SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Neurodiversity Today, the podcast where we shift the narrative on neurodiversity with your host, Kenneth Mims. Every week he sits down with amazing guests who share honest stories and break down the barriers of how we see the world. Whether you are neurodivergent yourself, a parent, educator, employer, or an ally, we belong right here. But before we get into it, if you love what we do here and want to help us grow, please take two seconds to hit that subscribe button, leave a quick like and share this episode with a friend. It really helps the channel to reach more people. Now, let's jump right in.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Dr. Katie Strom, are you neurodivergent?

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 0:41

And and how long, um, if you don't mind me asking, when did you come to come to a uh uh diagnosis or self-diagnosis?

SPEAKER_05 0:52

It's been a little bit of a journey. Uh, I was first diagnosed with anxiety and panic disorders back in 2018 after I had uh some life-changing um panic attacks while I was uh at a conference in Europe. And so that put me on a multi-year journey to sort of figure out what was happening. And um, after many years, have we've come to the understanding. Um, I say we, me, and multiple therapists and doctors, um, that it was actually uh odd HD burnout, um, that the panic and anxiety uh were symptoms rather than the cause. And so I, but I think most of my life I have had the sense that I was not uh not normal. And um I have come to learn that women are just very, very good at masking and cosplaying as normal human beings. So um, yeah, I in 2020 had a couple of friends um who were late diagnosed women in academia and were telling me about their journeys. And I was also seeing a lot of memes and reels where it was sort of like, here's the neurodivergent experience. And I was like, I identify with pretty much all of that. So I started talking with my psychiatrist um at the time. And apparently it is easier to get diagnosed with ADHD. So I took that battery of tests, was off the charts. And then two years later, I also received the autism diagnosis and I purposely sought out a neuro-affirming uh assessment center. So that was a great experience. And so, yes, I so now I identify as Audi HD. 2018 was sort of when I started the journey, and then 2023, the ADHD diagnosis, 2025, the autism diagnosis.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

And and um, and when did your your research uh uh take the direction you know that you have now in this, you know, on this particular topic of neurodiversity?

SPEAKER_05 3:08

So it's sort of one sort of side meander. I wouldn't say it's necessarily a full branch of my research. My research is uh critical post-human perspectives on education or complexity theories on education. And um I have also done uh autoethnography and self-study of professional practice throughout my career. And so as I, you know, started figuring out through a lot of therapy how to manage the anxiety, um, started getting the diagnoses, uh, have always just done my own sort of self-writing. So I've published a few pieces about being an academic with anxiety. Um, I also talk about it quite a lot with my students. And I published my first piece that more directly speaks about the neurodiversity just a few months ago. I actually published it with one of my students who also identifies as neurodiverse, and it's called pebbling pedagogies. So I don't know if you're familiar with the practice of pebbling, um, but in the neurodivergent community, it's known as one of our love languages. So this idea comes from uh the practice of penguins giving each other small rocks as gifts or as even a courting practice. And so for neurodivergent folks, it's um I saw this thing and it reminded me of you. Uh often it is in the form of a meme, or for academics, an article, we thought, hey, this reminded me of you, you know, showing that I see you, I care about you. Uh, and so bringing it into practice in in terms of my teaching, I bring it in um as ways uh to make cultural references that students pick up on, but that also uh serve as pedagogical tools. So it makes concepts more clear. And so this was a student who really had appreciated the memes in terms of her learning journey, in terms of some concepts that are pretty difficult at the doctoral level. And so I got invited to write uh a short article for a qualitative, well, actually, it's not qualitative, uh, it's educational research methods journal. And uh so she and I wrote that together. So that was a lot of fun. Um, but so yeah, it's it's a small part of my research, more on the autoethnography side than any.

SPEAKER_04 5:27

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for uh you know sharing that. And hopefully the audience would uh definitely take a look and I'll definitely um uh take a look and read through that. Excited, you know, excited about that opportunity. And so if I understand you correctly, you know, you were on a journey as far as research, you had some personal discoveries, and that, you know, uh slight you know change, you know, or impacted your your research to some degree. Um, and but you you learned a lot. And so I'm just curious from um, you know, how does looking through the lens of complexity uh change the way we uh under we understand neurodiversity uh compared to traditional medical models?

