Setting The Intent: Authentic Voices

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello and um Thank you for um joining us for another one of my fireside conversations I'm having with people in academia who identify in some way as being neurodiverse. My aim is to hear personal experiences and hear what the journey's been. Hearing from the individual themselves rather than reported interpretations of their experiences. This being the case, the terminology or the wording will be theirs and based on their experiences, I will be describing their personal journeys. This may not be the terminology or expressions used by you or other people listening, but that's not important. What I want to hear is the authentic voices in a way that makes them feel comfortable. I want us to learn from their life experiences in their own voices. So I've got Jordan with me here today. Thanks for joining me. Um so start off with um, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Well, thanks for having me, Damien. And yeah, so I can say uh so my background is I used to work in the land-based sciences, uh, still do to some degree, but uh that was particularly with further education students in animal management and agriculture. And I'm currently a PhD student at Imperial College London, as well as working in the uh student union at Imperial, and uh I have dyspraxia. Uh so that is my link into neurodiversity, and I got diagnosed with that in the early side of college, so in around the age of 18, 17, 18. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Okay, excellent. Um, so and you

Jordan’s Background And Diagnosis

SPEAKER_01 1:48

kind of um you got a bit of a voice on social media in terms of um of neurodiversity and dyspraxy in specifically, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yes, I do. Uh I throughout the start of my PhD, I wanted to document my own academic experience as a first generation student, as well as someone who's not shying away from the I would say the pros and cons of neurodiversity, not just the typical things that people uh tend to hear about, with the particularly trying to avoid languages such as disability rather than uh focusing more on difference, uh, highlighting the areas where dyspraxy has certainly given me advantages in terms of how it's made me approach different problems, and also recognize some of the challenges for individuals like myself who will be in similar situations, whether part of their identity faces a barrier or another part of their identity faces a barrier. And I post quite regularly about my own academic journey or the academic journey of others on uh long form content on YouTube and on Substack, and short form content on TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, Blue Sky, and virtually every other social media you can think of.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Uh it gives us all a lot to think about. I've I've dived into it a few times and um it's always left me kind of wondering things. Um I particularly liked um on on your LinkedIn at kind of the overview bit at the beginning is um you talk about failure.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

And uh that we need to embrace

Social Media, Failure, And The Iceberg

SPEAKER_01 3:20

failure more.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, I mean, I think every teacher would certainly say that you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes, but I also think that one of the main things that we don't talk about enough in academia generally is about like don't get me wrong, I'm a I'm trying to start my own research journey into independent research outside of the PhD, and that in itself is uh toughie for most individuals who will be experiencing the same thing, and a lot of that is about persistence. But the problem is if I persist, persist, persist, eventually you'll see this lovely iceberg at the top, which are my successes, hopefully. Uh, where the grant site you achieve, the various different things like that. The difference is no one ever sees the failures, which are the rejections and so on that go underneath the iceberg, which you don't publicize that much. People then look and go, Oh, I want to be like that uh researcher, that academic, because they seem to they seem like they've got their stuff together. And truthfully, they will look like it in five years' time, in ten years' time, to the person who's pre uh at a precursing point of their academic journey. But ultimately, the you're comparing you're comparing yourself to other people, and it needs to be comparing yourself to yourself, where you're going, focusing on that, and from a failure point of view, it's acknowledging not the demoralizing side of the failure, the rejections from that respect, it's what you can learn at each stage to do better. Like there'll be postdocs or research areas that you might apply for, or teaching roles that you might go into or a class where you'll face a barrier that you think I didn't really get that, and you've got to look at from okay, what have I gained from that, even if I've fundamentally misunderstood the material or misunderstood the direction where that can take me, and where can I what can I do instead with that knowledge or that experience?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

It's kind of kind of ultimately defined by academia, isn't it? Because we're only seen by what we publish, and publishing by definition, you only publish successes. If experiments have failed, well, unless you can turn it around to to give you a different perspective, then it's a success, isn't it? And um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yeah, it's a whole publish or per uh perish uh analogy that unfortunately is an all too common thing if you speak to if any of you listeners speak to anyone who's in academia, publish or peril, uh publish or perish right of it is a quite a common analogy. But I think the other side of that is the fact that it's it is a common issue in academia, but it's the fact that I don't one of the things I like to do on my own podcast is I talk to individuals about the so the soul and the story behind their academic journey, not the research. I very spend very little time talking about the research because for me it's the individual experiences that shape the character of the person going through. And that for me is the side that we don't document that that well. Yeah, particularly because not because it's not interesting, but because it's not seen as a research, uh research output, and it's not seen as a academic output or achievement.

