Thorndike won, and Dewey lost. I don’t think you can understand the history of education technology without realizing this either. And I’d propose an addendum to this too: you cannot understand the history of education technology in the United States during the twentieth century – and on into the twenty-first – unless you realize that Seymour Papert lost and B. F. Skinner won.
B. F. Skinner: The Most Important Theorist of the 21st Century
Behaviorism can’t die.
It doesn’t matter how often it’s refuted and how fully it’s refuted, it comes right back to life.
It’s been refuted so overwhelmingly.
Noam Chomsky on Behaviorism
Despite that,
And neurodivergentNeurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.”NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodivergent is quite… More and disabledThe label “disabled” means so much to me. It means I have community. It means I have rights. It means I can be proud. It means I can affirm myself… More students lost.
We are marginalizedFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at… More canaries
THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM: ON HANS ASPERGER, THE NAZIS, AND AUTISM: A CONVERSATION ACROSS NEUROLOGIESAutistic man Freestone Wilson suggested in the 1990s that autistic people are functioning as the “miners’ canaries” of civilisation. When the air in the mine is poisoned we do not… More in a social coalmine and Rawlsian barometers of society’s morality. It is deeply subversive to live proudly despite being living embodiments of our culture’s long standing ethical failings.
Our non-complianceNoncompliance is a social skill.Noncompliance is one of the most important social skills. Noncompliance skills make it possible to say no, even when others want your right to say no to… More is not intended to be rebellious. We simply do not comply with things that harm us. But since a great number of things that harm us are not harmful to most neurotypicals, we are viewed as untamed and in need of straightening up.
Asperger even anticipated in the 1970s that autisticAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline. If… More adults who “valued their freedom” would object to behaviorist
Ultimately behaviorism provides a simplistic lens that can’t see beyond itself.Why is the doctrine of behaviorism still being used, at all?How can ABA be the gold-standard for autism when it… More training, and that has turned out to be true.
Behaviorism is everywhere. The All Means All of public education is made meaningless by the bipartisanship of behaviorism.
There’s just one problem with Lakoff’s theory. An awful lot of people who are politically liberal begin to sound like right-wing talk-show hosts as soon as the conversation turns to children and parenting. It was this curious discrepancy, in fact, that inspired the book you are now reading.
I first noticed an inconsistency of this kind in the context of education. Have a look at the unsigned editorials in left-of-center newspapers, or essays by columnists whose politics are mostly progressive. Listen to speeches by liberal public officials. On any of the controversial issues of our day, from tax policy to civil rights, you’ll find approximately what you’d expect. But when it comes to education, almost all of them take a hard-line position very much like what we hear from conservatives. They endorse a top-down, corporate-style version of school reform that includes prescriptive, one-size-fits-all teaching standards and curriculum mandates; weakened job protection for teachers; frequent standardized testing; and a reliance on rewards and punishments to raise scores on those tests and compel compliance on the part of teachers and students.
The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Children and Parenting
The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Children and Parenting
Mooney notes that “No Child Left Behind was perhaps the most damaging form of public policy as it pertained to public education and learning diversity that has happened in our history of education policy, and that was a bill that was sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy. It was a set of practices that was doubled down upon by the Obama administration.”
Normal Sucks: Author Jonathan Mooney on How Schools Fail Kids with Learning Differences
The neurodiversityNeurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a… More and disability rights movements well-understand the ubiquity of behaviorism, and its tremendous costs.
Behaviorist education is ableist education.

“Once we have arranged the particular type of consequence called a reinforcement,“ Skinner wrote in ”The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching“ (1954), ”our techniques permit us to shape the behavior of an organism almost at will. It has become a routine exercise to demonstrate this in classes in elementary psychology by conditioning such an organism as a pigeon.”
“…Such an organism as a pigeon.” We often speak of “lab rats” as shorthand for the animals used in scientific experiments. We use the phrase too to describe people who work in labs, who are completely absorbed in performing their tasks again and again and again.
In education and in education technology, students are also the subjects of experimentation and conditioning. But in Skinner’s framework, they are not rats; they are pigeons.
The Pigeons of Ed-Tech
StimpunksStimpunk combines “stimming” + “punk” to evoke open and proud stimming, resistance to neurotypicalization, and the DIY culture of punk, disabled, and neurodivergent communities. Instead of hiding our stims, we… More Foundation exists because of a bipartisan embrace of “Empty Pedagogy, Behaviorism, and the Rejection of Equity”. ReframingWhen we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required… More away from behaviorism is urgently needed and essential.
The pigeon. The object of technological experimentation, manipulation, and control, weaponized.
The pigeon. The child. The object of ed-tech.
The pigeon. The history of the future of education technology.
The Pigeons of Ed-Tech
All these elements were part of Skinner’s teaching machines: the elimination of inefficiencies of the teacher, the delivery of immediate feedback, the ability for students to move through standardized content at their own pace.