SPEAKER_05 6:08

Um yeah, absolutely. Um I actually do um kind of a it's a it's a bit of a humorous lesson with my students when we talk about the social and the medical model. And so I actually bring in myself as a case study and I talk them through sort of my anxiety journey. I did this before I was neurodiverse. Now, of course, I it would just be even more complexified. Um, but what I do is I show them sort of the medical model is based on a binary of either or, and it almost always leads to an individualistic perspective of whatever it is. And it also tends to look at the neurodiversity or, you know, mental health issues from a deficit perspective, right? I am the one that caused this. I made bad choices. Um, you know, it's something wrong with me on the inside. Um, and I have to figure out how to fit into society or else I have no value. So that's the deficit-based perspective. When you move to a complexity perspective, it means that, and the social model also is a bit of a binary as well, because it's everything's in the social, and the social, you know, creates the impairments. Um, but the reality is there are some things that are within me, right? My mother, you know, had an ADHD and my dad had autism. Therefore, it's in it's coded in my genetics, right? I interact or interact even with the outside, right? So I am constantly being produced by multiple systems. And so I take them through this activity where we look at, if I was to look at it from this medical perspective, I would be at fault. I made the bad choices that led to burnout, I stressed myself out, took too much work on, blah, blah, blah. I have to fix myself, right? From the complex perspective. And then I show a picture of myself as a stick figure in the middle of all of these systems, right? Where it's like, okay, living in San Francisco and needing to buy a house. And so I have to pick up extra work, being in the academy, dealing with bullying, dealing with trauma, dealing with overwork and burnout, um, dealing with way too much service, you know, publish or perish. Um, and then, you know, the things that I do bring with my DNA. And then on one side, it was like all kinds of bad stuff happening. And it was like Trump and the sixth mass extinction event, right? All kinds of existential things. So all of those things were producing me in ways that were very toxic, right? So of course I'm going to develop these ways of being in the world that don't make me feel good, right? Like the anxiety. Now, of course, I also know that the neurodiversity is another piece of it, right? I have a neurotype that the world wasn't necessarily built, right, for. So the systems, the ways that you know we act, our social practices, cultural practices, um, those were based on um folks that have a different neurotype, right? So that's a whole nother set of negotiation. Um, and of course, now I know that how it leads to burnout, especially for late diagnosed women. And then you add on perimenopause and menopause and hormonal stuff, and it becomes like even more, right? So that's what complexity theory helps you do, is rather than looking at it as an individualistic thing where it is either it is me and my faults, or it's society, and society has to totally change. You look at it as it's an interaction, it's being produced, um, and you look at lots and lots of factors. It is fundamentally uh anti-deficit-based, right? Because, and I used this with my students during COVID because everybody's mental health was just through the roof. And it's very easy to blame yourself, right, for not being as productive and, you know, or dropping balls on different things. And so you're able to map out all of those different influences and say, oh wow, there's a lot of stuff happening and I'm only human. It's producing me in these particular ways.

SPEAKER_04 10:11

Yeah. You know, you you touched on a really critical piece uh around a deficit perspective, right? And that um that complexity perspective is I actually I can't I can't say that I'm really familiar with it. I've been in education over 25 years, right? And so there's, you know, you know, it's there's a huge opportunity for, you know, growth when it comes to, you know, transitioning from a deficit perspective. So I'm just curious, you know, how can educational leadership shift from you know that basic autism awareness to more of a genuine systematic acceptance, you know, and appreciation, you know, really to shift the the narrative.

