Episode 041: Conversation with LeDerick Horne - Part I - “Nothing About You Needs To Be Fixed”
David starts by introducing his incredible friend—poet, speaker, and advocate for all people with disabilities, LeDerick Horne. He uses LeDerick’s own advice about introducing people: think of the last time you saw them and then why they’re here now. David last remembers walking with LeDerick on a cold Chicago day after eating delicious Ethiopian food and talking up a storm almost a year before this recording, and the reason for LeDerick being on Something Shiny goes deeper. When David was first learning about how to be an advocate and unmask his own LD/ADHD (side note: David does not like frosting on cakes, he just doesn’t), LeDerick was one of David's first mentors in this field, but he’s also a poet, a playwright, a businessperson, a consultant, a fellow D&D enthusiast, advocate for the voiceless, tree farmer, and the list could go on—David wants to be like LeDerick when he grows up. LeDerick feels likewise with David, a good friend and remarkable human being—and it’s been great for them to go on this journey together. Isabelle is so giddy to hear more and to witness such love and friendship. LeDerick was a founding board chair for a mentoring organization, Project Eye to Eye (see link below for more), where he and David first met, but the two became closer when they were working for the State of Nevada, where an event for young people with disabilities, primarily LD/ADHD coming from all over the state of Nevada, talking about transition with the state's leaders shifted into building a community, and David makes that happen. David was the first one to talk and break the ice, and these were teams of young people throughout the state (as both the most rural and urban state in America)—where some were the only ones with an LD/ADHD in the county, others coming from Vegas and huge school districts—and David was sent in to break the ice and pull them all together, and he would make that connection, and the resources that were able to share for the young people. It was this ability to look around the room and realize you were not alone, and as leaders, LeDerick and David had to embody the modeling. David also realized that the power of being who we were, and not coaching people to be perfect, because being perfect misses the point. David wonders, what would LeDerick want to tell a younger version of himself—he was just in a room with an 18 yo kid who was about to go transition post high school, and he wanted him to hear: “if nothing else happens, you need to hear that you are okay just as you are now. You are not broken. Nothing about you needs to be fixed. That you are beautiful: your mind, your body, the way you show up in this world, you are beautiful right now.” He tries to chip away the edges of shame, embarrassment that then let someone be who they really are, like a sculptor. David wonders how you can say that and convey this without it feeling like patting someone on the head—are you, LeDerick, aware how you embody this in such a powerful way? LeDericks shares still feeling nervous, and how many different settings he’s been in, whether it’s a setting where he felt like people could attack him for what he was saying in a presentation to school, v. Speaking to a bunch of academics, to speaking to one kid in a room—he’s passionate about inclusion, having come from a segregated experience himself. But he’s able to carry himself in this way through collaboration, a network of support, and also knowing that our representation and our narrative matters. It’s one thing for a parent, teacher, or counselor to say you’re going to be okay, but the it comes from someone who has lived it, it’s different and hits very differently, covering the ups and downs. “It’s not just the message, it’s also the messenger.” And he uses poetry and it’s cuts through the BS, it gets to the heart of the message. David makes a reference to one of his favorite book series, the Gunslinger (see below), and there’s a line in it where Roland says “I can tell you’re a good person, I’ve seen you fight naked” — there’s a vulnerability and a naked fighting that happens. David is in an organizing council with fellow folks with LD/ADHD, at Eye to Eye, and he’s having this incredible community experience, and then LeDerick puts on a full play, and did spoken word poetry, and sat and talked with people for hours, and the whole time he was doing it he was effortless. David has never met somebody with an LD that moved like water, was so carefree, so confident—it was embodied in you, and you fight for anyone that is marginalized in a system and the importance of inclusion. Teachers are working an impossible task, and are crunched in the middle of the system and kids and parents, and it’s very simple for people to say “advocate for the use of accommodations” but what does it actually mean for there to be an inclusive classroom. LeDerick has just come from a municipality conference and the mayor of Hillside named how educators are really nation builders. LeDerick shares his own history, he started in a Catholic school, and then was told the school sent him to the public school because they didn’t have the resources to support him, and then by 3rd grade was outed as being LD and embarrassed in front of his class, and it let to evaluations, and then a resource room and then a self-contained special education classroom, where he was with the same teacher and kids for the next three years, and it was just that classroom on the playground during recess. He knows that negative self-concept and a lot of that was ingrained from passing through the education system in that way, reinforced a lot of negative practices in our schooling, it was predominantly a class of black and brown boys. They were separated from everyone else and fed the idea they were not as good as everyone else. And the teachers who ran that classroom, that were incredible and loving, holding very high expectations for the students, but despite that, the segregation is still speaking to you, still making you feel less then. LeDerick was able to graduate, despite all this and an emotional breakdown when he was 17—he aims to go to college, and it would be the first time he’d be in