Today’s ed-tech proponents call this “personalization.”
The Monsters of Education Technology
Trainers are rejecting behaviorism because it harms animals emotionally and psychologically. What does that say about classrooms that embrace it?
Empty Pedagogy, Behaviorism, and the Rejection of Equity
This “science-driven” mantra has been seen before through eugenics.
Therefore, eugenics is an erasure of identity through force, whereas radical behaviorism is an erasure of identity through “correction.” This all assumes a dominant culture that one strives to unquestionably maintain.
We’ve been on quite a journey over the past 15 years, navigating increasingly ableist, behaviorist, eugenicistEugenics is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations.Eugenics is an inaccurate theory linked to historical and present-day forms of discrimination, racism, ableism and… More, and underfunded systems while contributing to the Neurodiversity movement and building community compatible with us.
Disability systems rely on artificial economies of scarcity. Programs are underfunded, so caregivers, teachers, social workers, and disabled people themselves are all pushed to project their needs as necessary and virtuous.
I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO DEHUMANIZE MY SON TO GET HIM SUPPORT
Texas has multiple waiting lists for different types of care
Nearly 200K disabled Texans are waiting for help, some for a decadeThe activities that constitute care are crucial for human life. We defined care in this way: Care is “a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue,… More, including six for Medicaid waiver programs — which use state and federal funds to get people care in the community instead of in an institution — and one for safety net services provided locally. As of March, nearly 170,000 people were waiting for care through a Medicaid waiver program — a 115 percent increase since 2010. State data shows that some residents have been waiting for nearly 20 years to receive help.
How Texas keeps tens of thousands of children out of special educationThe word “special” is used to sugar-coat segregation and societal exclusion – and its continued use in our language, education systems, media etc serves to maintain those increasingly antiquated “special”… More
Denied – Houston Chronicle
We rolled our own education, because we had too. We built something compatible with neurodiversity and the social model of disabilityIn the broadest sense, the social model of disability is about nothing more complicated than a clear focus on the economic, environmental and cultural barriers encountered by people who are… More using the tools of distributed work and indie ed-tech.
People with disabilities are the original life hackers because our motivation is so high. If we don’t hack we often go without.
Liz Jackson: Designing for Inclusivity – 99U
Neurodivergent and disabled people have to do-it-yourself (DIY), or we go without. We bricolageIn the arts, bricolage (French for “DIY” or “do-it-yourself projects”) is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or… More from “a diverse range of things that happen to be available“.
In the arts
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly,… More, bricolage (French for “DIY” or “do-it-yourself projects”) is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media.
The term bricolage has also been used in many other fields, including anthropology, philosophy, critical theory, education, computer software, and business.
Bricolage is a French loanword that means the process of improvisation in a human endeavor. The word is derived from the French verb bricoler (“to tinker”), with the English term DIY (“Do-it-yourself”) being the closest equivalent of the contemporary French usage. In both languages, bricolage also denotes any works or products of DIY endeavors.
Bricolage – Wikipedia
The most important message I got from punk
Don Letts, SHOWstudio: Stussy – Talking Punk with Don Letts and John InghamEverything that was normally supposed to be hidden was brought to the front.Punk subculture – Wikipedia The First Rule of Punk: Be Yourself Our Second Rule of Punk: Reframe The… More, was the DIY ethos. The DIY ethic. It’s inherently part of surviving.
We survive on bricolage and constructionismPapert was one of the founders of constructionism, which builds on Piaget’s theories of constructivism — that is, learning occurs through the reconstruction of knowledge rather than a transmission of… More.
Ed-tech has always been more Thorndike than Dewey because education has been more Thorndike than Dewey. That means more instructivism than constructionism. That means more multiple choice tests than projects. That means more surveillance than justice.
(How Thorndike’s ed-tech is now being rebranded as “personalization” (and by extension, as progressive educationProgressive EducationA movement based on connectivism & communities of practice -the networks we create for meaningful relationships, collaboration, & learning.A pulsating web of autonomous engagement.Growing and Expanding Progressive Education w/… More) – now that’s an interesting story…
The History of Ed-Tech: What Went Wrong?
Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost.
An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Education Research
We received a lot of help from human-centered educators along the way.
This is what we learned.
- Written Communication and Indie Ed-Tech: Neurodivergents Created This Communication Environment
- Reframing Learning: How We Use Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes to Nurture Intrinsic Motivation, Enter Flow States, and Make Rock ’n’ Roll
- Fix Injustice, Not Kids: We’ve Turned Classrooms Into a Hell for Neurodivergence
- Choosing the Margin: Our Philosophical and Pedagogical Foundation
In our space, Dewey and Papert won.
We, Stimpunks
The sections below feature some light narrative and framing connecting articles on our website. Each section and the linked articles can be consumed in a couple, few hours, though delving our deeply sourced research-storytelling can occupy a lifetime. This was originally designed to be consumed over a four day conference track with discussion on each day.
