Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today
Speaker 1: we have Jonathan Mooney on the podcast. Jonathan is a
Speaker 1: dyslexic writer and speaker who did not learn to read
Speaker 1: until twelve years old. He faced a number of little
Speaker 1: expectations growing up. Was told he would foot burgers, be
Speaker 1: a high school dropout, and end up in jail. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, these prophecies didn't come to pass. Today, he
Speaker 1: speaks across the nation about neurological and physical diversity, inspiring
Speaker 1: those who live with differences, and advocating for change. Mooney's
Speaker 1: work has been featured in outlets such The New York Times,
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles Times, HBO, MPR, and ABC News, and
Speaker 1: his books include The Short Bus, Learning Outside the Lions,
Speaker 1: and most recently, Normal Sucks, How to Live, Learn, and
Speaker 1: Thrive Outside the Lions. So great to finally have you
Speaker 1: on the Psychology Podcast, Jonathan. Oh, hey man, I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of the podcast and your work and really
Speaker 1: honored to be a part of your program today. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I'm glad we could have this chat,
Speaker 1: especially around the release of this new book of yours,
Speaker 1: which is just a really terrific book and really questions
Speaker 1: a lot of things a lot of people take for
Speaker 1: granted as assumptions. Yeah, and it also has a very
Speaker 1: subtle title that's right. Yeah, you know, no need to
Speaker 1: pull punches, let's just kind of get right to the point,
Speaker 1: for sure. But you know, as I'm reading the book,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you know, you do such a good job
Speaker 1: unpacking the idea that there really is no such thing
Speaker 1: as normality, and then you say that normal sucks, and
Speaker 1: just wanted to just like straight up ask you, like,
Speaker 1: how do you reconcile those two things? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you're right to note that the project, you know, the book,
Speaker 1: and I say project because it transcends the book, but
Speaker 1: it kind of came to a distillation in the book
Speaker 1: is about coming to the conclusion that there is no
Speaker 1: such thing as normal, but The problem is that we
Speaker 1: still have a notion of normal that is very dominant
Speaker 1: in our culture and becomes institutionalized in our systems, school work,
Speaker 1: and beyond. So while the reality is that the only
Speaker 1: normal people are people you don't know very well, that
Speaker 1: it is a myth, it's still a powerful construct that
Speaker 1: wooms over people's lives, and that construct is real in
Speaker 1: people's lives and needed to be challenged and rejected and
Speaker 1: ultimately deconstructed so we can make something new. Yes, you're
Speaker 1: trying to h to make something new. So in your
Speaker 1: ideal world, what would the sort of reconceptualization be from
Speaker 1: the like, if we eradicated the whole notion of normal,
Speaker 1: would that also mean we'd have to eradicate the notion
Speaker 1: of Neurodiversity's interesting logically that we would. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's an interesting question because what you're what you're positing
Speaker 1: and for for your listeners, who I think are well
Speaker 1: versed in this, and you're referencing, which is movement of
Speaker 1: people who have contested the pathologizing of their brains UH
Speaker 1: and they've reframed their UH brain neurological experience not as
Speaker 1: a deficit or disorder, but as a form of human diversity.
Speaker 1: The power pathologizing of certain brains comes from the notion
Speaker 1: that there is a normal brain that one can differ from.
Speaker 1: So I look at this in an arc of sort
Speaker 1: of resistance. Right. So, while we can fast forward and
Speaker 1: those of us who spend a lot of time with
Speaker 1: the research, listening to wonderful podcasts like this and others,
Speaker 1: we know that the notion of a normal and subsequently
Speaker 1: an abnormal, a typical and a different are artificial constructs.
Speaker 1: We have to meet those constructs where we are now.
Speaker 1: So I see in the short term a desperate need
Speaker 1: still for the neurodiversity framework, because there is still a
Speaker 1: framework of normal, not normal, abnormal that is embedded in
Speaker 1: our textbooks, embedded in our language, embedded in our system.
Speaker 1: So it is an act of courage and resistance and
Speaker 1: an act of healing and empowerment to claim states of
Speaker 1: being that have historically been considered abnormal as forms of differences.
Speaker 1: But you are right. If we can look ahead to
Speaker 1: the medium horizon, or maybe the long term horizon, if
Speaker 1: we can look ahead to a world where the notion
Speaker 1: of normal has been abandoned, we can see that difference
Speaker 1: is the human condition. You know, there's a part of
Speaker 1: the book in which I write about a set of
Speaker 1: brain scans that have been happening at the NIH National
Speaker 1: Institute of Health, and the brain scans set out to
Speaker 1: find the normal brain as a way to intervene around
Speaker 1: mental behavior health challenges, and the head of that study
Speaker 1: is quoted as saying, as a result of the scans,
Speaker 1: you could not find a normal brain. So again, down
Speaker 1: the road, that's where we got to get. But in
Speaker 1: the short term, you know, I'm a proud advocate soldier
Speaker 1: for the notion of neurodiversity, and we all need to
Speaker 1: fight for that construct while it's useful now, but ultimately,
Speaker 1: imagine the world where there is no bifurcation polarization between
Speaker 1: the normal and the not. Yeah, it's a good world
Speaker 1: to imagine. I also am a proponent for neurodiversity, and
Speaker 1: I'd hate to have to delete the hashtag from my
Speaker 1: Twitter at bio pound neurodiversity. Okay, cool. So I want
Speaker 1: to just like go back a second, no, not go
Speaker 1: back and go back a long time to your childhood.