classes with everyone else, and needing accommodations. He remembers that change being so fast, “here’s how your mind works, and here’s the tech you need, and what accommodations you need” and within a few months, it felt like school is easy. Because I don’t have to worry about spelling, I can just write? Okay, I’m going to be a poet. Oh, I can use a calculator? I’m going to major in mathematics. There were still elements of being in a more inclusive educational setting, it honored LeDerick as a human being, as a student, in a way he hadn’t been honored before. Project Connections, an amazing LD support program (which sadly no longer exists), he was able to finish and transfer and end up taking 26 credits his last summer. He had started sharing his story in college, and was sharing his story on a panel, Bob Haugh and Bill Freeman saw him on this panel and gave him an opportunity to speak at a conference, which led to him being the MC at state conferences in New Jersey called Dare to Dream. Inclusion works and it’s more about being in the same room together, and with teachers who don’t have foundations or supports and don’t know what to do. Honoring teachers and giving them an opportunity to collaborate, having time to work as a team, bringing in specialists with specific backgrounds, whether speech or language, social interactions, when someone can show up and share interventions, school scheduling, testing outside the classroom, etc. It doesn’t just help the students with LD, it honors everyone and the teachers, too. Isabelle wonders why the tracking system exists as it does when it hasn’t been shown to be helpful? LeDerick goes back to the history of the educational system. To be able to get an education back in the day, you needed to be able to afford a private tutor. Historically, education was racially segregated, separated by gender, and folks with disabilities, particularly those with profound disabilities, were segregated—or it was even illegal for folks with profound disabilities to go to school. There was institutionalization, where particularly people with more profound intellectual and developmental disabilities were essentially being warehoused. Thanks to the civil rights and disability rights community, particularly those in wheelcharis, the blind and deaf community, they were able to have spaces in schools where people with disabilities were able to be included into school. Which is why a lot of these rooms were tacked onto basements, or out buildings, or whatever was tacked on because it really isn’t until our generation that we were able to be included. We are still very much trying to figure out how to fit the “others” into this system—the folks with differences need something “special” or “special education” into fitting in to the system. How do we prepare educators? Perhaps having a dual certification having a dual certification in special education would allow you to educate everybody. Years ago, LeDerick remembers hearing at a disproportionality conference, that all these highly qualified teachers leave school qualified to teach someone just like them. What can we do to pour into these professionals to give them more development and experience?
More on LeDerick Horne
(here's a brief bio)
(here's his amazing link tree)
LeDerick and Dr. Margo Izzo’s book, Empowering Students with Hidden Disabilities: A Path to Pride and Success
Black and Dyslexic Podcast (hosted by Winifred Winston and LeDerick Horne)
Celebrating Black History and People with Disabilities - Youtube series
A glimpse of LeDerick's live events - from the Nevada Student Leadership Transition Summit (NSLTS)
New Jersey Coalition for Inclusive Education
All in for Inclusive Education
Random Things We Mentioned:
Stephen King’s Gunslinger: According to David, If you ever want to read that series, start with the 2nd book and end with the 1st book — the idea of “I’ve seen you fight naked” is something the main character, Roland, says to someone as a way of saying he knows he’s a good guy, and can be trusted.
Fast & Furious: you can watch them in chronological order of the story line (not by order of when the films were released)—for more check out this RadioTimes article
DAVID'S DEFINITIONS
Disproportionality: the racial or ethnic differences that exist in how students with learning differences are identified, placed, and disciplined—for example, how black and brown students with ADHD might be labeled as having Oppositional Defiant Disorder or “behavioral issues” while white students are identified as having ADHD and thus treated very differently.
Learning Difference (LD): Because learning disability is a crummy, inaccurate term. For example, David does not have a learning disability, he has a sitting still disability.
Inclusion/Inclusive Education: This refers to the idea that all students should have an equal opportunity to learn, and relates to parts of the law and education system that attempt to achieve this by acknowledging it is more effective and socially beneficial for all students (as research and endless evidence shows) to be in classrooms and experiences together, rather than segregated into different tracks or programs. For a much more thorough description of all of the nuances around this, check out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusion_(education)
Individualized Education Plan (IEP): is for someone with learning or emotional needs in a classroom. An IEP is a legal contract with a school, that specifies the accommodations and modifications available for a student. IEPs are tailored for each individual student who qualifies. While it is similar to a 504 plan, or another type of plan that has recommendations that schools can follow, an IEP is more formal and structured, and increases the amount of supports a school can provide. IEPs are provided in public schools in the United States. To get an IEP, a child has to demonstrate the need for an IEP over a 504 plan, and be assessed by the school. For a big guide to IEPs, check this out.
Resiliency: you’re not going to shatter, whatever happens, it’s not going to destroy you.
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Cover Art by: Sol Vázquez
Technical Support by: Bobby Richards
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