What Dyspraxia Is And Isn’t

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah, yeah. Something um uh something I I don't I don't know if it's another thought or not, but it's something I've been thinking about recently is because a neurodiverse person has faced specific hurdles in terms of acclimatizing themselves to the community that they're they're kind of adapting to, do you think neurodiverse people might be more accepting of mistakes and failing in other people because they feel that struggle? I feel free to say that's absolutely rubbish.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

No, no, I think it's fair. I think largely, I think I would say I would caveat it. If it's in you're a neurodiverse person with a diagnosis and you know you have something tangible to latch on to of why you're approaching the world around you the way you are. Yes, I think they can approach it differently and they can turn it into a positive. If they haven't had that diagnosis, I think the reaction would be completely different in the respect that you think you're broken in one way, shape, or form, how you interact with the system, and because you feel like that, because you haven't got a tangible thing to latch on to, it becomes a negative. And on flipping back slightly to the positive side of it, I think in its very nature, you're taught you're told the system doesn't fit uh fit you, yeah, uh, regardless of the neurodiversity or other disability that you come in with. Uh, but you're inherently used to spinning plates or coming at the problem from different angles because you have to, and therefore you approach academia is a prime example of an area where you need to come at it from up to in different angles rather than the straight uh straight. Uh if you go down the straight path, I would say very few people go uh succeed on the straight path. It's the winding journeys or the the uh this uh pins of movement that tends to be where you see the successes. Imagine it looks straight after after the fact, it definitely doesn't start that way, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Interesting, thank you. Um so in terms of think about your diagnosis, you you got diagnosed, you say, when you were 18.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, 17, 18. So I've had a year, I worked and so I did a year of study at 64, dropped out, uh, because uh basically throughout one of the things I would say is my dyspaxic advantage is I've always been able to basically read a textbook and memorize said textbook, it just sticks. And as a result, uh a lot of the time I would say uh A levels still with that same logic, that most people think, okay, then how did how did you fluff uh fluff your A levels? But like I'm not revision-wise, I'm not had to do from all the way through school into sixth form, into college, and then into through you through my master's and my bachelor's degree, had no issue with uh any revision at any point. But the thing I would say, which was the most not trying, but uh the thing with the diagnosis was uh when they fundamentally changed the routine and the

Diagnosis, Equity, And Tools That Help

SPEAKER_00 9:54

system that they were teaching us uh as six-form students to a more uh I would say very active learning approach, but it was a very dramatic shift. So I would say it was dramatic in the respect that a lot of the teachers weren't on in hindsight, didn't really know how they were delivering said teaching method because it was a lot of the same style uh of teaching, but expect uh expecting a very different output from the students, and that I couldn't learn in that in that way, and that was pre-diagnosis. But when I went to uh land-based college into the vocational program, my brother actually, who's got dyslexia, uh basically, my mum and dad, uh, because he was struggling with uh is basically through school, he was told his math is very good, but he's just uh very lazy in English and uh isn't getting his English, his English is far behind where it needs to be. So mum and dad being more proactive and not being prepared for that type of answer. They thought, okay, so we'll go and see if he needs any extra support because the school basically wasn't prepared to do that. And I will say schools face a lot of the same problems now, where not necessarily from the teacher side, but the resource side is still there, and both me and my brother they basically my mum and dad basically put uh checked it, had put me in for a diagnosis as well, just what to see if there was a genetic element uh to it, and hence that's what prompted it. But then it made sense based on uh a lot of my approach to practical skills, even though I went to some uh do a course that was entirely practical uh or largely practical, uh I always approach the like there's certain ways I have to do uh practical tasks. There's uh ways of approaching it in a particular way that uh once that can that's now linked to this praxy, it makes sense why I approach the thing that I do in the way a way that I do, such as lifting a wheelbarrow in a particular way to get into a skip, which might be different than someone else who would conventionally do that because it makes sense in my own head.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, I don't want to stop your flow there, but I think it might be worth us um telling people who are listening who aren't aware of dyspraxia. What I uh part of what I'm trying to do here is say how diverse different diversities are, but in terms of in essence, what what is dyspraxia?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

So dyspraxia by its nature, if you imagine dyslexia is for how your your body interprets the written language and the uh spoken word, dyspraxia is all about how your body interprets the fine motor skills that goes hand in hand hand in hand with that. But so balance, coordination, handwriting. Uh handwriting, I would say, being my most obvious uh I would say uh symptom of uh of this pressure where my handwriting's basically stayed at the ten year uh the same s it has from ten years old.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Okay because it's uh