SPEAKER_05 10:53

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, complexity perspectives are about understanding things as multifaceted rather than um having a single narrative, right? And so often when we have a single narrative about something, it's the dominant narrative. So when it comes to autism, when it comes to neurodiversity, that's going to be one of deficit. When you start to complicate things and you say, um, I mean, I'm I'm also not a fan of it's superpowers, right? It's a superpower, it's it's both, right? It's a superpower in some ways, it's a disability in other ways, right? Um and so understanding that you can be so many different things at one time, that is the complex perspective. But there's another piece to it that I think is really absolutely critical if we're going to move away from a deficit-based perspective. And that is um to really understand difference as a creative force. So the way that Western logic is built is on the binary, right? And so whatever is the norm is not just normal, it's good and in a lot of ways ideal. So anything that is different from that, it's not good, it's bad, but it also has to be fixed, right? Fixed, policed, or hidden, right? That's why our special education classrooms are so often in the basement or the furthest from the office, right? Um, right. Um, and so we have to disrupt that and understand that actually, again, going back to complex systems, a system that only reproduces itself, right? If you were gonna say just the norm, right, which which is sameness, right? So uniformity, a system that only produces itself is a dead system. It's at equilibrium, it's at rest, it's dead. If you look at in nature, the most um thriving ecosystems, they're the ones that are the most difference rich, right? The most biodiverse systems on earth are the ones that are the strongest. They have the most kinds of difference, which forces them to adapt and change, right? And so that that's the thing. When we take that idea of complex systems and that idea of diversity, right? I am also very committed to diversity as an equity issue, but it's also a life issue, right? The more forms of difference you have, the richer your life is going to be, the more change and adaptation it forces into systems and they become more complex, right? Same thing in our classrooms, same thing in our society. So the thing is not about acceptance, right? Acceptance is you're different than me, and I can somehow live with that, right? Appreciation and value for difference is I understand that your diversity is bound up with the richness and continuation of our society.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Your computer doesn't crash just because it runs a different operating system. It just processes things in its own way. So why do we expect every human brain to run the exact same way? Colleagues who process data, sound, or time differently aren't broken. They just run on a different, equally valuable code. Let's build better workplaces for all employees. Design an environment that supports every operating system. This message is brought to you by Neurodiversity today.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

All right, all right. I like to say you're talking that talk. Yeah, you know, what you're saying is so so impactful, so powerful, spot on. You know. Um you talked about, you know, you know, just just there needs to be a a shift, you know, uh as far as how we how we perceive, but also, you know, how we how we behave, how we act. And and you talked about the school systems and the classroom locations and those type of things. And so staying on that and transitioning into talking about uh the inclusive classroom and also teacher preparation, you know, what what are some common gaps in how teacher preparation programs train educators to support neurodivergent students in this day and time and and how, you know, and what are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_05 15:14

Um so I think that there's a huge amount of variation in terms of preparation. Um, I think that what you are going to see across the country in terms of your typical teacher education, teacher preparation programs attached to universities is that it's still very much the same as multilingual learner education, special education, which is going to be that you will have an add-on class, right? You do have some programs that take more of an equity thread throughout the program. So, for example, um, I got my doctorate at Montclair State University, which is a historic normal school, and they um have always done really amazing things with education, right? And so their preparation program is very coherent and they have tried to take an integrated approach rather than an add-on. Those are definitely more powerful. I also think that you're just having more and more awareness. Um, but the issue is with teacher preparation programs is that typically they're a year, right? You're gonna have your bachelor's degree, and then you're gonna take your one-year program, and then you're gonna go into schools, right? And then once you get into schools, again, it's going to depend very, you know, it's gonna be a huge amount of variety in terms of what kind of professional development you have access to. And so one of the biggest fallacies we have in terms of teacher prep programs is that, you know, we let them that they're finished, right? They finish their programs and they go in and they're finished. They are often given the most challenging assignments, right? Because they go where the greatest need is. Um, and they often, and in those situations in our most challenging schools with our most vulnerable populations, they typically receive the least amount of support. So we have huge, huge turnover rates for our new teachers. Um, and it's a very, very hard time to be a teacher for lots and lots of reasons. It's gotten even harder through and after COVID. So um, so I do think that even though we're gaining more awareness, we need to have our teacher preparation programs, our universities and our schools partnering so that we can ensure that our teachers' education continues, the support continues into districts. And, you know, as we continue to learn more, just we have to continue that alignment. We have to continue that coherence.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Let me ask you just a quick follow-up question around the even the term neurodiversity. I'm not aware of any um any language, uh, any you know, legislation that includes, you know, the the word uh neurodiversity on a federal, state, or local level. Are you do you are you finding the same thing and are are are you uh part of any conversations, you know, uh, you know, about that topic?