Written Communication and Indie Ed-Tech: Neurodivergents Created This Communication Environment

Now we have the opportunity and understanding to move from emergency pandemic remote school and its pantomime of learning to purposefully designed online education spaces that are accessible, sustainable, and representative of the communities
Conference to Restore Humanity: The NeedWhat I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/… More they serve. It’s time for the academic conference model to respond accordingly.
Most conferences do not include us Stimpunks as either presenters or attendees. Conferences are sensory and social overwhelm, and speaking in front of an audience is very stressful due to Exposure AnxietyExposure anxiety (EA) is a condition identified by Donna Williams in which the child or adult feels acutely self-conscious; it leads to a persistent and overwhelming fear of interaction.Exposure anxiety… More, Situational Mutism
I am situationally mute. For anyone that isn’t aware of what that is, it simply means that in certain situations, places or around certain people I don’t want to and… More, and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also… More. Conference to Restore Humanity is a wonderful exception because it embraces a communication environment created by neurodivergent people. Let’s use day 1 to appreciate this communication environment and what it can achieve.
Day 1 theme: Teams, Technology, and Help
► Main Takeaways
► Main Takeaways
- Technology, Text, and Alternative Socialization
- Backchannels
- Online Communication and Autistic Community
- Anything but the Phone
The sound of the phone ringing can immediately evoke anxiety for some people, especially for autistic people and people with anxiety. If the call hasn’t been agreed in advance, many… More!
- Writing is the path to powerThe 20th Century political scientist Karl Deutsch said, “Power is the ability not to have to learn.”I quote this statement often, because I think it’s one of the most important… More for those born without power.
- The Future Is Text: The Universal Interface
- Text Augments All Other Media
- A Workflow-Focused Approach to Writing Offers a Pathway to Agency, Creativity, and Confidence
- Disabled ways of languaging are primarily about modality.
- Typed Words, Loud Voices
- Let’s Augment Everybody, Let’s Leave No Mind Behind
- Bring the Backchannel Forward
Before Stimpunks, Ryan and Kristina worked at Automattic, one of the first fully distributed companies. There, they helped develop a culture compatible with us neurodivergents using tools built by us, like WordPress. Our communication stack at Stimpunks is open sourceOne model that successfully harnesses the power and commitment of talent and engages that talent in an ongoing way over time is open source. The term “open source” is traditionally… More, and we use it with the experience of decades of building distributed communities, companies, and industries. We adapted the tools and culture of distributed work to indie ed-tech and human-centered learningA human-centered education: • Cultivates Purpose-Driven Classrooms • Ends Dehumanizing Practices • Demands Social Justice • Builds a Human-Centered World https://youtu.be/JsrsgM6LqiI https://youtu.be/h9gQXG9T1RM Build human-centered classrooms around four values: • Learning… More.
► Main Takeaways
- Our Software
- Open Source Communication
- Indie Ed-Tech
- Blogging, Domain of One’s Own, and WordPress
- Toolbelt Theory
Toolbelt Theory is based in the concept that students must learn to assemble their own readily available collection of life solutions. They must learn to choose and use these solutions… More
- Bring the backchannel forward. Written communication is the great social equalizer.
- Created Serendipitycreated serendipity: the more connected you are, the more ideas seem to find you, not the other way around.3 Obvious Ways Twitter Promotes Literacy – The Principal of Change Yet… More: Chance Favors the Connected Mind
- If bell hooks Made an LMS: a Praxis of Liberation and Domain of One’s Own
- Online Learning in Anti-Ableist Space
We choose open source tools built by and for communities. These communities have decades of iterative experience in bringing safety to the serendipity.
How do we help our students navigate the world of public, digital scholarship in a world increasingly dominated by harassment, abuse, disinformation, and polarization?
Closing Tabs, Episode 3: Teaching with(out) Social Media – UMW Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies
That’s the piece that’s been missing, bringing the safety to the serendipity.
► Main Takeaways
- Created Serendipity: Chance Favors the Connected Mind
- Indie Ed-tech: Rewire and Reshape the World
- A Domain of Their Own: The Web
In essence, the open Web, while not free from governmental and commercial pressures, is about as free from such pressures as a major component of modern capitalist society can be…. More We Need To Give Students
- No Student Will Have Mechanical Limitations in Access to Either Information or Communication
- Punk DIY: Students should have the freedom to explore and experiment with their school-issued devices.
- A Domain of Their Own: The Web
- Teams, Technology, and Help
We use these tools to bricolage our activist research and research-storytelling.
Our learners spent months working on this website in preparation for the Conference to Restore Humanity. This course and our website was developed with and for the conference. Our preparation for the conference was a continuous act of dogfooding our tools and philosophy.
