We are all neurodiverse
good evening everyone it’s such a
pleasure to be here tonight
and advocate for what i believe to be a
very necessary and important change in
our educational system
so i will start by offering a quick
definition on the term
neurodiversity so that we’re all on the
same page on what it means
and it includes people who
think feel and function in unique ways
and sometimes there are people who have
a specific diagnosis
like adhd autism or dyslexia
but it also includes people who struggle
fitting in in the traditional
educational system on the traditional
work environment
and often they don’t even know why
so you may be wondering what is a
professor of engineering doing here
talking to you about neurodiversity and
that’s certainly a legitimate
question so part of the answer is that
i’m the director of a program at uconn
that is funded by the national science
foundation and that aims at transforming
engineering education
and encouraging all types of learners
and thinkers
to engage in engineering innovation
but a more important part of the answer
is
that like many of you i know somebody
who is neurodignity
and i have seen what being part of a
rigid educational system does
uh to a person like that so my brother
is dyslexic and 35 years ago when he
entered first grade
he didn’t have a diagnosis or
access to a support system and for the
next 12 years
i watched him struggle and my parents
spend countless hours with
homeworks and exams you know and and
have
a great difficulty until you know he
graduated high school
and during those times i also uh
watched and saw that my parents didn’t
speak to anyone
about this such was a stigma associated
you know with a learning difference
and
sorry um so
this was at the time you know people
where
you were either smart and good in school
or
dumb and bad in school you know there
were no others
there were no other uh reasons you know
that that people
uh had like different different
performance
and since then
30 years later we have made some
progress
um and and students who have who
struggle in school
receive different supports they have
special a teachers
accommodations and so on but they also
still
receive labels such as usually
starting with d dysfunction disability
disorder
so we tell these kids early on in life
that
the way that they think and they feel is
does not meet the standards and requires
remediation
and that you know really forms someone’s
psyche you know from from very early on
recently i had a conversation with a
former student of mine who is autistic
and i asked them in the if they perceive
autism to be a disability
and they said the way that society
currently functions
it is a disability and that is a very
profound distinction
like if disability is not
a property of the individual it is a
condition of a society
that puts a person at a disadvantage
because of a particular trait that they
possess
and so if we really understand that
distinction then our mandate is clear
we need to change the system so that
differences
do not become disabilities
so let’s do a little thought experiment
so
um who has seen who here has seen the
the movie forrest gump
okay most of you good so take a minute
and think of the thinking bang of the
movie come up with a short description
of forrest gump based on the things that
he wasn’t good at the things that he
couldn’t really do
okay so now clear that from your mind
and think back to the movie and come up
with another description
based on the things that forrest gump
was great at
you know the the things that he excelled
in and the successes that he had in his
life
and so thinking you know imagine that
he was your child and what kind of
school
would you send your child based on the
first description that you came up with
and what kind of school would you send
him based on the second description
so we want school to be a place
where every child teenager and young
adult
feels like the person in the second
description
we want the school to be a place where
students
find their unique strengths and figure
out a way to make the most out of those
strengths
and be the best version of themselves
so the way to do this is to
start by looking for strengths
um in in children and and students not
for weaknesses
and for us as educators we want to be
that teacher
who helped someone and
change their lives you know by helping
them discover their unique strengths
and and cultivating their gift
we also want to provide our students
with multiple opportunities to explore
the material in our in our classrooms
to engage in different kinds of
assessment different kinds of learning
materials
and to be creative not just do what
we tell them to do and i know that takes
a lot of work
and most of us you know teachers and
educators
are already strapped there so i’m not
pretending to have
all the answers on how to do this but i
do know
that you see this every day in the
classroom
you see the students who struggle with
exams
struggle with papers but they do
wonders when they create they can create
something with their hands
when they can write code when they can
recite something for memory whatever
it is you know that their own particular
strength is
so you know hopefully uh
one day there will be a way when we can
bring this
you know into the classroom what if we
could do this
for biology for history for physics in
different ways
what if if our students didn’t have to
take standardized tests anymore
what if we didn’t need paperwork to be
able to to provide support
to the students that need it
so i know that this is not going to
happen overnight and
you know for you um students
at the school it’s things are probably
not going to change
as long as you’re in high school and
probably not even college the structures
and the attitudes are probably going to
be similar
but gradually things will change
and for those of you who struggle today
for those of you who feel ashamed of
your differences in the way that you
think
my message to you today is it is not you
who is broken
you have unique gifts that are waiting
to be discovered
and the world right now needs you
because
we are dealing with very complex
problems and these complex problems
need different kinds of minds and
different kinds of ideas
to come together and find solutions
and companies like apple google and many
others
have seen this and right now they have
already started creating
neurodiversity hiring initiatives and
bring
different kinds of talents together so i
know
that eventually the whole world is going
to catch up with them
but until then our impact illuminated
can be in our everyday lives we can
create opportunities for everyone to
shine
and embrace and and and
love differences we can do this with our
children at home
we can do this with our students in the
classroom we can do this with our
colleagues at work
and we can speak up every chance that we
get
thank you
[Applause]
thanks