SPEAKER_05 18:19

Yeah, you know, I'm not yet. I mean, in terms of neurodiversity, um, it's really been sort of um almost like that personal storytelling sort of arm of my research. And so I am not aware of policy. I I have seen at the university level in the past couple of years, again, like a rising awareness. And I've been actually invited into faculty conversations about disability and neurodiversity because I tell my story and because I've published about it. So I see it happening in pockets. I don't know yet if it's codified into policy.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Yeah. You know, on the on the in the workforce, you know, we have neurodiversity programs, hiring programs, those type of things. Um in higher ed, you know, there's certain you know, supportive programs. But in the K-12 space, I I definitely haven't seen any type of traction, you know, around that that language. But staying, you know, uh in the K-12 space, I'm I'm curious. Your work has uh heavily you know uh um focused at times on uh this the concept of scaffolding. And so I'm I'm uh curious as far as how can educators um scaffold physical and sensory you know environments to reduce or um reduce overwhelmed students who are autistic or neurodivergent.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Hmm.

SPEAKER_05 19:46

That's a great question. So when we think about scaffolding, typically it's a learning concept where you are somehow coming into, you know, into collaboration with a student in some way as a teacher, right, to give them a boost. So typically we think about what the students can already do, um, and that's their zone of self-regulation. And then what they absolutely can't do with any support, that's the zone of, that's like the zone of frustration. And in the middle, that's the zone of proximal development. That's what they're on the cusp of learning. And so as a teacher, um, you can do different things, provide different supports, divide, provide different structures to be able to give them that boost. Um and I hadn't actually thought about it outside of learning, but I think that it would make a lot of sense in terms of teachers being able to understand what the ZPD is. So when we think of, you know, the ZPD, if you have someone that you're writing with, for example. So what are the things that they need in terms of being able to get to the next level in their argument? Um, but we could also think about it in terms of the sensory space. What is the thing that they need to be able to concentrate to be able to get to that next level? And so, yeah, I think teachers paying attention to what their students' needs are, paying attention to the environment, things that, you know, I mean, there's a lot of things that teachers don't have control over, but you know, not having blaring lights, for example, could you bring in extra lamps? You know, so I think that there are some small changes that you could make that would then provide just that little bit of comfort. Um, so that because when the student is focusing on uh regulation so intensely, um, right, typically that's going to be something that's shutting down that front for um frontal contact cortex where the reasoning is happening. So if we can take a little bit of pressure off of that to relax the students so that they can focus a little bit more on what they're doing, it makes sense, right? That that would be even a little bit similar to another kind of boost. So then they can focus and they can.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

move forward in whatever skill whatever understanding they're working on yeah creating you know creating the environment um from a teacher standpoint you know can be um can be challenging but the the training the preparation um is sometimes just just not there and so when I talked about just the word the language to identify the needs you know of students you know it's just it's a huge I huge opportunity um it it just makes me think about you know there's there's different concepts that has been around uh teacher training leadership training around l love and logic or are just taking uh a a more approach that includes understanding or empathy and so I'm just curious you know how can school leaders train you know uh neurotypical staff uh to understand some of the communication barriers uh are that the communication barriers are really a two-way street you know you know with individuals particularly students who are neurodivergent autistic um you know and I think this falls up under the the the understanding or concept of uh double empathy you know how you know has your work you know focused on or anything around a double empathy as it relates to you know teachers and just an overall learning environment yeah no I I mean I come across the concept but I haven't necessarily worked with it in terms of my research.