► Main Takeaways
- DIY or Die
- Identity Bricolage
- Scripts, Commonplaces, Canned Monologues
- Filling Our Databases With Serendipity
- Pastiche: Celebrating Our Influences
- Anti-librariesA good library is comprised in large part by books you haven’t read, making it something you can turn to when you don’t know something. He calls it: the Anti-Library.The 5-Step Research Method… More and Knowledge
- Everything Is a Remix
- Bricolage Fuels Constructionism
- That Could Be Me: Inspiring Constructionism
- Re-create and Rewrite Ideas
- Appropriate Space
- Adapt, Subvert, and Extend
- Copia Provides a Strategy of Invention
- Bricolage is a Living Thing
With Teams, Technology, and Help, our learners do work that impacts community.
Successful human beings, whether they have learning differencesOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals… More or not, mitigate weakness through teams, technology, and help, and they build a life around strengths, gifts, talents, and interests.
What we know about successful human beings is they take an interest and they make it a passion and they take the passion and they make it a sense of purpose and they take the sense of purpose and they build a pathway.
Lab School Lecture Series
Reflection Questions
- What backchannels exist in your classroom, school, workplace?
- Communication is oxygen. What communication modalities are on offer?
- What’s in your toolbelt?
- Are you biased toward eye-reading? Does your school conflate eye-reading with intelligence? Use the terms eye-reading, ear-reading, and finger-reading
There are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child’s Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and… More to enumerate and validate different types of reading.
- Does your classroom, workplace use three speeds of communication?
Reframing Learning: How We Use Caves, Campfires, and Watering Holes to Nurture Intrinsic Motivation, Enter Flow States, and Make Rock ’n’ Roll

Entering flow states – or attention tunnelsEntering flow states – or attention tunnels – is a necessary coping strategy for many of us.Fergus Murray People need to feel appreciated and safe, to give themselves to an… More – is a necessary coping strategy for many of us.
Day 2 themes: Spiky ProfilesThere is consensus regarding some neurodevelopmental conditions being classed as neurominorities, with a ‘spiky profile’ of executive functions difficulties juxtaposed against neurocognitive strengths as a defining characteristic. Neurominorities, Spiky Profiles,… More, Safety, Niche Construction
Positive Niche Construction–practice of differentiating instruction for the neurodiverse brainNeurodiversity in the Classroom Positive niche construction is a strengths-based approach to educating students with disabilities. Reimagining Inclusion with Positive Niche… More, Constructionism, Intermittent CollaborationThe best solutions come from “intermittent collaboration” — group work punctuated by breaks to think & work by ourselves.Daniel Pink Our cave, campfire, and watering hole moods map to the red, yellow,… More, Neurological PluralismANI launched its online list, ANI-L, in 1994. Like a specialized ecological niche, ANI-L had acted as an incubator for Autistic culture, accelerating its evolution. In 1996, a computer programmer… More, and Flow
The front page of our website is all about reframing.
We Reframe
We, Stimpunks
We reframe out of the confines of the medical model and pathology paradigm and into the respectfully connected expanse of the biopsychosocial model and the Neurodiversity paradigm. We reframe from deficit ideologyBriefly, deficit ideology is a worldview that explains and justifies outcome inequalities— standardized test scores or levels of educational attainment, for example—by pointing to supposed deficiencies within disenfranchised individuals and… More to structural ideology.
Today, we reframe learning and learners.
Reframe these states of being that have been labelled deficiencies or pathologies as human differences.
Normal Sucks: Author Jonathan Mooney on How Schools Fail Kids with Learning Differences
Appreciate our spiky profiles.
► Main Takeaways
- Spiky Profiles
- Learning Terroir
- Collaborative Niche Construction
- Special Interests
I don’t know who invented the phrase “special interest.” Probably some researcher. Autistic people don’t really love the term because the term “special” has become tied so closely with terms… More Feed Niche Construction
- Neurological Pluralism
Pluralism refers to people of diverse and conflicting beliefs coexisting peaceably, linked by their adherence to a shared social contract which commits members of different groups to treating others fairly… More
- Let’s be weird
“Weird Pride Flag” by Ferrous and Autistamatic Be proud of what you are.We’re weird, and we’re glad we are.Weird Pride Promo 2021 Autistic Pride is inconceivable without weird pride, and… More.
- Let’s be proud of what we are.
- Difference Is a Teacher
- Weird Like You and Me
Our spiky profiles need anti-ableist space that isn’t designed against us. We need space without behaviorism, segregation, or ableismable·ism /ˈābəˌlizəm/ nounA system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply… More. We need human-centered space designed to our edges.
► Main Takeaways
- The Need: Space without Behaviorism, Segregation, or Ableism
- The Answer: Reframing, Respectful Connection, and the Presumption of Competence
- The Feeling: Electric Belonging and Soaring Inclusion
- The Learning: Passion-Based, Human-Centered Learning Compatible With Neurodiversity and the Social Model of Disability
- Come As You Are to Cavendish Space
Cavendish Space: psychologically & sensory safe spaces suited to zone work, intermittent collaboration, and collaborative niche construction. Since reading NeuroTribes, we think of psychologically & sensory safe spaces suited to… More
- We foster the feeling of access intimacyAccess intimacy is that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else “gets” your access needs. The kind of eerie comfort that your disabled self feels with someone on a… More.