Working Styles: Organized Chaos

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Okay, I think I've lost. I can just have a video off and see if that improves things. Okay. I can hear you again now though, so press on.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Okay, yeah, so I was just saying it affects how uh largely hand-eye coordination, how an individual approaches sports handwriting, my handwriting, for example, hasn't really changed much in the uh since I was 10 years old. Um so it's been like check and scratch. And outside of that, largely it's uh basically a um balance. Some some individuals who are particularly heavily infected with uh with dyspraxia might struggle to walk coordinate. Uh, for example, when I was a lot younger, which in the hand on reflection makes sense, is I used to have a both an issue with uh speech impediment where I had uh uh speech therapy to get over that or to help me deal with that. And as a result, not a cause and effect relationship, but not because of dyspraxy, that as a result led to some some level of anxiety or stress response to uh presentations and to uh any stage drama or so on activity purely based on the fact that it was linked to that and being conscious of that, but that I will say is it was an outcome, not a cause of this practice, not something that's directly linked to this praxy, more of a consequence of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Okay, that makes sense. And there's many of those. Um okay, so you got your diagnosis. How did things change after that?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Or uh yeah, uh one quite dramatic one was I kept getting into school, uh which I will say as a teacher is the most pointless form of feedback to give us give an individual. Is uh each time I would get have to handwrite a task, it was handwriting uh nothing to do feedback with anything to do with the substance of what I wrote, but all to do with uh handwriting is untidy, there's no neatness to it,

Classroom Stories: Reframing, Not Reducing

SPEAKER_00 15:42

the right it's all over the place type thing, and it's like I can't do anything about the handwriting. When I got the diagnosis, and straight away they went, okay, you need a laptop.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

So give me the power to ask for things.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Yeah, so gave me the power to express the quality of my work that I knew was there. That as a result, and this it comes to the equity side of neurodiversity that I think is often uh misplaced. It's not the laptop doesn't give me any advantage over my peers, it allows me to express the same level of knowledge that would have been on the page if my handwriting is legible enough to read. And that's the distinction that I think often in learning differences as well as in the rest of uh spec uh send uh I think is often overlooked or underappreciated. The other thing that I want to highlight is extra time was something I was given, but I actually felt I needed less time once I had my diagnosis and I did more uh more purely based on the fact that my handwriting hindered me, whereas my typing speed was a lot better, was a lot better. And same with for presentations and all things. It the presentation side is an odd one because now I use it so, for example, like I said, I use it a lot of social media, I do a lot of talking head videos, it's very similar to what I am doing now. Uh but because I've got a reason for it, and I'm I don't try to view myself as being an ambassador for uh dyspraxy, but it's more I don't hide away from it, I wear it as a badge of something that is part of my identity, so therefore I talk about it quite often.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

You express it really well.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

But yeah, so that's something that I try to do when I uh talk about it. And yeah, equally, like I'll admit something I've learned as I've gone through. My when I had a speech uh speech therapist, they basically said there are certain words that you are going to struggle with. Uh the S so for example, uh prime one that would come is like the TH of a word. So if I say uh let's say the number three and free as in the uh quant uh quantity of a it's been given something, the words the th and the f based on how my uh how I process that particular uh sound is very, very

Power, Facilitation, And Autonomy

SPEAKER_00 18:20

similar. What inadvertently did, however, in what the what's the name, the learning psychologist uh highlighted was my vocabulary likely improved because rather than uh because uh I will caveat, because of being a diagnosis of high achieving dyspraxic, yeah, rather than uh in some cases where an individual might struggle and be hampered by it, uh my brain and my processing tried to problem solve it. And therefore I went uh uh there were certain words I can't pronounce, so I use different words I get so I get around it. As a result, my vocabulary from it so even though my things like my handwriting was stunted, my vocabulary was uh seven or eight years further ahead because I was working solutions around the both the speak uh spoken word and the written word.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Yeah, yeah, creating hacks, you're you're always working around situations and it so do you think that's um that increased your workload?

