Neurodivergence Without Shame, Part 4: Being a Neurodivergent Educator

Editor’s note: This is an edited transcription of a conversation between myself and Rachel. It is the last of four posts made out of this conversation. We encourage you to read the previous parts (one, two, and three) first, if you haven’t already. Anything in brackets is content I have added in editing. Occasionally, I left in our repetitions, stutters, and verbal idiosyncrasies to better reflect how we both talk. —Ashton 

In this post, we talk about masking vs. performance in the classroom, and what that looks like for each of us. We share tips and insights into how we build classroom spaces that are welcoming to all students’ needs. Lastly, we provide closing thoughts on this series of posts. 

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Masking vs. Performance

Ashton: I teach middle schoolers [note: I am not currently teaching, although I will likely return to it soon], and obviously they’re at a very important age for their own self concept. As a disabled, neurodivergent adult trying to teach them, it’s a very fine balance. There’s a certain amount of masking that I have to do to get through a day. Especially if I’m having a bad pain day or I have a migraine. But I don’t want to teach them that masking is always the way to do things. I want to create an environment where they are open to stim and share whatever they want. 

[Note: for a definition of what we mean by “masking” in this conversation, read part 3.] 

Ashton: And this is not just for the neurodivergent students. This is an environment where everybody can listen to their needs and do what they need to. I can’t remember the last time one of my students raised their hands. Sometimes they do it, but they know they don’t have to. They’re fully welcome to interrupt me and just be like, “you know, I have a question about this.” I think part of that has been learning what the expectations are around how classrooms are “supposed” to be run. Then I ask, “what part of that is actually conducive to a classroom that runs smoothly?”

Ashton: Working with middle schoolers, you can’t have as much leeway as you would with adults. Because they still require a lot of guidance and structure. But to give them a space where they feel like they have a little more freedom and a little more agency— I’ve seen that’s really valuable for them. They open up more, they engage in activities. They ask a lot more questions. It’s a constant balance for me of like, “how much of myself am I pushing away right now? What could I share with my students? What could I let myself do in this moment?”

Rachel: Let me preface this by saying I’m willing to be completely wrong about this, but I think there is a space that’s a performance space— and this is different from social masking. For example, when I go to an author event as the author, I am performing. I am also myself, but I am myself performing. And so to some degree, when I teach I’m performing, because I’m performing this content for the students. To keep it exciting and interesting, I have to be a little more outwardly enthusiastic than I might otherwise be. 

Rachel: So we can be performing, and we can be masking, and we can be both at the same time. When I’m on campus, it’s more likely that I’m performing in the classroom and I’m masking in the English department. If I run into a colleague in the hall that I don’t know well, I’m masking, not performing. If I’m getting small groups to discuss literature in the classroom, I’m performing. I enjoy performing and I guess sometimes I can enjoy masking, but less often.

Ashton: I think I would probably agree with that. Looking at my own classroom, I feel like I am definitely doing both. 

Rachel: There are days when I for sure do both. 

Ashton: From my memory of having been in a class of yours, you’re not too different. Between this conversation and how you are in the classroom, I mean. I feel like you let a lot of your own personality and quirks shine through while you’re performing.

Rachel: I try, otherwise, it’s a boring performance for everybody. Boring for me, and boring for the students. Part of how this works is that humans all have multiple aspects. So different aspects of us are showing up in different environments. 

Ashton: People will talk about code switching [adjusting your language, behavior, or expression to fit different contexts] because it’s something almost everyone does. [It is even more common and recognized by folks with more intersectional marginalized identities.] Regardless of neurotype or background, the majority of people are going to perform somewhat differently in their group of friends than they are in a group of coworkers or with a partner. 

Rachel: An issue with masking is how much effort it takes and how much potential inauthenticity is happening. I get tired when I teach, but it’s a satisfied kind of tired. It’s not the drained-tired that I get if I mask for a long time. Because in extreme masking situations, I do feel like I’m lying— on purpose, to get a thing done. 

Ashton: Job interviews.

Rachel: Yes. Or when I would do corporate work. I’m so not a corporate person, so to show up in some big law firm and do a marketing thing, there’s a certain amount of me being completely outside who I am as an individual to pull this off. That is a draining, tiring experience.

Accommodating Students and Ourselves

Rachel: Coming back to the classroom, I’m thinking about expectation versus interest. The classroom historically has been a site of expectation. It is teaching people to show up on time and do a certain amount of work. Essentially, it’s teaching people productivity culture or grind culture, which is not ideal. As educators, when we go into the classroom, there’s a minimal amount of behavioral expectations that keep things from descending into chaos. Then the question becomes, “how interesting can we be in this context of expectation?”