- We Create Anti-Ableist Space
- We Find Our People and Co-create Ecologies of Care
We must design for monotropismMonotropism is a theory of autism developed by autistic people, initially by Dinah Murray and Wenn Lawson.Monotropic minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at… More and flow states.
► Main Takeaways
- Monotropic minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at any given time, leaving fewer resources for other processes.
- Monotropism provides a far more comprehensive explanation for autistic cognition than any of its competitors.
- This interest model of mind is ecological, embodied, and exploratory.
- Monotropism offers a valuable lens for understanding and working with the intense interests of autistic students.
- Entering flow states – or attention tunnels – is a necessary coping strategy for many of us.
- Flow states are the pinnacle of intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation: where somebody wants to do something for themselves, for the sake of doing it and doing it well.Craft, Flow and Cognitive Styles Self-determination Theory distinguishes between two different… More.
- Flow allows us to recharge.
- Embrace the obsession. Special interests are intimately tied to the well-being of autistic peoples.
We must design for sensory and social regulation.
► Main Takeaways
- Enable Dignity
- Perceptual Worlds and Sensory Trauma
Sensory Trauma is the name Autism Wellbeing has given to a phenomenon that autistic people have long been describing in our words and actions. The events we experience as physically… More
- Quick Low Cost Things to Make a Difference for Autistic People
- How to Make Your Events Accessible to the Disability Community
- Universal Design“Sure,” they say, “with enough humiliation we can allow you to do things differently, as long as you understand that we’ll never consider you an equal part of the school.”… More
- NeuroceptionNeuroception = instantaneous, subconscious processing of safety and riskNeuroception and the 3 Part Brain | by Trauma Geek | Age of Awareness | Medium Safety cues move us up the… More and Sensory Load
- In Our Own Words: The Complex Sensory Experiences of Autistic Adults
- Sensory Environment Checklist
• Progress in human understanding has become increasingly complex and overwhelming.• Checklists help prevent serious but easily avoidable mistakes.• Checklists should be as short as possible, include all essential steps… More
- Adapting the Environment
- Checklist for Autism-Friendly Environments
- Access Survey
- Anything but the Phone!
- Bodymind AffirmationsNeurodivergent and disabled speakers, notably Lydia X. Z. Brown and Jonathan Mooney, preface their presentations with an access note and a bodymind affirmation. They encourage people, be it in an… More
- Access Intimacy: That Elusive, Hard to Describe Feeling When Someone Else ‘Gets’ Your Access Needs
Here’s how.
niche construction may be every bit as important for survival as natural selection
Reimagining Inclusion with Positive Niche Construction
► Main Takeaways
- Cavendish Space
- Intermittent Collaboration
- Edges Cases Are Stress CasesCompassion Isn’t CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a… More: Design is Tested at the Edges
- Design With, Not For
- The School User Experience
- Student-created Context and Timeless Learning
- Hacking Schools: Getting Ourselves to Yes
► Main Takeaways
- Caves, Campfires, and Watering HolesFuturist David Thornburg identifies three archetypal learning spaces— the campfire, cave, and watering hole—that schools can use as physical spaces and virtual spaces for student and adult learning (bit.ly/YvRuWC)Australia’s Campfires,… More
- Dandelions, Tulips, and Orchids
According to empirical studies and recent theories, people differ substantially in their reactivity or sensitivity to environmental influences with some being generally more affected than others. More sensitive individuals have… More
- Niche Construction
- Cognitive Diversity Exists for a Reason
- Social Buffering and Collaborative Morality“It was diversity between people which led to human success and it is particularly important as it gives you different specialised roles.“We are arguing that it is the rise of… More
- Interdependence
Interdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. If this pandemic has done nothing else, it has illuminated how… More and Collaboration
Neurodivergent people are hypersensitive to mindset and environment due to a greater number of neuronal connections. They have both a higher risk for trauma
Neuroception and the 3 Part BrainIn expanding our definitions of trauma, we must make sure we see trauma as a structural issue, not just an individual one. Scholars now recognize what people from marginalized communities… More and a large capacity for sensing safety.
Neurodivergent people are psychological safetyPsychological safety is a condition in which you feel (1) included, (2) safe to learn, (3) safe to contribute, and (4) safe to challenge the status quo—all without fear of… More barometers. When we have Cavendish space where we can construct niches, we can make cool stuff.

Josephmooon is a neurodiverse, multi-age, distributed musical collaboration featuring the work of two teenagers and their mentors. The greater Stimpunks community helps the band with websites, lyrics transcription, art, marketing, e-commerce, fulfillment, tax collection, and everything else that goes into hanging your shingle, running a business, and releasing music on every platform. Stimpunks is rich with learning curves and constructionism.
