They’re tapping their foot or bouncing their knee to a consistent rhythm; they’re fixating on the sound the heaters make; they’re fidgeting with their pencil or doodling on the side of their worksheet. They’re coming up with new and exciting ways of tackling problems and excelling where others may not. These are the neurodivergent students of DGS.
According to Cleveland Clinic, “Neurodivergent is a nonmedical term that describes people whose brains develop or work differently for some reason. This means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work more typically. While some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or diagnosis hasn’t been identified.”
While some students who identify as neurodivergent receive educational accommodations, such as extended time on assignments in the form of 504 plans or IEPs, many do not.
Senior Kaz Glass was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and described how looking back, the diagnosis makes sense to them.
“It’s kind of turned into an all or nothing, either I do the homework or I don’t…I go to do homework and then I’m like, ‘am I gonna do it?’ And either my brain goes, yes, you are, or it goes, no, you aren’t,” Glass said.
On the other side of the umbrella classification of neurodivergence, an abundance of individuals are not officially diagnosed, but rather self identify, existing within the category without an official identification. An anonymous junior is one of such individuals, suspecting she has ADHD and OCD. Due to her concerns regarding the current political climate, she requested to have her name omitted.
“I feel like it makes it difficult to relate to people, and I often just feel like I’m an outsider, just observing everything and trying to navigate conversations in a way that other people seem to have an easier job doing,” she said.
The anonymous junior relates to Glass, describing how sometimes she can hyperfocus, and other times it’s the opposite.
“Sometimes, I can get into a massive hyper focus that feels like some weird super ability, where I can just concentrate, but other times, I can’t concentrate at all,” she said.
Glass described how they’ve had to explain to others how their brain works.
“At some point my dad tried to sit me down and have a talk: ‘you need to be responsible and do your homework.’ And I’m trying to explain to him how my brain works, [I] was [saying]sometimes my brain just tends to be numb and I can’t fight [it],” Glass said.
In high school, staff members can be a vital part to a neurodivergent student’s success in the classroom. Social studies department head Christopher Esposito described how he works with neurodivergent students everyday.
“As with everything in teaching, it truly depends on the student’s needs. Every student is different,” Esposito said.
Art teacher Janet Taylor described how she frequently works with neurodivergent students, and how she recognizes neurodivergence both from personal experience and the lives of her own children.
“Students can be really, really smart and also have different ways of thinking, or students can have a very specific pathway that they think. And then there are students that just need support in other areas,” Taylor said.
Esposito shared how he believes that teachers should take the same approach as they would with any student.
“I don’t have any different advice than I have working with all students. Get to know your students as learners and as people. When you do that, you can best understand their needs and then support students based on those needs,” Esposito said.
Taylor had a similar sentiment as Esposito, valuing getting to know her students in a deeper way.
“You want to get to know your students really well on the personal level. I don’t mean all the ins and outs of their lives, but getting to know how a student thinks, how they work, how their brain works, how they problem solve,” Taylor said.
Primarily teaching jewelry and metalworking classes, Taylor explained how the different aspects of that structure of class can help show the strengths of neurodivergent students.
“My class is an art class, so we have a lot of conceptual thinking, we have thematic ideas generating, expressing yourself. But I teach mostly [jewelry and metalworking], which is a very technical skill, very hands-on. Seeing how students actually problem-solve through that, I think gives a lot of insight on how to support them in the paths that they work best in, and also getting them to go outside their comfort zones,” Taylor said.
Taylor expressed the joy she feels working with neurodivergent students, an experience that she described as “an exciting part of life.”
“I love working with neurodivergent students, because they all have a different gift to give, and to me, that’s what makes everything really beautiful and wonderful to teach, that excites me. It makes me feel hopeful for the future, because I think it’s really important that people see how other people think, that there isn’t just one way to think, or to feel, or to exist. I think most of the most successful people out there are neurodivergent, and so I think having that outside the box thinking, or a different way of thinking is kind of where creativity lies and innovation lies,” Taylor said.
While being neurodivergent can have its challenges, Glass has a clear message: it’s possible to get through the struggles.
“It’s possible. I’ve gotten this far undiagnosed, not especially aware that I had ADHD and my work ethic has not been the best, but I’ve survived.” Glass said.
The Counseling and Student Support Services (CSSS) are available to aid all students with various needs, including those with educational accommodations.
Neurodivergence can be perceived in many ways, and the anonymous junior acknowledged that. However, she explained what the term means to her, and how she believes it should be understood in a more positive, accepting way.
“I think it just means that everybody’s brain is unique, and everyone’s brain works in its own way, and we need to be more understanding than not everybody processes how we process. [Being] neurodivergent makes you more understanding that everybody is gonna see the world in a different way. [When] we generalize and assume that other people see it, it just creates problems,” she said.