The Beauty of Neurodiversity

My brain gave me the gift of a dream last night and I had to write it up and share it.

In the dream I was teaching my Self-Esteem and Empathy module to high schoolers with special needs. So, a real-life situation, except I was wearing a stripey halter top and pink shorts. The teacher was dressed in an elaborate steampunk costume. The students ambled about the class, but they were absorbing the lesson. A girl (also in a stripey shirt) raised her hand and I read her question without her speaking. Apparently, people who wear stripes share telepathy. I answered with a tangent about how test scores/IQ scored affect self-esteem. The CRUX AND NUGGET of this dream is the absolute gift of neurodiversity! (Keep reading!)

When we are growing up, adults around us only feel comfortable if we can fit into or check certain boxes. Programming like Head Start testing, IQ, anything standardized, etc. shows them the boxes that need filled. Gross motor skills, fine motor skills, speech and language, mobility, reason are all measured out by age and progressive. And if we do not comply, then early intervention is crucial. Urgent! Something is wrong with this little human. It can only do A but not B, or it skips to C.

This process ignores the natural neurodiverse gifts we have. It is a cookie cutter demand, a rigid system with goals to shape us into being and thinking just like everyone else.

But sometimes our dough may not go all the way to one edge. Those tests - they are cutting out and ignoring the entire rest of the dough outside their cutter., the predetermined requisite of skills just to BE.

So, while I do agree that helpful, compassionate adults can guide children to help fill demands of a system, we cannot ignore gifts (extra dough, just as sweet) that fall outside what is measured and scored and considered “basic”. The gift lies in how each of us individually see the world – no matter what label someone stuck on us. No matter how we are measured. Especially when we are measured in a way that only see lack. When what everyone should see is the landscape:

Maybe your brain sees the holes in the landscape. You recognize gaps or weak points in process or the “landscape”. Your brain is adept at filling in, fixing, strengthening the situation for everyone. You and everyone else are literally on equal footing.

Maybe your brain sees the relief map of the landscape. You acknowledge the holes, but you can forge connections to make your way around the pitfalls. Your brain is a torch that blazes the trail for yourself and others. You light the way.

Maybe your brain sees the horizon past all the gaps and maps. Your brain can clear obstacles and engineer ways to rise above. You can pilot yourself and others onward.

THIS was the dream I was given last night. Thank you, BRAIN! This is the same brain that failed math and took the remedial, basic algebra just to graduate. The same brain wired for Asperger’s and high-functioning spectrum activity. The same brain that made me a polyglot, earned me an MBA, made me a writer full of imagination who still wonders, and an SEL teacher who LOVES every minute in class.

And as I walk into so many different classrooms, I think of all the lovely minds – each one navigating their own landscape. I see you out there, you amazing little doughballs. And I appreciate everything you will bring to this world which sorely needs your innovation, your vision, and your grace.