For me, constructionism lies at the heart of what I want to study—how do students construct music knowledge in a school makerspace? My hypothesis is if students make music artifacts in a makerspace, they will construct music knowledge. At this proposal stage of my dissertation, prior to any research, I am using a constructivist/constructionist definition of music knowledge: meaning derived from an experience with aural phenomena (Shively, 1995). A music artifact would be a representation of this constructed music knowledge through performance, creation, or description (Shively, 1995; Wiggins, 2015).
Constructionism is being practiced anywhere where people are making artifacts to represent their knowledge constructions.
On Constructionism, Makerspaces, and Music Education
Behold our artifact, a Rock ‘n’ Roll album.
Lately I’ve been feeling out of tune, out of tune I don’t know why, but I would like to know why And I want to get back in tune Out of tune, that’s what I am Being out of tune pains my head (can’t get out of bed) Hurts from being out of tune and I just so want to get back in tune Out of tune, that’s what I am, out of tune When I get back in tune My good days will come back, and I’ll feel better If you’re feeling out of tune like I am now Get back in tune, like I said I will get back in tune But I don’t know when (hopefully soon) I know it could take time But let’s make it happen I’m back in tune Back in tune, that’s what I am Back in tune In tune, back in tune
Being autistic means a lifetime of fluid adaptation. We get a handle on something, develop coping strategies, adapt and we’re good. If life changes, we many need some time to readapt. Find the new pattern. Figure out the rules. Test out strategies to see what works.
In the mean time, other things may fall apart. We lose skills. We struggle to cope with things that had previously been doable under more predictable conditions. This is not regression to an earlier developmental stage, it’s a process of adapting to new challenges and it’s one that we do across a lifetime of being autistic.
Autistic Regression and Fluid Adaptation | Musings of an Aspie
Josephmooon is what you get when you embrace the obsession and go where self-directed learning leads. It’s also an example of the power of “Teams, Technology, and Help” as discussed on day 1.
Josephmooon’s debut album, “So Far So Good”, offers songs about neurodivergent experience from the perspective of the lyricist, an Autistic and Kinetic teen.
Their second album is underway.
There is also something uniquely satisfying about working with other people effectively, towards a shared goal; in my experience there is no substitute when it comes to building a community.
Craft, Flow and Cognitive Styles
Reflection Questions
- What spiky profiles do you see in your classroom, school, workplace, family? Use our Autism and Kinetic Cognitive Style vocabulary pages to familiarize yourself with some common traits.
- Have you ever nurtured a splinter skill?
- Does your classroom have spaces for intermittent collaboration?
Fix Injustice, Not Kids: We’ve Turned Classrooms Into a Hell for Neurodivergence
We’ve turned classrooms into a hell for autism. Fluorescent lighting. Endless noise. Everywhere, bright patterns and overloading information. Groupwork and social time. Crowded hallways and relentless academic pressure. Autistic children mostly could cope in the quieter schools of decades ago. Not a hope now.
Ann’s Autism Blog: Autism, School, Exclusion. What’s fair?
We cannot simply exclude autistic pupils for entering meltdownsMeltdowns are alarm systems to protect our brains.Without meltdowns, we autistics would have nothing to protect our neurology from the very real damage that it can accumulate.I don’t melt down… More. Meltdowns are part of autism for a good number of autistic young people.
Whilst mindful that of course everyone needs to be safe, the way to achieve safety is to stop hurting the autistic children. Punishing them for responding to pain is not something any of us need to do.
Day 3 theme: Behaviorism is bad. Neurodiversity instead.
Today hits hard. We confront the harm done to neurodivergent and disabled students and propose alternatives.
