What Helps Neurodivergent Students Feel Engaged at School?
Ana Lorena Fábrega joined me on the Reframing Neurodiversity podcast this week to talk about how we can make school more engaging for all kids.
Ana is a former teacher turned author and edupreneur. I love how the work she’s doing really gives parents and teachers permission to think differently. We talked about the themes in her book The Learning Game, where she covers teaching kids to think for themselves, embrace challenge, and love learning.
Melissa: What really stood out for me in your book was how much you're speaking to the neurodivergent experience. I know you never say that word in the book, but I love how you frame everything you say as just being good teaching for all students.
Ana: I think it’s so important for us to stop and reflect on the whole reason we’re even in school in the first place. Why are we here? How did we end up here?
Sometimes we blindly trust the education system — often with the best intentions — but do we ever reflect back on our own school experience and if it could have been better? Or if it actually was the optimal environment for us to thrive in?
Melissa: And if we’re going to help make it an environment where our children can thrive, it really does start with the shift in mindset as parents.
Questioning the default, questioning these messages we've all been served about the “right” way to do school and the “right” way to learn.
And it's like we need to step back and really look at the goal of school today. Because the skills we need today are these more divergent thinking skills that are more creative and innovative and allow for opportunities to make mistakes and to learn from our mistakes.
The system we have today really makes failure something to run away from rather than seeing it as an opportunity to learn.
Ana: Being uncomfortable with failure is one of those unhealthy habits that’s actually being reinforced in school. If you look at a traditional school setting environment, kids rarely have time to practice failing constructively when the stakes are low.
When they get bad grades that makes them not want to take risks. Especially when us parents are conditioned to believe bad grades are something to be punished or to feel bad about.
When in reality we should be more inquisitive: do they not know the material or do they just need another way to showcase that they do? Is it even a big deal? It's all about approaching everything through the lens of curiosity.
Ana’s Case Study: Why are kids comfortable with failure in video games, but not school?
What is it about video games that kids can fail over and over and over again, and they don't get discouraged? We don't see that in school. What can we as educators and parents learn from video game designers and bring into the learning environment?
The answer: video games satisfy the three things humans need in order to be healthy and happy: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When we recognize these traits we can help our kids translate them outside of video games as well as help ourselves understand what a certain lesson or activity needs in order to become more engaging.
How can we get kids to feel invested, excited, and engaged in their school work?
Melissa: In my own parenting, that curiosity you mentioned has allowed me to be much more relaxed; I know what matters and what doesn't. With my kids it’s like “so maybe you're dyslexic and spelling is really hard for you. But you have great creative ideas and I don't care about your spelling test. Let's get those creative ideas out on paper and let's find ways to build confidence in the things that you're good at.”
Ana: Oh, I actually love that last example, I want to share a quick personal story about how I went from hating writing to doing it for a living.
The way that I was taught how to write, and the way that I was taught how to teach kids how to write was the very traditional way: focus on grammar, mechanics, spelling.
I hated writing growing up, I hated teaching writing, and my students hated writing.
“Remove all those rules and mechanics from the equation and let the kids focus and elaborate on the things they’re already excited about: their ideas.”
When it all changed for me was when I unlearned all these things that I've been told for years about writing.
Dump all the ideas on paper and then worry about everything else. Start from abundance instead of from scarcity.
The way we’ve been taught to write is that you sit in front of a blank piece of paper and here's the prompt. But what if I'm not interested in that prompt?
Melissa: 100%. And I hear you saying it's this flip flop. It's like, if we can allow kids to feel invested and excited and engaged in something that's meaningful and interesting to them, then those skills that aren't as interesting — like writing — are going to be easier to learn.
I'm dyslexic and have ADHD and I'm a writer now, but it's because I don't care if I just get all my stuff out and it doesn't look pretty. I know I've got all the tools I need to clean it up later on.
But the difference is that I recognize I have unique creative ideas, whereas when you're a child you have really limited opportunities to recognize that in a system where the gateway to those ideas is something that's really hard or boring.
How does the lack of movement during the school day affect kids with ADHD?
Ana: So much of it is about the environment too.
The kids who are fidgeting and restless and can’t focus on their work — that’s their bodies telling us that they're not in the right environment. They need to be releasing way more energy than just 20-minute recess and an hour of physical education.
“We know that kids need so much movement to develop, that’s how their brains kick into gear and how they’re ready to learn. But in a traditional school setting, kids are sitting down from 7am until 3pm.”
If you look at alternative schools, in many of them the kids are up and down and moving and on the floor and jumping and walking all day long. And I even realized my own way of writing and generating ideas is not sitting down at a computer — I need to go on a walk and be in constant movement when I’m being creative and when I want to write.
Melissa: That’s especially beneficial for certain neurowirings where our experience is really not aligned with our traditional system where you have to sit all day. You don't get much movement, you don't get much choice, you don't get to pick what you're interested in, and you don't get time outside.
Ana: It was frustrating for me as a teacher for two reasons. I felt like we were accentuating the problem for kids who had ADHD. And I also felt like a lot of kids in my class were mislabeled with it too, simply because the environment we put them in was so restricting.
What messages are kids hearing about their neurowirings?
Melissa: I think the biggest mindset shift is seeing the environment as being disabling, not the child.
I talk about this a lot, that I have an issue with our deficit language, calling kids disordered or disabled. I mean, Attention Deficit Disorder, it's got two negatives in the title. So rather than looking at the strengths that exist in this neurowiring, our language makes us focus on fixing people to fit into an environment instead of the other way around.
Ana: I absolutely love that.
The message I would get as a child from parents, teachers, and doctors was “You're disruptive. You're impulsive. You talk too much. You have too much energy.” And everything was like, “that's bad. You need to be less like that.”
I realized as an adult I was able to channel all that excessive energy and that passion and zest for life. I love talking to people. I get to write about and express all my creative ideas. I get to talk for hours on podcasts.
All these things that I was told that were wrong with me are actually my strengths.
Imagine if that was the message I had gotten as a kid.
Melissa: And I noticed in your book, so many of the examples you shared of successful innovators are actually neurodivergent. The strengths we squelch in school and the “defective” labels we slap on people are actually attributes of their neurowiring that are gifts.
So I think it's this real mindset shift around, are these things actually flaws or are they actually talents that in the right environment can potentially be significant contributions to all of us?
And so I just appreciate you so much and the conversation that you bring to the table. I feel like the work that you're doing and this book that you brought to the world really gives parents permission and teachers to look at things differently.
More Resources Mentioned in the Episode
Connect with Ana! She’s @msfab_learninglab on Instagram, you can read her Fab Fridays newsletter here, and you can grab her book The Learning Game here.
As we talked about at the end of the episode, Ana is part of a startup called Synthesis that’s teaching kids skills they may not be able to learn in a traditional classroom. They recently developed a digital math tutor trained by the best educators in the field. Use our code NEURODIVERSITY for 10% off any tutoring plan — monthly, annual, or lifetime.
The shareable pamphlet I mentioned at the end of the episode for creating equitable learning environments for all students (pamphlet)
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Still curious about anything we mentioned today? I'd love to hear what's on your mind.
It's really a dream come true to have a platform to discuss these issues that are so near and dear to my heart with you. And I'm just so grateful that you're here with me today and ready to support each other on our journeys.
