April is Autism Awareness Month...so fellow teachers it's time to become more aware.
Professor Vernon Smith is a Nobel Prize Winner who also happens to have autism. Listen to his incredible story and celebrate neurodiversity!
With that, here's an essay that disabilities advoate and president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Ari Ne'eman wrote while a high school senior for her teachers:
Personal experience has taught me that those who think in different ways should not be written off despite the challenges and obstacles that are often thrown in their way. For several years I was in a special education system that practiced enforced conformity. The belief was that anyone society labeled "disabled" could only go so far. Sadly, these misconceptions had the potential to become self-fulfilling prophecies. When the expectation is that people of a certain type can only reach so far, they are not provided with the same challenges and opportunities that educators give mainstreamed students.
Yet I did manage to make it out of special education by advocating for myself and refusing to believe in a myth that equated distinctiveness with inferiority. By insisting on inclusion in the same opportunities and programs as other students, I achieved academic success. In the space of a few years I went from being advised that I would have to delay my high school graduation to being an honor student who will attend college on time to study international relations.
Now, as a speaker for the New Jersey Department of Education and other organizations, I advocate for reform of the system I left. When I speak to educators, students and policymakers I stress one message: those of different neurologies can succeed not by luck, chance, or even extraordinary willpower, but by recognition of their unique abilities and methods of learning. Understanding that different styles of learning do not imply inability to learn is essential to creating a more inclusive educational environment. With an educational system that works with us, society will see an even larger level of success for autistics and many other neuro-diverse citizens. In truth, differences in neurology often contribute to success. History supports this conclusion.
Today, experts are finding autistic traits in many of the great minds of the past such as Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein. These people possessed many of the traits that today can be found on the autism spectrum. Like many autistics, they viewed the world through different eyes and were not possessed of the same type of social skills as their neurotypical peers, yet they possessed highly capable intellects and used them in ways their unique perspectives made possible. Neither these greats of the past nor those of us in the present deserve to be marginalized from society or labeled as broken or diseased.
Society has developed a tendency to examine things from the point of view of a bell curve. How far away am I from normal? What can I do to fit in better? But what is on top of the bell curve? The answer is mediocrity. That is the fate of American society if we insist upon pathologizing difference and seek to "cure" it. The person who is socially isolated because he views the world in a different light may use that difference in perception to invent something revolutionary.
"I don't have any trouble thinking outside the box. I don't feel any social pressure to do things the way other people are doing them," said Vernon Smith, the 2002 Nobel Prize winner in economics and an Asperger's autistic, in a February interview with CNBC. Does it serve anyone's interests to label people like Smith diseased? Isn't respecting the other a vital part of both the American and the Jewish tradition? We do not need a cure to make us like everyone else. We need to be accepted for who we are. "We don't all have to think alike to ... live in a productive and satisfying world," said Professor Smith.
Each day the world learns more about how to recognize yet respect the differences in neurology that exist throughout our society. In February at a conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers announced that many previously held ideas about autistic intelligence were mistaken. A new intelligence test discovered that even those who had previously been written off as capable of very little possessed great, untapped potential.
As society advances and we learn more about the differing kinds of neurology and intelligence, it should be our hope that we respect people for their differences and not try to enforce neurological conformity. In a day and age when we have broken down countless prejudices of the past and recognized the legitimacy of differences in race, color, creed and religion, we should be tolerant of those who think in different ways.
We should recognize what diversity of neurology has contributed to the human race and what it can bring to the future. Difference is not disability and someday, I hope, the world will recognize that those who think in different ways should be welcomed. '
Keywords: Ari Ne'eman, ASD, Autism, Autism Awareness Month, Celebrate Neurodiversity, Gifted, Nobel Prize Winner, PDD, Special Education, Special Needs, Twice Exceptional, Vernon Smith, You-Tube
Comments
Great clip and essay by Ari and yourself. I taught a student in twelvth grade diagnosed with autism that was an absolute joy to have in class. He was bright, sharp tongued, sharp witted, loved to take his shoes off and pace around the classroom while flipping his pencil. He memorized a grammar textbook when he was 15, and regularly corrected people when they mis-spoke. Most students adored him as well, although he did scare quite a few with his odd timing and occassional outbursts (teenagers can be rather cruel).
I still see him around town and say howdy when I get the chance. I don't know if he remembers me but he always makes me smile. I always thought he was a genius, but he seems to have trouble "acting normal," which is fine by me, but is not always tolerated by others.
I often wonder if there was something more I could do for him. Heavy sigh...
I am currently busy with a module called Thinking Skills for my Masters' degree programme in Education, and something in our online discussion prompted me to revisit this post (having previously found my way here via Stephen Downes's OLDaily). Thank goodness for people who are bold enough and articulate enough to challenge perceptions and to stand their ground. My heart aches for those who (for whatever reason) lack the wherewithal to do that. To some extent or another, we have all (regardless of the labels we bear) experienced the pressure to conform to the perceived norm - I know I certainly have - and it can be very stressful. The trouble is that the norm isn't constant either. Just when you've figured out what it is you're supposed to conform to, the rules have changed. So either you have to live the life of a chameleon or you have to accept that you are going to be out of step somewhere along the line and learn to deal with that.
Should you happen upon this comment so long after the fact Chris, I think you gave that child the most important thing you could have done. You accepted him as he was and admired his strengths.
However, as a partial non-sequitur, let me end by relating an anecdote that may have some bearing. When I was in my teens, I wailed at my mother that my sister refused to accept me as I was and that she was always on at me to conform to her world view (my younger sister, mind). My mother said that I needed to practise what I preached and accept my sister as <b>she</b> was, namely, someone incapable of accepting others as they were. Wise words, but hard to swallow.