SPEAKER_05 23:26

What I will say is that um one of the first things that I do with my students when they come into my fall class is we talk about the mind body split. And so in schools very traditionally we set a norm that we focus on intellectual activity, we focus on the mind. And anything to do with the body is really ignored. It's even maybe looked at as something that doesn't have a place in school. And so this idea of making students comfortable you know of understanding different communicative types and being accommodating in that way might not necessarily be seen as teacher's work. It might not be seen as something to be taken seriously. But again I think coming back to that we have to have a paradigm shift in terms of the way we see the world moving away from that binary of mind body, right? Of the school is about the mind and understanding the ways that those are really connected particularly for neurodivergent people again I think this is going to be really, really important. I think there's a way that you can absolutely connect it especially for ed leaders understanding their organization as complex systems is really super important. So you can attach those same same understandings, right? You can understand your organization as a complex system if you're working on the binary. And so it's all transferable and it all connects. And then I think you know I'm a huge fan of book clubs and doing readings together. I think it's really important to understand the neuroscience behind you know what are the reasons that you know neurodivergent folks are constantly you know having to regulate themselves, right? What are the reasons that there may be some communic some of these communicative differences? And so understanding how learning is so connected to sensory overwhelm, right, to communicative styles. So I think really taking it seriously and designing you know at the school level some really thoughtful professional development where you're reading together and you're talking um maybe you can share you know sharing about how this shows up in the classroom for you. So when we're talking about professional development and just as a side note in teacher ed we typically say development rather than training just because it puts the emphasis on the expertise for teachers and that they're professionals. And so we always want something that's going to be school based, that's going to be sustained, that's going to be collaborative, that's going to be immediately applicable to practice. And so having communities of practice that are around things like understanding our neurodivergent students and the ways that their bodies very much are bound up in their learning activities and we have to understand, I mean the whole child is something that is thrown around as a concept quite a lot but do we ever really think in terms of right being able to understand how the mind and body work together? So I think things like that, that collaborative PD, you know, at you know with um support at the school level being able to take that seriously and spend that time I think that that would help.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Yeah yeah that the mind how does your organization view different ways of thinking do you see hurdles or do you see hidden power? Meet Kenneth Mims, a dynamic TEDx speaker, global advocate and founder of the Neurodiversity Education Research Center. He is a world-recognized expert in neuroaffirming, strength-based practices that change how we learn, work and lead. From corporate boardrooms to university halls and K-12 schools, Kenneth gives your team the inspiration and motivation needed along with actionable tools to move past old labels to tap into innovative potential.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

Foster true inclusion by booking Kenneth Mims at KennethMims.com today yeah yeah that the mind-body you know perspective is is really critical you know and and and that makes me you know think about the the topic you know of masking the many individuals who are neurodivergent autistic you know um you know struggle with yeah I think this is really something that we're just starting to recognize again as uh we are gaining more tools to be able to um to understand that there are way more neurodiverse folks than we've previously thought.

SPEAKER_05 27:59

But it's something that I have talked a lot about with my therapist just in terms of my own unmasking journey and understanding that, you know, for a lot of women, because in academia right now there's almost a like an epidemic of women who are around my age or a little older and you hit paramenopause and your hormones go nuts and all of a sudden the masking and the different workarounds right that you've created your whole life that has allowed you to be this high achieving, you know, accomplished professional no longer is working, right? And so that puts you in burnout or, you know, whatnot. And so a lot of us have then been on the journey to get the diagnosis, get therapy and really get to know who we are. And for me, I mean it's been so mind blowing to realize that some of the things that I thought were my personality traits were actually just very, very deep, deeply entrenched masking patterns, right? Like being an extrovert. I can perform really well as an extrovert um but it actually really exhausts me. And so I think you know when when we have been masking for so long and we deliberately start unmasking, there's something that happens where my therapist refers to it as skill regression, but I've also seen it like online in different communities referred to as becoming more Tistic. And there's just something that happens where you become aware of things that you pushed down for a really long time or have thought was weird. So you just, you know, let me pretend that's not happening. And then now that everything's been you know you know it's been ripped off, you can't unsee it. Right. And so that has happened to me as well. And so I think we will see that in terms of you know as we're getting more diagnoses, as we gain more knowledge about this, you're gonna see that with both teachers and students. And so for me, you know, whenever I think about K-12 schools whenever I think about also our faculty right, we're preparing teachers and the teachers are preparing the students. All of us, right, there's more and more people who are being diagnosed how do we you know how do we promote knowledge and support all along that continuum right student teacher uh teacher educator.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