► Main Takeaways
- Sensory Overwhelm and Meltdowns
- The Bipartisanship of Behaviorism
- Behaviorism: Measuring the Surface, Badly
- Autistic BurnoutAutistic burnout is a state of physical and mental fatigue, heightened stress, and diminished capacity to manage life skills, sensory input, and/or social interactions, which comes from years of being… More
- Autistic Adults and Autistic Community
- We Don’t Need Your Mindset MarketingThe marketing of mindsets was everywhere this year: “How to Develop Mindsets for Compassion and Caring in Students.” “Building A Tinkering Mindset In Young Students Through Making.” “6 Must-Haves for… More: Education Technology and the New Behaviorism
- Fundamental Attribution ErrorThe Fundamental Attribution Error is that we overestimate the power of the person and underestimate the power of the situation.Student Culture and Learning: What’s the Connection? Lee Ross defined FAE… More and Harm Reduction
Harm reduction refers to a set of principles and strategies to address the health, social, political, legal, spiritual, and relational impacts of behaviors that are criminalized—substance use, sex, sex work/sex… More Theater
- Stop BikesheddingBikesheddingThe term was coined as a metaphor to illuminate Parkinson’s Law of Triviality. Parkinson observed that a committee whose job is to approve plans for a nuclear power plant may spend the majority… More Bigotry and Deficit Ideology
► Main Takeaways
- Learn About Neurodiversity at School
- Build a Community of Practice
- Presume Competence
- Foster Neurological Pluralism
- Teach Autonomy and Self-Determination
Self-determination Theory (SDT) is… — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and… More
- Ditch “Special”
- Use Our Language
- Understand Monotropism and the Double Empathy Problem
The ‘double empathy problem’ refers to the mutual incomprehension that occurs between people of different dispositional outlooks and personal conceptual understandings when attempts are made to communicate meaning.From finding a… More
- Understand Exposure Anxiety, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and Situational Mutism
- Appreciate our Spiky Profiles
- Reframe ADHD as Kinetic Cognitive Style
ADHD or what I prefer to call Kinetic Cognitive Style (KCS) is another good example. (Nick Walker coined this alternative term.) The name ADHD implies that Kinetics like me have… More
- Provide Opportunity but not Pressure
- Understand Equity and Needs-based Fairness
- Affirm Our Bodyminds
Bodymind: A term used to challenge the idea the body and mind are experienced separately (Descartes). Written in various ways, Bodymind or Body-mind, this usage foregrounds the understanding that experiences… More
Abuse and silencing is a constant, pervasive theme in the lives of autistic people, and for many people it is best expressed by that old, familiar phrase from special education: quiet hands
Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking (p. 8, 125). Autistic Self Advocacy NetworkAbuse and silencing is a constant, pervasive theme in the lives of autistic people, and for many people it is best expressed by that old, familiar phrase from special education:… More!
Loud hands means resisting. Loud Hands means speaking, however we do, anyway—and doing so in a way that can be very obviously Autistic. It means finding ways to talk and think about ourselves on our own terms.
There is room for all of us to playThere is nothing more human than play. Humans were designed to learn in play. In fact, nearly all mammals evolved this way.Play’s Power At our learning space, we provide learners fresh… More our part. And whatever we do, however we do it, we can do it with ‘loud hands’ and ‘loud voices,’ and loud whatever else we need, in whatever way that works for us individually or collectively. Let us be our real autistic selves, loud and proud, and show the world what we truly are.
Choosing the Margin: Our Philosophical and Pedagogical Foundation
Day 4 themes: Anti-Ableist, Human-Centered, Interdependent
Disabled and neurodivergent people are always edge cases, and edge cases are stress cases.
Our designs, our societies, and the boundaries of our compassion are tested at the edges, where the truths told are of bias, inequalityEquityA commitment to action: the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just.A way of being: the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes… More, injustice, and thoughtlessness.
The insights of intersectionality, the social model of disability, and design for real life help us design and build for these truths and do the “truly essential work”:
► Main Takeaways
- Compassion is not coddlingSomehow, a set of deeply conservative assumptions about children — what they’re like and how they should be raised — have congealed into the conventional wisdom in our society. Parents… More.
- The more dehumanized groups a person belongs to, the more their experience forces them to understand about the way society is structured.
- This space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge.
- Living as we did on the edge we developed a particular way of seeing reality.
- We fear those who speak about us who do not speak to us and with us.
- Marginality as site of resistance. Enter that space.
- No one knows best the motion of the ocean than the fish that must fight the current to swim upstream.”
- By focusing on the parts of the system that are most complex and where the people living it are the most vulnerable we understand the system best.
- When we build things – we must think of the things our life doesn’t necessitate. Because someone’s life does.
Our Mission page is our heart, exposed. We get through rough nights on warm linesPeer-run warm lines – staffed by people who have lived mental health experience – have been shown to reduce loneliness and participants’ use of mental health crisis services. Additionally, a… More with our Mission page.
Peer-run warm lines – staffed by people who have lived mental health experience – have been shown to reduce loneliness and participants’ use of mental health crisis services. Additionally, a review of several studies found that digital forms of peer support improve the lives of people with serious mental illness by “enhancing participants’ functioning, reducing symptoms and improving program utilization.”
WARM LINE GIVES PEER MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT – NC HEALTH NEWS
When we need to cry, we visit our Mission page. When we need to hope, we visit our Mission page. Our Mission page contains our Philosophy and our CodeCode has been my life, and it has been your life, too. It is time to understand how it all works. What is Code? What is Code? is great interactive… More of Conduct. It preserves our souls and aligns us on our Mission.
► Main Takeaways
- Design is tested at the edges.
- Human cognitive diversity exists for a reason.
- The right to learn differently should be a universal human right that’s not mediated by diagnosis
Self diagnosis is not just “valid” — it is liberatory. When we define our community ourselves and wrest our right to self-definition back from the systems that painted us as… More.
- LazinessLaziness does not exist.People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and… More does not exist.
- We urgently need a society that’s better at letting people get the rest
We urgently need a society that’s better at letting people get the rest they need.Fergus Murray WIP by Kristina Daniele I’m in pain. Mental. Physical. The result’s the same. Retreating… More they need.
- When you measure include the measurer.
- There is no path to equity that does not involve a direct confrontation with inequity.
- It is time to celebrate our interdependence!
- Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.
- We exist as friction.
- Nothing About Us Without Us
- We should always be part of the conversation.
- Embracing pluralism is good citizenship.
- Name the systems of power.
► Main Takeaways
- Create a neurodiverse inclusive environment.
- Seven Pathways to Ensuring Life Long Learning CompetenciesAll healthy and resilient institutions have a well-functioning competency network (Laloux 2014; Wilson 2015). A good way to understand competency networks is via the notion of trustworthiness and the nurturing… More
- The Eight GAP Principles
- Strong, TrustingAutists conceptualise the world in terms of trusted relationships with unique people.The beauty of collaboration at human scale The Autistic way of developing trust is based on experienced domain-specific competence…. More Relationships
- Attend to the practices, policies, and aspects of institutional culture that traumatize children at school.
- Flow States Are the Pinnacle of Intrinsic Motivation
- The Direct Confrontation Principle
- The Prioritization Principle
- The “Fix Injustice, Not Kids” Principle
- Avoid These Equity Pitfalls
- The Basics of Open Technology
- Toolbelt Theory
- The Open Schoolhouse
We are interdependent.
The notion of disability in our society is underscored by a bizarre conception of “independence”.
The Myth of Independence: How The Social Model of Disability Exposes Society’s Double Standards » NeuroClastic
It is time to celebrate our interdependence!
Collaboration allows us to create genuinely safe spaces for autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people.
Are you an inclusive world builder or a eugenicist world builder? Neurodiversity is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. Ableism and eugenics are at the core of our most pressing issues, including in education, and neurodiversity is the answer. Neurodiversity and disability communities have been fighting ableism, eugenics, pseudo-science, behaviorism, conversion therapy, anti-vaxxers, bigots, and the tyranny of the normNormal was created, not discovered, by flawed, eccentric, self-interested, racist, ableist, homophobic, sexist humans. Normal is a statistical fiction, nothing less. Knowing this is the first step toward reclaiming your… More for decades. Join us in the trenches of pluralism. Our bodily autonomyThe right of people to control what happens to their bodies. Bodily autonomy means people get to make their own decisions about their bodies.Our Bodies, Our Rights: What’s Going On… More and our very bodyminds are under attack.
What do we call the feeling of witnessing our most powerful institutions tacitly cooperate to maintain eugenics while outwardly claiming just the opposite?
CRIP NEWS V.40 – BY KEVIN GOTKIN – CRIP NEWS
We live in an age of unvarnished eugenics, and neurodiversity is our most powerful response to it.
Neurodiversity is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. It’s time is now.
It is time to celebrate our interdependence!
We’ll conclude with our creed. What’s your creed?
I know
I know that pluralism is our reality. I know that Neurodiversity is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation, and that Neurodiversity friendly forms of collaboration hold the potential to transform pathologically competitive and toxic teams and cultures. I know Autistic forms of communication within a neurodiverse team and within a psychologically safe environment impart a collaborative advantage to the entire team. I know neurodiversity, the social model of disability, and intersectionalityIntersectionality’s raison dêtre is to reveal the systems that organize our society. Intersectionality’s brilliance is that its fundamental contribution to how we view the world seems so common-sense once you… More are urgently needed reframing necessary to equity and inclusion.
I reframe
I reframe out of the confines of the medical model and pathology paradigm and into the respectfully connected expanse of the biopsychosocial model and the Neurodiversity paradigm. I reframe from deficit ideology to structural ideology.
I center
I center the marginalized and the different. I center edge cases, because edge cases are stress cases and design is tested at the edges. I center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodyminds.
I will
I will never stop learning. I will communicate as much as possible because communication is oxygen to an organization. I will never pass up an opportunity to help out another Stimpunk. I will maintain learner safety and remember what it is like to be a new contributor. I will make other people feel equal and not aloneAloneness is a characteristic that many creatives embrace and yearn for. Being alone is anything but lonely. Reading, writing, and creating art all demand a personal space where one can… More. I will build with, not for. I will default to open. I will move carefully and fix things. I will make things that help people, and I will not make things that harm people. I will bake ethics into everything I do. I will be a threat to inequity in my spheres of influence.
Raise your hand if you’re not from a mold (yeah me) Varied strings are worth more than gold Mah-ah-ah-ah-ahl function away Mah-ah-ah-ah-ahl function away Malfunction! Malfunction! Malfunction! ... Their Malfunction isn’t us, it’s all the clamor and the fuss
I’m about to pick you up get you back up on your feet you don’t need to worry love Even if we’re incomplete Come on baby open up Pull out the wires and trim the fluff Be yourself sounds so cliche But hey let's do it anyway
-- Malfunction
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Letter From Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.