Ashton: Something I really like around that is allowing students to be a part of creating those expectations. When necessary, I’ll guide them towards that minimum amount. But giving them the agency to say, “this is something that I feel like would make a good classroom environment,” and then let other people weigh in on that. I always start by having the students generate a set of expectations and I really try to focus it on what do we do, not what do we not do?

Ashton: That way we’re not building that resistance and shame that comes with, “oh, I shouldn’t do this thing.” Instead, we’re focusing on, “oh, I can do this thing. That’s how I can show up today.”

Rachel: I always want to have classrooms that are very friendly to a wide variety of learning styles and people styles. Ideally, it would have a different physicality than what I’m currently offered for a classroom. That’s a constraint in and of itself, but I let students know early on, bring your fidgets, bring your knitting, whatever you need to do to focus. There’s nothing you can do–as long as it’s not disrupting the people around you–that’s going to bother me from the front of the room. 

Rachel: But I wish there was more space for people to move. So that I could say, “hey, you want to get up and pace in the back of the room? Please do it. If you learn better while you’re moving. Do it.”

Rachel: This fall I may try to do one or two class sessions walking, if everyone in my class can do that comfortably— because movement is so good. Last fall, I took the class to the Idea Lab and we physically made a timeline and that came out great. I’m thinking of ways to give information to people in multiple routes, because people don’t all learn the same way. Which is true for neurodivergent/neurotypical, but it’s also true for everybody. Everyone’s got different learning styles. And then I’m usually fidgeting in class, which people don’t always notice because my hands are usually out of sight. But at some point, I always say, “see, I too am fidgeting.”

Ashton: Yeah. I’m almost always standing when I’m teaching. So they can very clearly see what I’m doing, but I don’t tend to have a fidget— I just pick up a whiteboard marker.

Rachel: Right? Exactly. People don’t know that I do that a lot, with a pen or whiteboard marker, and they don’t realize that’s my fidget. Or I would say like my tea thermos, in a sense, is a sensory thing for me because it feels good. It’s heavy. And drinking good tea is a sensory thing. So those are kind of ways I’m taking care of myself. Plus really good shoes.

Ashton: I think I might answer this question first, and then you. You already started talking about some of the things you do in your classroom. What are some more examples of ways we set up the classroom both for students and for ourselves? I know for me, I also have the very comfortable and supportive shoes. Which really helps with being on my feet for an hour. I do have a chair I can sit on, and a laser pointer. So I don’t have to necessarily walk across the room to point at something. And I have my own fidgets and stuff and my earplugs. 

Ashton: For my students, being in a chair is not a requirement. Sit on the floor, stand by the bookshelves— I teach in a library. And I’m also very lucky to be teaching in an extracurricular program. So our expectations can be a little more lax. Half my students don’t get there until halfway through class, and it’s like, “okay, just come in, find a place to sit or stand, and jump into what we’re doing.” We incorporate a lot of movement, and try not to just stay in the classroom for an hour. We’ll go into the atrium, go to the gym. Even move places within the classroom.

Ashton: We have a break space that has activities, so students know they can go there anytime they need a break. They don’t have to ask. I won’t even check in with them unless they’re there for more than ten minutes. Plus, we always have fidgets and coloring supplies available. I have a lot of students who like to color. I got some of them into crochet and they bring their crochet into class. So we always have all of that available with that same understanding: as long as you’re not disrupting somebody else, you can do what you require here. 

Ashton: Another huge thing working with primary and secondary school is this big focus on devices, especially at the middle and high school level. At the school I teach at, the policy is door-to-four no phones. And I am like, “listen, I don’t want to see y’all on your phones or iPads during class.” Because they’re eighth graders, they need that direction. But they’re allowed to have one ear bud in or one headphone on, listening to music or just blocking sound. And that’s something that I feel I’m different with. Every other class at our site is like absolutely no technology. But realistically, it’s not hurting anybody for them to listen to some music in one ear. So that’s another big thing that we try to do.

Rachel: As a side note, when I was in k-12 school back in the day, we didn’t have phones and all these fancy things. Starting around fifth grade, I realized that as long as I was writing on a piece of paper, teachers had no idea what I was writing. During most classes I wrote stories. I learned that there was a certain timing: write a few sentences, look up with a thoughtful expression on my face, look down. Then it looked  like I was taking notes. But I was totally writing a D&D dungeon crawl adventure. 