Speaker 1: And you know, both me and you there's some overlap
Speaker 1: in the story, so obviously I resonate a lot with
Speaker 1: your story, and my heart goes out a lot to
Speaker 1: your early childhood experiences. And I also recognize how hard
Speaker 1: it could be to just tell this story like like,
Speaker 1: I think I've probably told my story over a thousand
Speaker 1: times in the last three years, and maybe you have
Speaker 1: told your own personal story even more than that. But
Speaker 1: do you I'm talking a little bit about it again
Speaker 1: with you right now for a new audience. Everything I
Speaker 1: do around my advocacy work comes directly from my personal experience.
Speaker 1: You know, As you mentioned in your introduction, I was
Speaker 1: the you know, the peg that didn't fit the whole
Speaker 1: of school, and as a result of that, you know,
Speaker 1: suffered tremendously. I spent a lot of the time because
Speaker 1: I couldn't sit still chewing out with the janitor in
Speaker 1: the hallway. I spent a lot of time on a
Speaker 1: first name basis with surely the receptionist in the principal's office.
Speaker 1: And I spent a lot of the day hiding in
Speaker 1: the bathroom to escape reading out loud with tears streaming
Speaker 1: down my face. Those struggles made me feel that I
Speaker 1: wasn't different but deficient. Those struggles, uh, and that marginalization,
Speaker 1: and I think we should call it what it is.
Speaker 1: It is a form of marginalization, for a manifestation of
Speaker 1: human difference, when people with a typical brains are made
Speaker 1: to feel not different but deficient. You said. By the
Speaker 1: end of the third grade, I was promoted from being
Speaker 1: one of those kids to the resource room special ed kid.
Speaker 1: I was diagnosed with multiple language based learning disabilities and
Speaker 1: attention death to disorder. I was in the resource room too.
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting that that's what they called
Speaker 1: it where you were as well. It wasn't called special
Speaker 1: ed in my where I was, it was called the
Speaker 1: resource room. Was that similar with you as well? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I found I had. I found myself in a variety
Speaker 1: of different and if we were in person, you'd see
Speaker 1: my air quotes alternative education settings. Yeah, the resource room
Speaker 1: being one of those spent more directly named special education
Speaker 1: specific programs at different parts of my journey were another
Speaker 1: part of my experience. But all of those, to go
Speaker 1: back to the air quotes, all of those those spaces
Speaker 1: where stigmatizing. You know, the number of times I was
Speaker 1: called you know, retard, or the number of times I
Speaker 1: was called stupid because of being placed in that sort
Speaker 1: of space. And I think it's interesting. I think a
Speaker 1: lot about the kind of structural role of special education,
Speaker 1: and I have a lot of cognitive dissonance around that.
Speaker 1: You know, on one hand, it was an act of
Speaker 1: tremendous change and empowerment in nineteen seventy three when the
Speaker 1: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was passed. You know, before
Speaker 1: that folks with different brains and bodies had no right
Speaker 1: to an education. They could be excluded and were excluded
Speaker 1: at stat gering numbers. So the creation of the resource room,
Speaker 1: the special room, all those things was an act of
Speaker 1: inclusion at first. But like anything else, there are unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: And one of those unintended consequences is when we sort
Speaker 1: of walled off a group of people with atypical brains
Speaker 1: and bodies when we saw them through the lens of
Speaker 1: pathology opposed to diversity. Because most of those folks have
Speaker 1: labels and diagnosies that get them into that space. We've
Speaker 1: essentially gave a message to all the other kids about individuality.
Speaker 1: You know, to be different is to be deficient. And
Speaker 1: we let the system off the hook. We said, okay, personalized,
Speaker 1: differentiated instruction happens over there for those kids. But everybody else, Hey,
Speaker 1: you better be normal or else. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: really excellent point. I've been trying to think, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about my own childhood and then my own pre
Speaker 1: Like people keep asking me like what was your like
Speaker 1: why did you fight the system? Like and a lo
Speaker 1: other people in Special D kind of resigned to their
Speaker 1: fate in some ways. And I keep trying to think,
Speaker 1: like what is the personality trait? Like what what is
Speaker 1: that about? And I actually I don't like it when
Speaker 1: people ask me that question. But I'm sure you get
Speaker 1: asked that question too when you were young, you know.
Speaker 1: I read these things like you're reading this report and
Speaker 1: like and you would you you like, were cursing them
Speaker 1: out after every one of these things, like Jonathan displays
Speaker 1: poor executive, My god, all kill them function, you know,
Speaker 1: And and I was reading this and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, like, why did it bother
Speaker 1: you so much that people said you were deficient? I
Speaker 1: really was to have to try to unpack that, uh
Speaker 1: for for a long time because it bothered me too,
Speaker 1: But it didn't bother everyone. And I just I have
Speaker 1: my own I bought the season before I tell you,
Speaker 1: I wanted. I wanted to get your own thoughts on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, my my, my journey of agency and
Speaker 1: efficacy and empowerment, it was. It was a journey. And
Speaker 1: I say that to mean that I struggled with were
Speaker 1: in helplessness around those labels and believing that they were
Speaker 1: right about me, and then subsequently had support in resisting it.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was first diagnosed at the end
Speaker 1: of third grade, you know, we walked, me and my
Speaker 1: mom went into the school psychologist's office, and it was
Speaker 1: obvious that everyone in the room thought we were getting
Speaker 1: like the worst news in the world. You know, Like
Speaker 1: there was like soft music playing in the background, and
Speaker 1: there was like a box of tissues on the table,
Speaker 1: you know, and all of the language they used in
Speaker 1: front of me, you know, was Jonathan has deficit, this disorder,
Speaker 1: this Jonathan can't do that. And so I remember walking
Speaker 1: out of that room and learning to my mom. And
Speaker 1: my mom's quite a character, you know. She's like four
Speaker 1: to nine on a good day and high heels on
Speaker 1: her tippy toes, and she has a very squeaky, high
Speaker 1: pitched voice, like mini mouse, and she curses like a
Speaker 1: truck driver. And if you were a teacher doing wrong
Speaker 1: by her son. You did not want cursing mini mouse
Speaker 1: in your office, you know. But but that's where my
Speaker 1: mom was. She was that person who believed in me.