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Initially, yes. I would say now no, because as a result, like now I'm uh I think the nature of the a lot of the learning differences are uh attributed to things like ADHD and ADD. And personally, my experience of this practice here is my unique working uh well not unique in terms of like working in a team, but not unique certainly for other people of learning differences, is I it makes you want to play it's been plates. I I find I function very well in a organized chaos, whereas most of my peers wouldn't. So initially

The Real Problem: Inclusion, Not Labels

SPEAKER_00 20:12

you find uh uh hurdles that you have to overcome, and after that, once you've worked out your hacks, yeah, you work out okay, so I can do that. This time that I was wasting this, I've now got this time sphere, so I'll do this instead, and I'll do this and I'll do that. And you work in a very compartmentalized, or at least I do, compartmentalized and efficient way because I'm dipping in and out of projects, which if I gave that to some of my colleagues who are neurotypical, yeah, they would look at that and absolutely fry their brain uh brain because they wouldn't you you know it's a very efficient way of doing it, so you know it's the process, but outside it looks like it's just uh a mess.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Chaos. Yeah. That uh that yeah, that makes so much sense. Um okay, so have you got a story or anecdote, either positive or negative, that you think it would be good to share?

SPEAKER_00 21:06

Uh so um I I can give you uh one from my own experience as a negative and a positive from my experience of a as a teacher on the other side of this, giving uh basically coming more of a full circle. It's good to have a negative, yeah. So the negative was very much around the fact that when I was a student similar to my brother, I was basically uh always classed as well,

Pros, “Superpowers,” And Persistence

SPEAKER_00 21:36

he's uh he's a beat a B student, he could be an A student, but I I can't interpret any of what uh what what his uh work is on the uh paper. Uh it's completely uh illegible, it's stayed at the same point that it uh has done, and it's just it comes off lazy, and he isn't applying uh applying themselves. And when you are knowing that. Much effort that you have put into that. You sat there with your parents and uh and you hear this not once but five or six times over at various different re uh parents' evenings, and you think, well, i after the first one, you get down by it. By the fifth or six, you're a bit like, oh, what's the point in even coming? It's gonna be the exact same conversation that we have year on year, yeah. Because the uh my handwriting, if it was going to improve by effort, it would have improved by effort. And but the and that was always there was never a solution put forward. It was always this is a problem. There's no solution, no way of developing it. It's just this is a problem. I I'm not uh we're not even going to get the root cause. Uh and but on the full circle side of it, when I was teaching a student who had not a learning uh

Final Advice: Find Your Niche, Change The System

SPEAKER_00 23:00

disability or not a learning difference, they had asperges and they were very much struggling with how to approach group work. They were very much going straight into they wanted a project, they were panicking over how to do the group work. And I said, So uh sat down with them and broke it down into points and said, what is the element specifically that you're worried about with the group work? Oh, I need to sit down and I need to work out what is my area, what is my focus, why am I doing this area, what what is everyone else going to do? And I said, Look, you're working as part of the group too because you're focusing on what each individual, if you imagine you're various different camps and you're each camp is developing something, the project is bringing what uh one item together and doing that in the form of a presentation. You are responsible for your bit, and what you are doing is you are communicating how you are developing that, and they are going to give you the same information back so that you know how to keep nurturing uh developing your own ideas, and that will help you inform where you're going. Student was very bright, uh, they had developed very well from why were classes level one learner, so no GCSE is very uh very uh poor social skills to our student nerds now. Well, I don't know where they're at now, but they went on to university at UEA. So have gone uh uh well themselves, and the process of seeing them by framing they the task was exactly the same, and this is the clear point I'd like to make to any academic who's thinking how do I facilitate or support neurodiverse learners? Yeah, the task was the same. I did not tell the student they couldn't do a project because that's robbing them of their power, their their equity in that situation. What I did do was reframe it to okay, this is how they think, this is how they've got to see it. And they're looking at it from uh that particular student wanted it very organized and methodical rather than what seemed like the chaos of meeting their peers. Rather than go into a group setting uh where they were where the rest of their peers were having more of a social and more of a chat, which the student didn't see much point, I said just you you communicate with them via email. You tell share what you're doing, you tell them what you're up to, these are and this is the method that you follow. What you've done, what you're interested in, what questions you need answered, and then you circulate that with them. Then that'll facilitate the the conversation on their end. Okay. But so, and it's just changing the approach. It doesn't the main thing is I think the mistake the teachers make is we either try to uh pacify the learner by uh by pan uh seemingly uh reducing the task uh to be more inclusive, which is not what most learners want, or we do it in a way where we dismiss the learner's concerns and don't adapt at all. And what we really need to do is just approach it in a way that they can view the problems through the lens that they can approach it through.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

