Episode 068: Neurodivergent Generations LIVE! - Q & A
In a panel recorded live in front of an audience at the 2023 Eye to Eye National Friends and Allies conference, David and Isabelle sit down with Eye to Eye co-founders David Flink and Marcus Soutra, Eye to Eye student leader Kayla and an Eye to Eye student leader’s parent Claudia to discuss what it is like to be neurodivergent—or a parent to a neurodivergent kid—across different generations. Part three of three. To learn more about Eye to Eye, visit www.eyetoeyenational.org In this part, we cover the everyone’s favorite accommodations, how to confront stigma, and what everyone would say to their littler selves.
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David (Kessler) asks: what are everyone’s favorite accommodations? For Marcus, who was stuck carrying a giant suitcase to listen to audiotapes, audiobooks were originally not his favorite. He’d get the material two weeks after everyone else and it made him stand out in a way he didn’t like and kept it secret. Then he was working with a 10 year old kid through Eye to Eye, and the kid made a mold of his ear for an art project, saying that he doesn’t read with his eyes, he reads with his ears. Now he listens to every email he receives and sends, it’s how he reads; thanks to resources like Audible.com, it’s everywhere. It’s not just about the perception of the tool, it’s about the availability of the tool. If he could travel back in time to speak to a younger version of himself, because Kessler has a button he can press to make this happen, but only for a short time, Marcus would tell himself that “you’re not broken. The system is.” (Pause for applause). Isabelle wonders if there could be a time travel sound effect and after Flink suggests a Chewbacca noise, Kessler obliges. Claudia’s favorite accommodation is asking students what they need, and listening to them about what type of structure they like. Some like more, some less, some need a quiet room, some need to get up and walk around. David asks, is this essentially giving students the agency back? She agrees. And if she could go back in time, she would tell herself “Everything is going to be okay.” (Pause for snaps galore). After a tough rock-paper-scissors round, Kayla goes next. Kayla’s favorite accommodation is speech-to-text, she’ll step out of the classroom and talk it into her phone. Going back in time, she would tell herself “don’t listen to everything your peers tell you.” (Pause for snaps). Often the hurtful words don’t have anything to do with you, they have to do with what’s going on for them, like a kid who came up to her after saying something hurtful confessing that he was just hiding his own dyslexia. The second thing she would say is “Do you. Don’t think about the way people look at you because of the accommodations you use, or the things you need to do, because at the end of the day, it’s all about making an even playing field.” Her getting extra time on a test is to level the playing field. Flink goes next and shares his least favorite accommodation was getting extra time on tests, because it was him still having to do a test poorly designed for him. As an adult, it's his favorite accommodation, because he now sees it as kindness to have extra time for how he learns and thinks. If he had a time machine, he’d tell himself: “look, you’re going to have to have a strong backbone, but keep your wishbone strong, too.” Isabelle just asks, before we ask questions, that we close the time travel loops and return to the present moment. (Cue Chewbacca noise and a small disagreement about whether Star Wars technically involves time travel). Now it’s time for questions from the audience, the first one being: How is everyone doing? Everyone is doing well, considering they just shared something so vulnerable in front of hundreds of people. Another audience member asks: How can we educate ALL our students? How can we set it up so that we don’t feel stupid or incapable? Kayla starts: building communities, like with Eye to Eye, where there is a place where you have allies and you can see people going on to do great things, like Kayla witnesses when attending the Eye to Eye conference. Claudia names that schools and teacher trainings are underfunded, and they want to learn more and be better equipped but they’re not able to afford those trainings. She also wishes for students with single parents and those who don’t have the means to get access to resources and supports, too. David names that teachers are absolutely amazing and are doing the impossible. We are working with antiquated education system; we have phones that can look up data but we still get graded on memory, v. The questions we ask; teachers get punished if students don’t fit the mold and don’t perform