Speaker 1: So I walked out of the shrink's office and said
Speaker 1: to me, Hey, said to my mom, Hey, Mom, am
Speaker 1: I normal? And my mom said, Jonathan normal sucks. And
Speaker 1: that's actually the or wow, your mom said that to you.
Speaker 1: That's actually the origin of the title. Now. I didn't
Speaker 1: believe my mom at the time, you know, I was like, whatever, Mom,
Speaker 1: normal is better than what I am. But she planted
Speaker 1: that seed. See and that scene that you were alluded
Speaker 1: to when we were reading the different reading the report,
Speaker 1: which happened a little bit later after the diagnosis at
Speaker 1: a cafe in Manhattan Beach where I grew up, my
Speaker 1: mom was reading that out loud, and she was the
Speaker 1: one actually freaking out, uh and saying all of these
Speaker 1: profanities and and I see mom's work. That was my mom. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for misunderstanding that. No, no, but but but
Speaker 1: but but but but You are right that my mom
Speaker 1: was the person who was the voice of resistance and
Speaker 1: defiance well before I could be that voice and then,
Speaker 1: of course I had others along that journey, my mom
Speaker 1: being one. I had many gifted educators, and it's important
Speaker 1: for me to celebrate them who not only tended to
Speaker 1: my learning needs but also enforced that notion and supported
Speaker 1: that notion that nothing was wrong with me. Uh, that
Speaker 1: it was wrong, uh the way I was being treated,
Speaker 1: and that ultimately I should fight back. Mm hmm, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean just reading that I was just like fastated
Speaker 1: by the perils they That was around the time I
Speaker 1: was diagnosed. And then I repeated third grade as a result.
Speaker 1: Did they ask you to repeat third grade? I wasn't
Speaker 1: asked to repeat third grade. I left school for a
Speaker 1: time in sixth grade after being accused of plagiarizing something
Speaker 1: that I had not And then because you know, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a dyslexic, you can't also be
Speaker 1: a good writer. That was that was the work that
Speaker 1: people had and I had written a dictated and I
Speaker 1: and I stumble over the distinct between writing and dictating,
Speaker 1: because I have really come to believe that there is
Speaker 1: no distinction. That talking something is as valid as writing something. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in our age of speech to text, I think
Speaker 1: the false dichotomy between sort of writing and dictating will
Speaker 1: will hopefully start to crumble. But I dictated this story
Speaker 1: to my mom and and was accused of plagiarizing it
Speaker 1: because they only knew me through the lens of the
Speaker 1: bad spelling and the bad handwriting and the monosyllabic sentences
Speaker 1: when I was forced to write in a traditional way.
Speaker 1: So I contemplated repeating sixth grade, and then again we
Speaker 1: contemplated and came close to repeating ninth grade. But I
Speaker 1: sort of stayed on the on the timetable, mostly with
Speaker 1: the goal of kind of getting out. Yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I feel you, brother, Like I think it's it's so
Speaker 1: important what you're doing, and you touched on this notion
Speaker 1: of like, oh well, obviously, like you can't be a
Speaker 1: gifted writer and have trouble spelling, right, But like, you know,
Speaker 1: this emerging movement of two E twice exceptional, which is
Speaker 1: where my heart lies the most these days, I'm really
Speaker 1: glad to kind of see that movement. But it's still
Speaker 1: a minority movement. I mean, I don't think most educators
Speaker 1: have heard of twice exceptional children. Yeah, Evan, you know,
Speaker 1: I gave my first talk for for sube bomb and legend.
Speaker 1: Legend by the way, let's let's let's celebrate Sue as
Speaker 1: loud as we can. And I gave my talk on
Speaker 1: her behalf. She invited me after my first Bookcording Outside
Speaker 1: the Lines, came out in two thousand and I had
Speaker 1: no idea what the hell this two e thing was,
Speaker 1: you know, but I was so invigorated by it at
Speaker 1: first for very personal reasons. You know, I actually have
Speaker 1: never shared this story before, so this is the first
Speaker 1: time I'm doing so. Not for any you know, reason
Speaker 1: I haven't you know, I don't know why, but this
Speaker 1: is the first time I've shared it out loud. So
Speaker 1: when I was a kid at the same time that
Speaker 1: I was struggling in school in sixth grade, fifth and
Speaker 1: sixth grade, you know, was really seen through a narrow lens, uh.
Speaker 1: You know. The smart kid could read fast, the smart
Speaker 1: kid could write, et cetera. There was something in California
Speaker 1: called the Gate Program, which was the gifted and Talented program.
Speaker 1: And I remember the day like it was yesterday where
Speaker 1: the five kids from my class got pulled out to
Speaker 1: the Gate Program and I it was and it was
Speaker 1: such a stark juxposition between the SPED room that I
Speaker 1: was going in going to a resource room, and then
Speaker 1: the gate program, meaning the sped room was all about
Speaker 1: trying to make the square peg fit the round hole. Right.