But I think the key to what you were just saying is that you you entered that discussion with the student. You were willing to ask the questions, and I think um because you come from a neurodiverse background, you realize that actually they'd appreciate being asked. Whereas I think a lot of the education community uh have a fear of asking.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I would completely agree, and I would say the thing that is forgotten about is it's a discursive process. It's not you are not you're not entering into the process as a teacher, you're a facilitator. You are someone who is supporting their development, not instructing it. And I think that the problem is it's a it is an element of a power thing. You are giving as a if you're an instructor, you hold at least 90% of the power. Yeah. If you're a facilitator, you're going in with 60-40, maybe even 50-50. And in theory, as you go through that your 50% goes progressively more towards the student because they that's they become self-sufficient, and you're just literally there to guide them in a general direction, and eventually it's an invert to that 9-10 split. But that's where you should want to go. It's difficult.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Because you're creating the autonomous learner, isn't it? Um, someone who's sell them off and then they fly.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Exactly. But the approach that it's typically done is you teachers have got to be prepared to relinquish that power.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

And students have got to be taught that the teacher will have that conversation with them and be not necessarily even mature enough to hear it, but be open to the idea of it and um approach that again. It's not treating the child uh the depending on the year that you're teaching the student, whether that be a child, a young adult, or an adult entirely, but approaching them on that there is there is a level of authority and respect that you maintain whilst also having an open conversation in that uh that situation more on an equal footing, even if there's a level of authority and respect there.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, and still like that.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

It just takes work.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

That's really good. Thanks. Um okay, so have you got this? Is always I like asking this question because um I've got so many myself, but what's your pet peeve?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Uh I'm going to go more grander than uh for me specifically, is is the send is a problem of we've got a send problem because we diagnose so much, rather than the fact that we've got a send uh we haven't got a send problem, we've got an inclusivity problem where the education system hasn't changed changed from the conventional model, and it therefore it hasn't adapted to be able to accommodate any form of different way of thinking other than the factory mindset, and that's the problem. The model in itself is broken, not that it's student.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Okay, so uh the the whole teaching is linear, uh isn't changing, whereas we're trying to embrace everyone to come into that linearity in a way. Yeah, along with you all of it. Yeah, I like that. Great, cheers. Um anything about dyspraxia that you'd like to understand more?

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Um personally, and I would put any of the different learning differences in this camp as well. We focus on the prop problems of the difference. We don't focus on how the we don't focus on how it affects the individual holistically. There are pros and cons to these. We only have a view from the con. I want to know about all of the learning differences from the pro side as well as the con.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Uh yeah, yeah. Uh what would you say the pro was for you in terms of dyslexia?

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Uh so um for me, I my handwriting might be awful, but I am ambidextrous. Oh, so I can I can write I at least till I was taught uh made to pick a hand, basically, and now do it out of habit, I could handwrite without uh both hands up to a certain age, and and I can still to a degree with my left now, but uh I can play, I'm still ambidextrous in sports because uh and the other side of that is memory. Uh my I very I have an exceptional uh exceptional memory in terms of read I can read something and it sticks. Okay. Uh and I don't have to come back uh come back to it. It's not quite photographic, but it uh does and yeah, that helps with things like if I'm watching a video on like two or three times speed, it goes into yeah, I kind of like that one.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Um okay. Whilst we talk about positives, you you're familiar with the kind of the the superhero kind of the superpower. How'd you feel about that? Because I think it's kind of like a marmite thing, isn't it, for a lot of people?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

As in the learning disabil uh the learning difference acting as a superpower, yeah, yeah. I think if you I think it's a framing point. Uh for me, a superpower is something that makes an individual this distinctly different, but it's how they ultimately it comes down to how they it's less about the power, it's more about the person behind it, how they approach that, because you can have I think the X-Men probably sum this up quite well. And for anyone who's an anime fan, probably my hero academia is equally good in this regard, you can have what seems like a seemingly useless power, yeah. But it's what you do with that facility that makes it truly uh you uh useful and utility, and ultimately it's been sums up academia as well. It's how much you persist with it. If you learn it and mold it, it can go into something great. If you squander it, it falls by the way to that.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

It's what you do with it, yeah. Excellent. And finally, that kind of um the the the always held podcast question. Do you have you got any advice or insights that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

If I well, I would frame this as um if you're a student who's going it, who's struggling with the system that you are placed into, find the thing, find your niche, find your interests that you really want to cultivate, regardless if you think you don't know how to best go about getting into that. Find the thing that makes your unique approach to that's that problem work and how you can be distinctly you in that rather than how the field wants you to be within that, whether that's painting, whether that's science, whatever that is, what make what is your approach to it? How do you think about it, and bring that, bring all of you into it, not just part of you that's expected.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Excellent. Be yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Yeah, yeah, I would say uh the best example I think of artists. Uh the greats that you hear about aren't those who've conformed to a system, they've changed that system.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah. Well, that's a great note to finish on. Cheers, Jordan. Really appreciate your insights there.