Rachel: So you can take all the technology away and students who need to space out will still find ways to space out. And sometimes the technology is really supportive. Especially in terms of sound. What I’m saying is: brains are gonna do what they’re gonna do, regardless of whether the technology is there. Which doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t encourage kids to write things longhand occasionally and try other non-tech pathways.

Ashton: And the reason I don’t allow phones is that they’re not just spacing out.

Rachel: Right. They’re falling into a hole.

Ashton: They’re falling into something, or they’re texting their group chat, and then laughing about it out loud, or trying to show their friends. But there are no rules about technology in our break space. If you really need to send a text, go over there.

Rachel: It’s tough because the big tech companies are doing things that are designed to capture attention. So I totally get that text-free spaces can be good. But also it’s tough to be a student in classroom spaces that are so understimulating that I’m going to space out and write a story instead of paying attention. It’s better when the classroom space can match what kids’ brains need. Which, you know, that’s a huge topic!

Ashton: While we’re talking about adapting for different students and trying to get a range of activities for different learning styles; I think what a lot of folks who aren’t educators don’t understand is that we’re not paid for that. And we’re not necessarily given the resources for that. That’s something that can really take a lot of time and energy. Not to say that people shouldn’t do it, but that’s why it can be such a hard thing to find, is that teachers are already very overworked.  

Rachel: It can be exhausting. One of the things that I keep trying to figure out for myself is the balance of pushing things back to the students and having them do it. One of the assignments I give is a creative response — you have to do some kind of creative product that is a response to what we read. But it can be whatever you want. That allows students to pick their modalities. It’s no extra work for me. If you want to paint it, paint it, if you wanna sketch it, sketch it, whatever, if you want to make music about it, great. I think whenever we can push the work back over to the students and be like, “so, I hear that some folks want this lesson on audio. How about you record the lesson on audio?”

Ashton: And even something like that isn’t always gonna be one size fits all. I know people at Macalester, and I know younger students as well, where if you give them that kind of open-ended guidance— “make a creative thing that responds to this, the floor is yours.” They’ll be like, “yeah, I have no instructions. What do I do?”

Rachel: Exactly. That’s how my scaffolding of the class has turned out. I also give example: you can do one of these six things, or your own thing. I know that there are students who are like, “no, I need you to tell me what to do. I want to win at the game. So tell me what the game is.” And I’ll tell them what the game is. 

Closing Thoughts 

Rachel: Okay. Do you think we’ve talked this through all the way?

Ashton: I think so. I mean, I could talk all day about this. But yeah, I think I have more than enough content to work with.

Ashton: Do you have any wrap-up thoughts? I think mine would be that, I repeat this a lot, but everybody is different. And it’s really, really helpful to find, like you mentioned earlier, tips and hacks and stuff, or experiences you can relate to. But it can be a slippery slope of comparing yourself to others in a way that you then shame yourself for. So I think it’s just really important to emphasize that the authority on you is you. Doctors and parents and people might want to think differently, but at the end of the day, you know yourself best. Be comfortable giving yourself the grace to listen to your own needs. It’s very valuable and not easy to do.

Rachel: And for people who are going to be like, “but I don’t know myself,” another way to think about it is that you are at ground zero with yourself for data collection. You are the best person to collect data on yourself. Eventually, that data will match patterns, and you will unlock new levels of awesomeness. If you feel like you don’t know yourself, it’s okay. Just keep collecting data on yourself. It will come together. 

Rachel: And also remembering that it’s a bodymind, right. So it’s not just, “what does my body need?” but “what does my psyche need?” In some ways, it’s been easier for me to think my body’s tired, or this part of my body hurts. Like you said, pain is a great educator. You’re like, “this hurts. That’s an interesting data point. Let me put that in the pattern.” And in some ways, it’s been harder for me to ask what my psyche needs. And sometimes what my psyche needs is to sit and play games on my tablet for an hour or an hour and a half, like a time that I think is too long. That expected-world part of me thinks it’s too long. But I’m sorting things in the background. 

Rachel: Sometimes I need to sit still and play with this game-fidget, because games are elaborate, beautiful fidget, while my unconscious parts get themselves together. So in our encouraging of people to pay attention to their bodies, also pay attention to your whole bodymind. Attention to your psyche. Pay attention to your drives and interests. Because I don’t think I’ve met a neurodivergent person who doesn’t thrive with interest-based everything. 

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This concludes our conversation on neurodivergence without shame. If you want to know when future posts are shared, be sure to follow Rachel on Instagram and Facebook. Or, subscribe to our newsletter below to get once-a-month updates on posts, insights, and more.  

Do you have other insights or questions on creating neurodivergent-friendly classroom spaces? Let us know on social media or in the comments below!