Speaker 1: We were going to my spelling, we were going to
Speaker 1: remediate my reading. It was fix it, fix it, fix it,
Speaker 1: fix it. And then I watched these other kids walk
Speaker 1: down into this room that looked like a straight up
Speaker 1: like Maker's lab, you know what I mean. And this
Speaker 1: is like nineteen eighty four, you know, no one had
Speaker 1: ever done this before. And I was so pissed off
Speaker 1: man and and and it was such a visceral moment
Speaker 1: of a sense of inequity, uh and a sense of
Speaker 1: why do you know? Me? And this group of kids
Speaker 1: get fixed all day long, and that small group gets amplified, accelerated,
Speaker 1: they get to do passion and uh and interest driven projects.
Speaker 1: And so when I went to the te world, UH,
Speaker 1: I was really resentful, maybe one word more skeptical of
Speaker 1: the whole notion of giftedness and how we define it.
Speaker 1: And what I found in the two E world was
Speaker 1: a radical definition of what we think of as giftedness
Speaker 1: as human flourishing, uh, challenging a very narrow definition of
Speaker 1: giftedness that conflates gifted with school performance, because the reality
Speaker 1: is some of the most gifted people are people who
Speaker 1: don't perform in school. We know more than ever that
Speaker 1: you know, true giftedness comes hand in hand with a
Speaker 1: complicated brew of strengths and weaknesses, of assets and challenges.
Speaker 1: And I'm such a believer in the power of the
Speaker 1: two E movement to recognize the talent that is going unrecognized,
Speaker 1: of course, but ultimately to lead a movement that has
Speaker 1: a broader definition of human flourishing that empowers more and
Speaker 1: more types of human beings to find what's right with
Speaker 1: them and build a life around it. Absolutely very well said, well,
Speaker 1: it's good to have you as as a champion of
Speaker 1: the two E movement. Could have someone as such as
Speaker 1: your position having an advocate. I wonder how we can
Speaker 1: get more prominent advocates of it. First of all, we
Speaker 1: just had to get the word out more about it.
Speaker 1: We have to get the word out more about it.
Speaker 1: And then and then, you know, we we have to
Speaker 1: we have to stop faking normal, all of us, you know,
Speaker 1: like like because you know we let me give you
Speaker 1: an example of that. You know, I went to Brown University.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you and I know you, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure most of your listeners know that that's, you know,
Speaker 1: some ivy weak school. And when I transferred to Brown,
Speaker 1: and so I went to a university before Brown on
Speaker 1: soccer scholarship. Uh, and that's really all I thought I
Speaker 1: could be. I thought all I could be as an athlete.
Speaker 1: I was a stupid, crazy, lazy kid. And that was
Speaker 1: my sort of island of competency survival mechanism through adolescence
Speaker 1: and then through a very sort of dramatic set of
Speaker 1: changes in my life, I got involved in my education,
Speaker 1: advocated for myself, got the services that I deserved, and
Speaker 1: decided to transfer to Brown. And so when I got
Speaker 1: to Brown, I really felt like I had no place,
Speaker 1: you know, here, I was the resource room kid. I
Speaker 1: kind of faked my way through as a soccer player.
Speaker 1: I felt like a fraud there. Yes, And I remember
Speaker 1: when we first got on campus, me and my mom.
Speaker 1: There was a transfer orientation and there was an icebreaker,
Speaker 1: and the icebreaker was share where you transferred from and
Speaker 1: what you did the summer before. And so the moment
Speaker 1: the first kid went, it was like bragfest time, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, I transferred from you know, Yale,
Speaker 1: and I worked at the National Institute of Health, and
Speaker 1: I transferred from Harvard and I'm on a shortlist for
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize. You know. It was just ragfest, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, I'm out of here, you know,
Speaker 1: I got no place here. I felt not normal there.
Speaker 1: And then a guy raised his sand. I'll never forget this.
Speaker 1: He had purple hair, and he had bicycle chains around
Speaker 1: his wrists like they were bracelets, and he said, my
Speaker 1: name is David Cole. And I transferred from Landmark College,
Speaker 1: which is a two year of college for people with
Speaker 1: learning and attentional differences, and I worked construction last summer.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's my boy right there, you know. And
Speaker 1: I went right up to him and he was the
Speaker 1: first person that I had ever seen stop trying to
Speaker 1: fake normal. And it changed my life, you know. Fast forward.
Speaker 1: Dave Cole co authored Learning Outside the Lines, Dave Cole
Speaker 1: co founded Eye to Eye, and Dave Cole is now
Speaker 1: a renowned conceptual artist, sculptor doing amazing work. All your
Speaker 1: listeners should go check him out online and an advocate
Speaker 1: for the narrative verse. But my point is I would
Speaker 1: have left that school. I would have felt alone if
Speaker 1: he had had the courage to share his different you know.
Speaker 1: And so I think a part of like being an
Speaker 1: advocate and building awareness for this is obviously for us
Speaker 1: to advocate in the traditional sense of asking systems to
Speaker 1: recognize to E. But it's also about us recognizing the
Speaker 1: two e inside of ourselves and having the courage to
Speaker 1: share that out with the world, to colleagues, to people.
Speaker 1: We work with the family members to not hide the
Speaker 1: things that make us different, but to celebrate those and
Speaker 1: when we do that, we build a more inclusive world,
Speaker 1: and we are true advocates for diversity in the broadest sense.
Speaker 1: You said, you have this quote, you said, Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong. Normal is a force of repression for sure,
Speaker 1: but as also a source of creation. What do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? Well, you know, for me, normal was
Speaker 1: pressing down upon me, you know, and as it does
Speaker 1: us with a set of restrictions. Do this, don't do this,
Speaker 1: be this way, don't be that way, learn this way,
Speaker 1: don't learn that way. And it's an all encompassing sort
Speaker 1: of imperative to be normal or as one of the
Speaker 1: titles of one of the chapters is act normal, right?
