The world needs diversity of thought. The current way of educating doesn’t always account for that.
That was one of the messages given by Temple Grandin, during her keynote speech during a symposium celebrating young, neuordivergend leaders at the Park Theatre in Jaffrey on Wednesday evening.
The symposium, titled “Reframing Neurodivergence: Strengths-Based Approaches that Celebrate the Gifts of Young Learners,” brought together Grandin, a renowned author and scientist well-known for her work designing systems that revolutionized livestock handling, and her work as an autism advocate, with a panel of other experts to discuss the topic.
This was a homecoming for Grandin, who attended both the Hampshire Country Day School in Rindge and Franklin Pierce University.
Grandin said that as a child, she both leaned to talk and to read late, and was not a fan of studying.
She also thought differently than most people around her. She was a highly visual thinker. But, she said, that way of thinking has helped her in creating her mechanical systems. And, she said, current education systems don’t always account for a brain that works like hers.
“I’m very concerned that we’re screening our the visual thinkers, because they can’t do algebra. I’ve never passed an algebra class in my life,” Grandin said. “We need these visual thinkers.”
She said while some fields absolutley require higher math, others could be satisfied with more practical math classes.
Grandin said increasingly, she’s seen young, neurodivergent people failing to launch into career spheres after high school, or not being hired, despite having valuable skills.
She said that one of the ways she would like to see the gap addressed is to add or create ways for young students — as young as elementary school — to interact with hands-on projects and tools.
“I’m not seeing kids graduate to tools from Legos,” Grandin said.
She also said there has been a shift in lifeskill and job training. She said that her first job was a sewing job at 13. While a student at Hampshire Day School, she had responsibilities such as caring for the horses and cleaning the stable, and was trained in woodworking and roofing projects.
Following Grandin’s keynote, she joined a panel of experts to talk about ways understanding has grown — and what still needs to be done — in the fields of therapy, neuroscience and education to better understand people with neurodivergence.
The panel consisted of Will White, an author and clinnical consultant with Moosilauke Visions, Carolin Robertson, a neuroscientist and associate professor at Dartmouth College, David Rowe, the directer of neuropsychology at United Assessment of New York, and Stacia Languille, the clinical mental health counselr and founder of the Ancora Imparo Equine Center in New York.
The panel talked about modern approaches to neurodivergence.
White said one of the programs he works with, The Trade, helps young adults, some of whom haven’t been in the workforce before, learn skilled trades. He said it is becoming much more common now than 10 years ago for students to graduate from high school without any job experience, and that learning hands on skills “brings value, brings confidence.”
Rowe spoke of the need for access to services for neurodivergent children and adults, saying that the “bottleneck continues to be access,” and that supports can be based on how disruptive a child is, rather than the support they actually need.