I really believe that when it comes to the marginalization of folks with neurodiversities, neurodivergence, that the root of that problem isn’t a teacher problem, it’s a systems problem, you know? We’ve designed our world, if we’re honest about it, from our schools, to our built environment, to our places of work, we’ve designed the world through the lens of the normal human being.

So, students are stuck in that broken system and so are teachers, you know? Who are indoctrinated in their own education that different is deficient and are incentivized, judged in their professional life about how well they make the square peg fit the round hole.

So, while I had many teachers who struggled with understanding, embracing, and celebrating my differences, it wasn’t their fault, you know, as human beings. It was a systems failure. But, at the same time I had many educators who bucked that system, who refused to try to make the square peg fit the round hole.

And I find that to be hopeful. Because the teachers that rejected that “normal is good, different is bad,” they didn’t have to design the whole system anew, they could do some very specific things.

Let me give you an example of that. I had a teacher in 3rd grade named Mr. R. And he’s one of those people who saved my life, and I don’t – that’s not an exaggeration, the guy saved my life. And what made him so impactful in my journey was that he had a ferocious commitment to the idea that every single one of his students had something right about them, some good. 

And when I met him, I was immersed in the opposite, you know? I was immersed in, you know, “Jonathan can’t sit still, Jonathan can’t spell, Jonathan can’t, can’t, can’t.” That deficit model. 

And one day he came to me, and he said, you know, ‘You are so good at telling stories. Now sometimes the stories you tell are inappropriate stories.’ [laughs] ‘But, I don’t care, you are so good at telling stories that you could be a writer.’ I was 9 years old, you know, nobody had ever said anything like that to me before in my life. I looked at the guy and I said, ‘Mr. R, a writer? Are you out of your God damn mind? I can’t spell, man.’ [laughs] 

And the guy looked at me, I’ll never forget, and he said, ‘Jonathan, in my class screw spelling.’ Right? Screw spelling, yeah! You know? He challenged that deficit model and he saw what was right with me and he didn’t focus on what was wrong. So, that’s something that we all can do every day, you know, as moms and dads, as human beings, and certainly as teachers, to challenge the system that we found ourselves in. 
But ultimately, you know, what we need to do collectively is reimagine our approach to learning, redesign our approach to learning, not around the design principle of the normal or average human being, but ultimately, around the reality of human difference. And when we do that, we’ll change people’s lives and we’ll put our society on a different path.

For more information about learning disabilities, please visit LDOnLine.org. This video was made possible by a partnership between the National Education Association and WETA.