Speaker 1: But what's interesting to me, and it gets to the
Speaker 1: quote that you reference, which comes from that chapter act normal.
Speaker 1: I don't think we realize what hypocrisy it is to
Speaker 1: tell people to act normal, because to act is to
Speaker 1: fundamentally play a role something you are not right. And
Speaker 1: when you play that role, not only are you engaged
Speaker 1: in the sort of repression side of normal, but you're
Speaker 1: also creating something, a role, a persona, a self that
Speaker 1: may or may not be you. And that was said
Speaker 1: within a particular part of my journey making helping me
Speaker 1: understand my journey, where I was told to act normal
Speaker 1: relentlessly all the time, sits still, don't talk so fast,
Speaker 1: don't talk so loud, rite better. And so I decided
Speaker 1: to act normal in the highest sense. You know, it
Speaker 1: took on this persona of being the athlete person I mean,
Speaker 1: you all can imagine that in your mind. Took on
Speaker 1: the kind of persona of hiding all of my differences,
Speaker 1: doing the opposite of what Dave Cole did, you know
Speaker 1: ten years later in my life, and ultimately took on
Speaker 1: the role of enforcing normal see on others and telling
Speaker 1: other people how they should be or shouldn't it be
Speaker 1: demeaning other people with a continuum of differences around sexuality,
Speaker 1: sexual orientation, race, class, gender, And ultimately it was a
Speaker 1: force of repression but creation, and it created a self
Speaker 1: that was built on a very fragile foundation, and eventually
Speaker 1: that foundation broke. So some of that instance, it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like you are trying to be normal. It sounds
Speaker 1: like you're overcompensating, like you were trying to be great,
Speaker 1: like super extra great. It feels a little different to
Speaker 1: me than trying to be normal. It felt like an overcompensation.
Speaker 1: Would you agree with that? Yeah, it's interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: I go back and forth between ah h, between between
Speaker 1: how we use the word normal because you know, because
Speaker 1: you're right, in its most clear linguistical sense, normal is
Speaker 1: the middle of the bell curve, the average, and in
Speaker 1: its sort of social history, that's where the concept became
Speaker 1: wide we understood within culture. You know, it emerged within
Speaker 1: the discipline of the statistics. The whole notion of the
Speaker 1: average man that emerged with a Belgian assistant satistician in
Speaker 1: the sort of eighteen forties, eighteen fifties, and the average
Speaker 1: became held up as the optimal. But what's interesting, and
Speaker 1: if you look at the work of a man that
Speaker 1: I really admire, he's a mentor of mine, Nam Leonard Davis.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book called Enforcing Normalcy in around the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties. The average got conflated with the ideal, which
Speaker 1: is something that's kind of impossible, right, And that's where
Speaker 1: this normal as both average but also the impossible ideal
Speaker 1: kind of looms all over us. So I think, to
Speaker 1: go to your question, I was not trying to be
Speaker 1: typical in the sense of the middle of the Bell curve.
Speaker 1: I was trying to overcompensate, you know, be exceptional in
Speaker 1: some way. But that was, in its own right, a
Speaker 1: capitulation to the complicated mess of normalcy in our world.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a good example of that complicated mess,
Speaker 1: you know. In the nineteen forties, a movement, and frankly
Speaker 1: they were your genesis, that did this, but a movement
Speaker 1: of pseudoscientists, etc. Took a group of body measurements that
Speaker 1: happened in many different areas, measurements of bodies. They were
Speaker 1: non representational measurements. They were mostly white people, mostly in
Speaker 1: our middle class, et cetera. And then they created a
Speaker 1: sculptures of these people called Norma and Norman. Literally, this
Speaker 1: is not a joke. Everyone can look this up. They
Speaker 1: created the sculptures of Norman and Norma, and these sculptures
Speaker 1: were supposedly of the normal human beings, but then when
Speaker 1: you looked at them, they were like the statue of David.
Speaker 1: And in Cleveland, they held a competition to find women
Speaker 1: who looked like Norma, and those women submitted their body measurements,
Speaker 1: and of course, surprise, surprise, nobody met the body measurements
Speaker 1: of this so called normal representation. So normal is an
Speaker 1: impossible idea ideal, but it's an impossible ideal that we're
Speaker 1: told to be and to keep chasing into the horizon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great example of that when it comes to intelligence.
Speaker 1: Intelligence as a boy, that's what a tricky topic that is.
Speaker 1: And I've tried to I started off studying it in
Speaker 1: my career, being like, oh, IQ is like evil to
Speaker 1: like studying it and realizing, well, there are real individual
Speaker 1: differences in IQ, and it's a real thing. Like there's
Speaker 1: some people that are really high on that bell curve
Speaker 1: and are able to learn really quickly in a school
Speaker 1: kind of environment. And so when we talk about other
Speaker 1: of these kind of psychological constructs, they certainly can scientifically
Speaker 1: be captured, right, Yeah, you know. And it's interesting you
Speaker 1: mentioned that your journey with IQ, because I think I've
Speaker 1: probably gone on a comparable journey, but but not from
Speaker 1: a scholarly perspective, but from an active perspective. And you know,
Speaker 1: you're right to note that we we we have we
Speaker 1: have to value different you know what I mean, like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: wave it away, you know what I mean. And we
Speaker 1: can't say it exists and doesn't exist at the same
Speaker 1: time exactly right now, Uh, to the question that started
Speaker 1: our amazing dialogue around the notion of you know, saying
Speaker 1: normal sucks but then arguing that it's a construct. You know,
Speaker 1: we have to be tactical, tactical in our on our moments, right,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Uh, And we have to
Speaker 1: understand that to get to a north star place where
Speaker 1: you know, certain differences can be not pathologized, but sell
Speaker 1: we have to do X, Y and Z and our
Speaker 1: sort of social activism and intellectual activism. But to go
Speaker 1: to your question around intelligence, and you're and what you're
Speaker 1: noting is exactly right. I don't take issue with the
Speaker 1: idea that given this psychometric UH assessment of intelligence, but
Speaker 1: we could apply it to others that there are deviations
Speaker 1: on a bell curve around that. That is true, that
Speaker 1: there's not a continuum of aptitudes, et cetera. What I
Speaker 1: take issue with is then the value judgment that's posed
Speaker 1: on it from a cultural perspective. So to call, you know,
Speaker 1: one type of human to who excels because of a
Speaker 1: certain cognitive predisposition in a certain system the smart human
Speaker 1: is call all the other people who don't the dumb human.