Hmm yeah um you you you said a lot a lot of very you know impactful things right there. You know you're and I thank you so much for sharing your personal journey journey but the individuals that I talked to and even myself you know you know we can relate because we're all you know at some point you know on the same type of journey as it relates to to masking. But I never heard what you said as far as the the consideration of like skill regression um but that makes sense because um you know sometimes when you're moving forward you know it looks like you're taking a step back but it's really sometimes the opportunity for um um learning and and and if you look at it from an academic standpoint from a mastery learning uh model you know you you you're just you know you're moving forward uh you get some type of so-called assessment you know and then you you know you re-reteach or you know have a re uh uh opportunity to to learn or master what you haven't mastered and so just stay kind of like staying on that I'm just curious when we talk about measuring you know performance um you know do you think there should be any shifts as far as how we measure grade you know um the success of autistic students uh if if you know the standard standardized you know testing you know is not working or failing to capture you know their actual potential and you know growth?

SPEAKER_05 31:56

Yeah I mean I have even well before I started looking at anything to do with neurodiversity um have always thought our assessment systems are broken. They are not driven by you know what we know about good assessments in terms of research. They're not driven by uh understanding what students learn and helping them deepen their learning. They're driven by billion dollar corporations that produce the tests like Pearson. So we have tons and tons and tons of research that shows us that standardized testing not only, you know, I mean so for example often like multilingual learners, you know, they're forced to take these tests and they continually fail and they continually fail and they're put in remedial classes because it's not actually measuring what they know. It's measuring their ability to speak English, right? So half the time the tests don't even measure what they say they measure. They're terribly culturally and linguistically biased. But yes, they are also biased by neurotype for sure. And so that's the thing is I mean there's this old cartoon right where it's like a lineup of animals, one of them's a fish, right? And it's like, all right, the assessment is to go climb that tree, right? And so of course if you don't have you know the proper tools right in terms of what's being tested, um then you're you're not gonna do well. But I mean it's also just damaging to students in so many different ways. We can't standardize anything, right? It comes back to what I was saying before about uh the norm, right? Always wanting to have this uniform norm. And the world just doesn't work that way. I understand wanting to have some kind of like quality control, sure, right? But you can't assess it except qualitatively, right? If we understood our teachers as professionals, then we would trust them to be able to assess student learning and we would create some kind of very diverse, you know, set of you know qualitative assessments. There are some places that have done that. It is highly complex, yes, but it actually measures what we say we want to measure. Right. And that's one thing that actually like blows my mind about neurotypical society and about the standardized testing movement is again, we would much rather have a simple measure that we could just point to and be like, here's the score, even if it means absolutely nothing. And so you know you look at um there's a consortium of competency based rubric um you know schools in New York State, for example, that took on the New York they took on New York State and were able to um you know have their own competency based, rubric-based measures um that are done through taking particular courses and different performance assessments rather than taking standardized tests. I think they still have to take the regents exam all the way at the end. Other than that, no standardized testing right and these schools are brilliant and the kids that come out of them are brilliant, right? Because they're actually able to see what students are learning and they're able to then help move forward, right? That's what assessment really should be about. They should be formative to be able to deepen, right? Not cumulative to be able to just give a grade and say you failed or not, right? Because again, you know we we already know none of it makes any sense it means nothing and it's just putting money in people's pockets. Sorry very cynical when it comes to to standardized tests.

