus on content, not you.

I don't mind advocating a bit. I mostly have a problem with the "self" part of self-advocacy. I don't want to be the next Temple Grandin. I want this to be more like the Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes experiment.

Don't want it to be about yourself? Then just don't make it about yourself. Also, what's wrong with self-advocacy?

Nothing wrong with it. I just don't want people to focus on why I'm different. Self-advocacy draws attention to those differences. I'm mostly worried about it becoming self-advocacy because that's the background the people I'm working with come from.

I thought The ideas behind self advocacy was to challenge allistic supremacism.

How can you make it not about you?

By designing the workshop to look at range of experience and have a range of voices and also by acknowledging that you are a participant researcher/facilitator.

Google up service design workshops (without being too focused on process) and participant facilitation workshops.

I've run many workshops where I also have a voice, but that doesn't mean it's about advocating only my position.

edited to add: also you can try to bring in an experienced facilitator who will work (broadly) to your workshop design.

I don’t know how much assistance you have for the preparation stage, but if you plan your content meticulously you can direct the workshop without concerns about self advocacy. Examples of students’ experiences in written and video format might keep the focus off your personal experiences.

Three basic questions to provide structure and focus the direction of workshop: What is your overall aim? What are your learning outcomes for the participants? Will your activities support the learning outcomes? Evaluation of the workshop should be linked to your plans and structural adjustments made as required for the next one. Make a few copies of your plan, for yourself during the workshop, and also to hand to someone else to continue the workshop without you.
Have extra (filler) activities planned just in case your time plan runs short, this will ensure that you do not have to 'fill' time by talking about your experiences.

There are various options, and it's possible to diminish the self part by being purposely objective: being very clear on your plan and your goals and outcomes you want to achieve; being clear on the principles underlying the plan, the goals, and the myths which operate in special ed. currently - name the myths in your plan and rank them; research how others have challenged myths etc in your field of interest, etc...

The starting point is to concisely define for yourself: what is it that you particularly want to achieve? (For me, this stage usually takes some time and a lot of thought, it's time well spent).

As to implementing your plans, this depends on what your particular skill sets: are you a vocal person? Do you like giving presentations? Are you more comfortable writing than speaking? Could you hold a workshop? Would you operate best with another person working as team of two? Would surveying people be useful?

Sometimes, to find the right answers, you have to first find the right questions. If you decide that some collaboration on that would be useful, you could approach whoever teaches or researches special education topics at your nearest university, to ask them if they could give you a reading list that would be directly relevant to your goals; this could save you a lot of time and energy finding them yourself. Some academics can be really nice and helpful, some are not.. however a sympathetic and helpful one can really speed things along.

I love your initiative in this DK and your energy for it and good for you. It will be a learning curve as these things always are, you won't start with all the answers, though the journey can really be a very expanding one and you may surprise yourself at how effective you can be, far more than you previously thought. Best of luck on this really interesting project. (PS: I always remember what you told me once, and how it helped)