Speaker 1: And so I think what we need to be min
Speaker 1: mindful of is valuing difference, not demeaning the manifestation of
Speaker 1: intelligence that is captured in IQ. That manifestation of intelligence
Speaker 1: has value, it does and it contributes to the world.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we can't mean the manifestations
Speaker 1: of intelligence that aren't captured in that tool. And we
Speaker 1: can have a broader definition like Sternberg does and others
Speaker 1: that starts to surface up the multiple manifestations of human flourishing.
Speaker 1: And then we have to have systems that don't just
Speaker 1: call one brain smart, but create room for all of
Speaker 1: those brains that have something right with them to be
Speaker 1: recognized and empowered as well. Yeah, that was that was
Speaker 1: really very well put. That was the why I had
Speaker 1: the cheeky title of my book called Ungifted. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you ever had a chance to read that book. Ye,
Speaker 1: A big fan of it. Oh cool, I'm honored. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's just a cheeky way of saying like,
Speaker 1: if we have the gifted, doesn't that mean that there
Speaker 1: exists a class of human being is called the ungifted? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's makes sense to me, and yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and and also to be to be core, I don't
Speaker 1: equate i Q with all there is to intelligence, and
Speaker 1: I have this theory of personal intelligence. But this is
Speaker 1: not an interview about me, so I'm not going to
Speaker 1: get into this. But inspired by your by your work, man,
Speaker 1: and so this is a an opportunity to thank you
Speaker 1: for that work and to you know, recognize you and
Speaker 1: others that are a part of the small growing movement
Speaker 1: of academics slash activists, because I see you as both
Speaker 1: uh growing academic activist community that's trying to ask a
Speaker 1: different question about people. You know, the old school question
Speaker 1: was how smart are you? Let's measure it under the
Speaker 1: i Q test. The new question is how are you smart?
Speaker 1: And let's build a set of metrics and tools that
Speaker 1: allow everyone to find that spark of genius inside of themselves.
Speaker 1: And you're a big part of that movement. Man, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for saying that. I Uh, I got I
Speaker 1: got chills when I heard you, uh just describe the
Speaker 1: problem and and articulate it. So there's probably a reason
Speaker 1: why I got chills. There's a there's a there's a
Speaker 1: commonality of a spirit uh that we both you know,
Speaker 1: sort of see a better world. So it's it's it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: So now you you did something really awesome. You took
Speaker 1: the short bus intentionally around the country and and you
Speaker 1: wanted to learn from people with all sorts of different ways,
Speaker 1: of all different kinds of minds. What I mean, that's
Speaker 1: kind of that's quite brilliant. Yeah, so you know, to
Speaker 1: situate that journey, and it was a journey you know
Speaker 1: within you know, both my my personal arc of transformation.
Speaker 1: But but but what I think is also a conceptual
Speaker 1: arc of transformation and and uh a set of ideas
Speaker 1: about what leads to transformation. If you've been demeaned, you know,
Speaker 1: I went to Brown and I to reference a conversation.
Speaker 1: We're having a moment. Ago. I wasn't just normal, but
Speaker 1: I was better than normal, right, Like I was better
Speaker 1: than those kids that got to go to the Gate program.
Speaker 1: I was better than those kids who told me I
Speaker 1: was stupid. I had proved them all wrong, right. And
Speaker 1: not only did I go to Brown and do that
Speaker 1: whole thing, but I had a pretty you know, exceptional
Speaker 1: journey at Brown. You know, I sold Running Outside the
Speaker 1: Lines to Simon and Chester, Dave Cole and I did
Speaker 1: when we were undergraduates. We took a full semester off
Speaker 1: and wrote it as undergraduates. I also founded Eye to Eye,
Speaker 1: which went off to be a national mentoring and advocacy
Speaker 1: organization still in existence, been around for over twenty years.
Speaker 1: And I was a Hirius Truman Scholar for Public service,
Speaker 1: you know, forty in the country out of all the
Speaker 1: universities in the country. And so I graduated from Brown,
Speaker 1: and you know, on the surface, you know, it was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you know your journey's done. You know, like you you know,
Speaker 1: you made it man, and and and and and then
Speaker 1: why the hell do I feel like such shit? And
Speaker 1: I was in a place in my early greade twenties
Speaker 1: where I struggled still deeply with depression, I struggled with anxiety.