SPEAKER_04 35:25

Yeah yeah I mean you know you're absolutely right about you know it's very rigid. It's very rigid. And like you said, you know sometimes the the data is is uh really doesn't have value. You know it it it it really it it misses you know the the mark the purpose you know of of you know it has no no purpose. And and so you know that that's the the this the K-12 space you know but in the higher ed space as a professional I'm just curious you you have a a book Scaffolding the language of power?

SPEAKER_05 35:59

I do actually it's sitting right here because I'm I'm currently writing the follow-up to it. Um yeah wow and so my my question is how can neurodivergent advocates or self-advocates claim their own communication autonomy you know in these again highly rigid spaces yeah absolutely so I mean I think you know for neurodiverse people as I said before it's often a both and right we have things that um we have to compensate for and need accommodations for we also are able to see the world and interact with the world in ways that can be an enormous advantage. So one of the things for me is um I am able to see patterns pretty easily right and so I see patterns everywhere and and especially when you're looking at history and what's happening in current events, it can be a curse. But in terms of uh of learning to write it can be a tremendous asset and especially for my students. And so what I've done is basically taken the hidden curriculum of the dissertation and broken it down to say, okay um and I again I ask my students to hold multiple things at one time. Academic language as the language of power right it's not neutral. It's not something that it's like this is the correct way. No, it is it comes from a specific time and place uh it comes from it's it's Eurocentric. It's the language of the white middle and affluent class and it's being culturally imposed on us um over time as the correct and normal right um but the reality is it's it's the language of power, right? So if you uh if you want access to power you do have to become conversant with it. Here's the thing though is often in schools, in universities, we just assume, especially when you get to the doctoral level, we assume you should already know how to write we're not here to teach you how to write which is complete nonsense because when you get to the doctoral level it's like what we call in K-12 schools the language of schooling it's like that on steroids. There are very specific things you do with language and if you can't do those things then this language becomes a massive gatekeeper. And over time it's one of the major ways that we've kept academia mostly white and male. And then because academia creates the knowledge, the knowledge stays mostly white and male, right? So in this book what I do is I say, okay, let's keep the critical perspective in mind and let's also take a pragmatic perspective which is that the language of power is a particular genre of writing. And then each of the different tasks of your dissertation can be thought of as a subgenre. So your problem statement, your lit review, your theoretical framework and so on, each of those can be broken down. And in a genre you have a communicative purpose and then you have things you do with language to meet that purpose right so if you say here's what the purposes are here's what you do with language to meet those purposes you make those transparent and then you teach them and then you give opportunities to practice in terms of that's that scaffolding right and now let's put it together. Now let's put it together. So you build out your chapter. But the other thing that I do with scaffolding is to say it's not just a way of teaching it's a way of writing what happens when you write as scaffolding right which means that I'm writing with my reader and supporting my reader in mind. So I get my content down and then I design it to say what are the ways that I can support my reader so that I can build bridges between my ideas, right? So that and a lot of these things are not like anything revolutionary like any third grade literacy teacher would be like yes I understand those are pre-reading during reading and after reading strategies, right? Like my headings give the gist. I have a very well marked topic sentence, right? I'm chunking into ideas. I have roadmaps where I'm like first I'm gonna tell you this second I'm gonna tell you this. I have well thought out transitions that actually like make the relationship clear between the ideas and link them together. And I have other strategies that I talk about in here where it's like you know academic writing is very much about breaking the fourth wall to be like hey listen up I'm about to tell you this really important thing. This theory has four different tenets first this second right so then I'm able to pull you along with me. So it not only makes the hidden curriculum of writing in academia transparent and teaches it, but it also teaches this more uh relational and I think equity based way of writing because if you can bring your reader along with you then it makes this more accessible right it makes writing it makes academic publications more accessible for everybody.

SPEAKER_04 41:01

Do you do your students appreciate you I hope they do um I I hope so I mean I think um yeah yeah but I mean I was actually shocked the way that it took off um it's been adopted by more than um 20 doctoral programs across the country educational doctorate programs that I know of that I'm happy to hear that you know and you know if I was a student uh in a doctoral program I definitely would want you know want to take that course so that that is um that's amazing and you know and very beneficial I'm sure you know because that that that experience in the doctorate program for anyone let alone somebody who may be neurodivergent it can be extremely rigid and extremely you know um challenging because you know you may not just have that additional support and someone to be able to clearly communicate you know kind of expectations and a way to get to the the finish line. As we close out this this episode I want to you know just you know ask a question uh looking into um you know your ideal future and um just curious you know if you to know if you if you could instantly redesign one single uh ed policy um in public education to immediately improve the life of uh you know of a norodivergent learners students what would it be it's such an interesting question because I typically don't think at the level of policy so I my research is at the micro level so I look at what happens from the moment to moment in the classroom when I think about um because my my like real research is how do teachers teach?

SPEAKER_05 42:57

How do teachers learn and what do they do with that in the classroom? And to be able to look at that you really have to look at the micro level it also relates to complex systems because when you look at the when you look at phenomena like emergence of teaching and learning you have to look at it at the level of emergence which is that moment to moment level. And the thing about policy is it's super macro and it's very, very uh it's it's something that's typically imposed on teachers. And so it's something that is given to them and typically it's interpreted through districts. And then so it trickles down and a lot of times the policies are put out and they are not necessarily taken up in ways that are going to be very supportive for teachers. And so for example policies about inclusion in classrooms are often mandated. And what schools do is they actually take a compliance mentality, but they don't provide um you know preparation To teachers in terms of what they actually need to be doing. So, for example, general education teachers and special education teachers often have wildly different understandings of what quality teaching is because special ed teachers are prepared more by educational psychologists and folks coming out of a much more quantitative perspective. Whereas in the classroom, you're getting pedagogical development, right? And so it's much more qualitative, it's much more relational. So really, you have to be able to put both of them together to be able to, you know, uh have really effective inclusion policies, right? So you have to have general education teachers and special education teachers, ideally co-teaching. And even schools that do co-teaching typically aren't providing the time that they need for them to be able to really share expertise. And they're not really providing the supports because learning how to collaborate is, you know, and co-teach is a whole nother thing, right? Typically, teachers are isolated in their classrooms. So you have to even scaffold the collaboration. So what I would love to see is I would love to see policy, like rather than any single policy, I would like to see policy makers, teacher educators, and teachers in classrooms, leaders, all in conversation, co-creating policy. Because when policy is created, typically it's done by someone who actually has no idea what happens in classrooms. Most of the time, they didn't send their children to public school either. And so they, you know, I mean, again, the separation of what's happening in schools and how policy is made is just it, you know, it makes it so that uh it's very, very difficult for policies to actually do something really effective. So I would love, you know, again, rather than to have, you know, this policy should be implemented. I would rather see the folks working in collaboration, policymakers, school leaders, teachers, um, and teacher educators to actually create something that's going to be implementable in schools and that teachers have buy-in and that uses their expertise.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely right. You know, just connecting those dots between, you know, educators and researchers and and policymakers, you know, to drive things that are, you know, that are, you know, truly impactful, you know, for students. I definitely agree. Well, I definitely appreciate you uh joining us in this episode. Um and um uh can can you share um maybe with our our listeners where they can you know find you know your book or are are you know uh get in contact with you uh um you know uh to uh to learn more?

SPEAKER_05 46:51

Yeah, absolutely. So scaffolding the language of power is available from Myers Press, M-Y-E-R-S Press. You can Google Scaffolding the Language of Power, and in fact, it just works out this way because I just assigned this for my fall class. Um, but you can actually get a 20% discount by using the code STROM6 until September 15th.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

All right. All right, that's all right.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

Thank you so much, appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We hope it informed and inspired you with new insights and understanding. Please take a moment to subscribe, like, and share this channel. Your support helps these vital conversations reach the listeners who need this the most. To connect with our guests and fellow listeners, access exclusive content, and stay updated on our upcoming live events. Join our growing community on LinkedIn. You can find the direct link in the show notes below. Until next time, keep embracing neurodiversity and all things mental.