well, but the mold itself is out of date. What about noticing the complexity of the questions students ask, rather than what they know? Marcus wonders why did it take us so long to embrace technology? One of the things he was always told was, “Marcus, you’re not going to have a calculator everywhere you go.” Everyone freaks out. David was told “you're not going to have spellcheck everywhere you go…” Marcus wonders at the teachers who scorn their student’s use of AI, but then they go home and use it to make their lesson plans…it’s odd to see this kind of resistance always, to new technology. He references that when ink pens first came out, there was pushback that quill pens are how you should write. There was a time period in this country when left-handedness was illegal. When left-handedness was made legal, there were skyrocketing rates of left handedness, then it plateaued. He suspects we’re in a similar situation with neurodiversity, where “every single kid is being labeled with LD” and that’s not true, it's more than we’re learning more about the brain every single day, we’re decreasing the stigma as we go. Kessler wonders: who wouldn’t benefit from an individualized education plan? And from desegregation of classrooms? Having different people of different abilities doing the work, together? Flink wants to add that yes, culture change, yes to funding, but what do we do right now? Tomorrow? We are a people-powered movement and country, we can create the change we wish to see by sharing our stories and advocating for ourselves. Chloe asks: how do you combat the stigma around LD and ND within yourself, and how does it work when you’re a part of the education system and an educator? Kessler wonders in general how to address stigma—Claudia responds that as someone who identifies as neurotypical, she tries to build relationships and share her story. Kayla describes going above and beyond; she remembers how her case manager, who was in charge of her IEP, thought she should stick to a trade school and work with agriculture. Kayla’s family responded that this didn’t track with Kayla’s interests; the case manager responded with “you better get used to it, because that’s going to be the only thing she can do;” Kayla’s grandmother was LIVID, she doesn’t take anything from anybody, she told her off, she got Kayla a new case manager, she found tutor after tutor until something clicked. Kessler names how hard Kayla had to work to see a future for herself. David tackles the stigma question himself, with all of his vulnerabilities up. He has a therapist: not because he is broken, or deficient, but so that he doesn’t feel things alone. There is a shadow side to stigma: anything that brings us shame or guilt makes us avoid. So if you confront the things you want to run from everyday, that's literally courage. He couldn’t do it alone, he never did it alone. He had great friends, a great brother, a great partner. These are all ingredients to fighting stigma. We shouldn’t expect it to go away, we should expect to kick it in the teeth when it comes our way.
Why people might reject new technology
So much interesting content about left-handedness...here are some highlights:
History of left-handedness being illegal
Clumsy left-handers...fact or fiction? (Busting more stereotypes!)
The Surprising Geography of American Left-handedness ...which includes this excerpt:
"One of the best available data sets on left-handedness comes from a scratch-and-sniff survey of olfactory ability mailed out to millions of National Geographic subscribers in the 1980s. Go ahead and read that sentence again — it doesn't get any less weird the second time around."
DAVID'S DEFINITIONS
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.
To learn more about Eye to Eye, visit www.eyetoeyenational.org
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Cover Art by: Sol Vázquez
Technical Support by: Bobby Richards
Special Thanks to our amazing panelists: Marcus Soutra, David Flink, Kayla Dumas, and Claudia Bouchacourt for their courage, enthusiasm, and willingness to be vulnerable and real.
Also, so grateful for everyone at Eye to Eye National: Sabrina Odigie (Eye to Eye Executive Assistant) for her logistical wizardry, Alicia Siegel (Eye to Eye Director of Development) for her warmth, welcome, insight and planning, Alexandra Claeys (Eye to Eye Director of Community Leadership) for letting us join her awesomely organized event, Amanda Feliciano (Eye to Eye Outreach and Onboarding Associate) and Philister Lukacevic (Eye to Eye Director of Marketing and Communications) for his patience and help in getting these edits and materials out there! And to everyone at the conference who came to our recording and co-created such a welcoming and safe enough space, we are so grateful you came!