Speaker 1: I called it the black hole days, where you know,
Speaker 1: I'd be just walking down the street, man, I'd fall
Speaker 1: into a hole, you know, and feeling, I know, that
Speaker 1: feeling not come out for for for two weeks, you know,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, man, well and it goes out to
Speaker 1: anyone listening everyone. Yeah, everyone has that feeling. Everyone has those,
Speaker 1: especially if you've been called not normal, because there's a
Speaker 1: wound there and there's a x essential wound existential that, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and the wound is its origin is being
Speaker 1: cut from the herd, you know, like in in in
Speaker 1: in medieval time and biblical culture. In deep human DNA,
Speaker 1: the worst punishment was excommunication from the community. And I
Speaker 1: think that what we who have been excommunicated from the
Speaker 1: community of normal are having to heal from is a
Speaker 1: deep wound. So for me, I thought that the success
Speaker 1: traditionally would heal that wound. It did not. And not
Speaker 1: only did it not, but then I found myself as
Speaker 1: I started to speak and talk about my experiences, which
Speaker 1: started in the early two thousands, I sound I found
Speaker 1: my story being really contorted to almost like reinforce a
Speaker 1: sense of shame for people who couldn't succeed in the
Speaker 1: way that I did. So I would give these talks
Speaker 1: at schools, and I literally was introduced on multiple occasions
Speaker 1: to kids in special education programs who were struggling and suffering.
Speaker 1: I was introduced by teachers' principles, etc. As somebody who
Speaker 1: used to be like them and somebody who had fixed
Speaker 1: himself and was now normal. That's almost a direct quote
Speaker 1: from introductions that would happen in front of children. So
Speaker 1: here I am thinking, you know what, I'm a part
Speaker 1: of the problem now, and what's going to help me heal?
Speaker 1: And what is the wound at its core? And the
Speaker 1: wound at its core was feeling deficient because I was
Speaker 1: different and having to understand that. So I went on
Speaker 1: a journey to try to figure out how to heal myself,
Speaker 1: how to not be a part of the problem and
Speaker 1: be a part of the solution around how we treat difference.
Speaker 1: And so I bought an old short school bus and
Speaker 1: I drove around the United States forty five thousand miles
Speaker 1: six months, and I listened to the stories of people
Speaker 1: with atypical brains and bodies, And not only did I listen,
Speaker 1: but I learned from them. And I came to the
Speaker 1: realization that people who find themselves outside of the Bell
Speaker 1: curve have knowledge about how to live a better life
Speaker 1: that all of us need. That I needed from a
Speaker 1: very deeply personal perspective, but ultimately, I think they have
Speaker 1: knowledge about how to live with the reality of human embodiment,
Speaker 1: the reality of human difference, the reality of human valuability.
Speaker 1: There's a saying in the disability rights movement that we
Speaker 1: are all temporarily abled bodies. I would add temporarily abled
Speaker 1: bodies and minds that we were all experience disability at
Speaker 1: some point in our life, and we need to learn
Speaker 1: how to live with that human reality because we've been
Speaker 1: in denial of that human reality for too long. So
Speaker 1: that's what I found on the shortbus man. I found
Speaker 1: a better way to look. That's wonderful, you know. It's
Speaker 1: it if I if I can just like reframe the
Speaker 1: uh not reframe it, but just trying to think about
Speaker 1: it through through my own personal experience. I feel like
Speaker 1: I went through this the shift of like my twenties
Speaker 1: being like I'll prove them, you know, like with my
Speaker 1: own sort of like trying to get all the accolades
Speaker 1: I possibly could, the achievements, and I felt deeply empty
Speaker 1: as well. And then the shift, the shift seems to
Speaker 1: be from that attitude to like, you know, like a
Speaker 1: more like a more selfless egoist sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to like help others who are in a
Speaker 1: similar position, and that just feels it feels better, and
Speaker 1: and it's it's you know, it's you, sir, so I
Speaker 1: it feels less narcissistic. First of all, it's le narcissistic.
Speaker 1: It's less capituating to the story of normal that to
Speaker 1: be valuable, you have to be that impossible ideal exactly
Speaker 1: or can be, but keep trying. But it's ultimately how
Speaker 1: human beings heal. You know, when you were speaking, I
Speaker 1: came to mind and experience that I had with eye
Speaker 1: to eye. So I've alluded to eye to eye a
Speaker 1: few times. And it started as a tiny little mentoring program,
Speaker 1: a bunch of Brown University students with learning and intentional
Speaker 1: differences and some rizzity students who mentored younger students who
Speaker 1: had similar experiences. And it started with the notion that
Speaker 1: you know me, David Cole others sharing their story with
Speaker 1: young kids would give those young children a sense of
Speaker 1: hope for their future right and it would heel them
Speaker 1: in some way. And it absolutely did that. But the
Speaker 1: first evaluation we had done at Eye to Eye when
Speaker 1: I to Eye started to go to scale in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands by Harvard's Graduate School of Education. The
Speaker 1: evaluation done by Harvard showed that the impact was as
Speaker 1: much or more on the person doing the mentoring because
Speaker 1: it let them give back, but more importantly, it let
Speaker 1: them make meaning from their experience that created positive change
Speaker 1: in the world. Opposed to consuming the gold stars and
Speaker 1: reaching for those gold hoops and jumping through him. This
Speaker 1: was a way to change things for a young person.
Speaker 1: But ultimately the work that you're doing, the work that
Speaker 1: so many of us who care about this year to
Speaker 1: change the world, to make it a place where no
Speaker 1: one feels stupid, crazy, lazy, no one feels defective because
Speaker 1: they're different. Oh it's wonderful. Now, are you one of
Speaker 1: the founders of i'd Eye? Yeah, So I founded Eye
Speaker 1: to Eye at Brown as the mentoring program and then
Speaker 1: co founded Eye to Eye with David Flink. Hired David
Speaker 1: Flank when he was still working at Brown University, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: David Flint, Yeah yeah, yeah, to come and uh and
Speaker 1: build Iya Eye out. So I was the co founder,
Speaker 1: the founding executive director and then president emeritus. Tell him
Speaker 1: to put you on their website as part of their
Speaker 1: origin story. What the heck? You know one of the
Speaker 1: why are you excluded from this website? One of the
Speaker 1: things that is talking about exclusions. Jeez. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to create space for other people to do
Speaker 1: the work man, and so uh, I'm I'm all good.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yes, I tested you, I tested the
Speaker 1: sea of your growth. Yeah, you passed. So do you
Speaker 1: do you know Gabrielle Friedman? I don't think I know
Speaker 1: gabri gabes are Gabe Friedman. No, I don't know Gabe. Okay,
Speaker 1: he works for I to Eye Now. I think he's
Speaker 1: pretty high up in the organization. But his sister, uh
Speaker 1: was in my class at Penn and she got me
Speaker 1: in touch with him. And yes, anyway, I got a
Speaker 1: little bit of a window into I. I I didn't
Speaker 1: even know you were associated with it a little ble
Speaker 1: a co founder of it, and I just it struck
Speaker 1: me how amazing the organization was and how impactful it
Speaker 1: was for so many. So I think if it like
Speaker 1: if that's like if that was your only accomplishment in life,
Speaker 1: I think that like that's all, you know, like you've
Speaker 1: really done something really important? All right on? Man? Well
Speaker 1: and uh, and it is it is the It is
Speaker 1: not the I, but the wei. Uh. It's the you know,
Speaker 1: multiple people, from David Flink, who was one of the
Speaker 1: first mentors at Brown, to David Cole, who is also
Speaker 1: not in the Origin story but was the co founder
Speaker 1: at Brown, and Marcus who both David and I hired,
Speaker 1: who's now the president. And then even beyond those people,
Speaker 1: it's the mentors all around the country who I meet
Speaker 1: in my travels, who are out there, you know, sharing
Speaker 1: what makes them different, proudly with courage that helps take
Speaker 1: down this idea that there's a normal way to be.
Speaker 1: And it's those people who are really making impact every day.
Speaker 1: I love it. Oh boy, So okay, is there anything
Speaker 1: else you know? We could talk for hours and hours
Speaker 1: and hours. Is there anything else you know you want
Speaker 1: to say, Like we didn't really talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: how society's, government's businesses can promote more neurodiverse people like
Speaker 1: sort of a practical suggestion. Do you want to kind
Speaker 1: of leave something along those lines. Yeah, I mean you're
Speaker 1: you're right, Scott, to name the next horizon of our work.
Speaker 1: And again, it's our work, it's your work, it's my work,
Speaker 1: it's it's your listener's work, it's our work to demand
Speaker 1: that we have systems that embrace neurodiversity and unleash the
Speaker 1: talent and value that those humans bring to the world.
Speaker 1: We have a long way to go in school, but
Speaker 1: the conversation and systems are at least in place to
Speaker 1: do that work in school. We have a further way
Speaker 1: to go in the private sector and in the workforce.
Speaker 1: And that matters because we know that a lot of
Speaker 1: what happens in K twelve education is reverse engineered by
Speaker 1: what is private sector demands and what helps people thrive
Speaker 1: in the private sector, which makes sense because people need
Speaker 1: to make a living and make their way, and if
Speaker 1: the private sector could take a stance on neurodiversity mattering,
Speaker 1: that would impact and ripple down and throughout our system.
Speaker 1: And so from a very practical perspective, this is something
Speaker 1: that I'm advocating for in all of my travels. I
Speaker 1: hope many will join me. We have to include within
Speaker 1: private sector corporate diversity policies different brains and bodies as
Speaker 1: a part of the diversity initiatives. You know, I go
Speaker 1: to a lot of corporations, and the conversation around learning
Speaker 1: and attentional differences or disabilities, autism or aspergers is being
Speaker 1: had through a compliance Ada lens. Right. But then you
Speaker 1: go over to the other side and the conversation around
Speaker 1: inclusion and access, around race, class, gender, sexual identity, and orientation.
Speaker 1: That's about diversity, right, So that's wrong. It's not wrong
Speaker 1: that we are having a conversation around diversity, but we
Speaker 1: need to include in that conversation around diversity and in
Speaker 1: the policy procedures and practices of those diversity initiatives. We
Speaker 1: have to include the neurodiverse. And I'll go further. We
Speaker 1: have to include people with atypical brains and as a
Speaker 1: part of diversity as a part of what makes any business,
Speaker 1: any school, any community stronger, and as people who have
Speaker 1: something to give, not despite their differences, but they have
Speaker 1: something to give because of their differences. Jonathan, why do
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a church sermon right now?
Speaker 1: I just want to be like Amen, I got rawed
Speaker 1: that that happened. I feel like every sentence you're saying,
Speaker 1: I'm like, amen, brother, hallelujahy John, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: The world the world is is very lucky and fortunate
Speaker 1: to have you in it and and to and to
Speaker 1: really make such important strides, and I feel very fortunate
Speaker 1: to be able to talk to you today. So thanks
Speaker 1: so much for being on the Psychology Podcast. Yeah, hey man,
Speaker 1: the world is a better place because of you the
Speaker 1: work that you do. Thank you for having me, and
Speaker 1: let's all share are different and let's fight for a
Speaker 1: world where different isn't efficient together. Hallelujah. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to react in some way to something you heard, I
Speaker 1: encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also,
Speaker 1: please add a reading and review of the podcast on
Speaker 1: iTunes and subscribe to the Psychology Podcast YouTube channel, as
Speaker 1: we're really trying to increase our viewership on YouTube. In fact,
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Speaker 1: so you'll definitely want to check out that channel. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being such a great supporter of the podcast. And
Speaker 1: tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity.