Designing for Freedom, Part 1

For twice-exceptional students, it’s not just a matter of preference but of safety

Last week, I talked about designing for safety and bravery with adult learners and how often adults today are hesitant to engage in the learning process because of negative and/or oppressive experiences they had in the classroom as a child and, in some cases, as adults. 

While a lot can be done to heal and remediate the teacher-student relationship as an adult, it’s critical to address these harms at the root, before they even happen. That is why, when I built my last micro-school for children, I designed it with three values in mind: freedom, creativity, and growth.

The Sunnyside Logo 🌻

I opened the doors to Sunnyside Micro-School for Twice-Exceptional Children in the fall of 2017 in Oakland, CA. Previously, for eight years, I led micro-schools in the Bay Area for twice-exceptional children. Along the way, I learned a lot. After the hard but rewarding work of publishing a book about my educational philosophies and practices regarding micro-schools, I took a break for a couple of years to get married, travel, and put down some serious roots in Oakland. 

During this time, I started offering private consulting for others as they built micro-schools for their communities. I worked as an education coach for twice-exceptional students and began to see how the one-on-one relationship and committed, structured time allowed them to experience success that they hadn’t found in other learning settings. 

I also began working with twice-exceptional students in a completely different setting and witnessed equally positive results. Teaching inquiry-based, Maker-style pop-up group classes that combined math, science, and art, I watched my students thrive. I tested a hunch that these kids could experience the joy of learning and progress academically when their inclination to be independent was honored in project-based explorations. After one year, the results were astounding—and we had the parents' feedback to back it up!

My twice-exceptional students seemed to exist in a realm of extremes; maybe their learning environment needed to reflect that. On one hand, they needed structured and direct one-on-one instruction tailored to their specific needs without the distraction of others. On the other hand, they required the freedom to explore new ideas in the context of a community. 

I wondered what would happen if gifted and twice-exceptional students had a learning environment that was able to simultaneously meet their need for freedom and creativity while also offering direct, one-on-one education in math and language arts from highly trained and experienced professionals. 

As this model started to develop, I polled 150 parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children all over the country, sixty-three percent of whom were homeschooling. I learned that sixty-two percent of the 150 parents wished they had an alternative like a micro-school to supplement or replace their current educational strategies. Moreover, the majority of parents held freedom and choice in equal esteem with targeted and direct one-on-one educational coaching.

Based on this experience and research, I designed Sunnyside Micro-School. Our vision and mission were as follows: 

At the Sunnyside Micro-School, we are building a world that values cognitive diversity—a world in which twice-exceptional children feel safe to demonstrate their skills, knowledge, and values in a personal and meaningful manner.

The Sunnyside Micro-School educationally and emotionally supports twice-exceptional students as they develop their talents and abilities. We do this in two key ways: Firstly, we provide one-on-one educational coaching in the areas of math and language arts. Secondly, we offer an inclusive and compassionate Maker learning environment that values freedom, creativity, and growth.

We believe that when freedom and growth are held in equal esteem,  twice-exceptional children thrive.

Our three pillar values—freedom, creativity, and growth—informed every aspect of the Sunnyside model. From the initial design to how I organized our systems, to hiring and, of course, our curriculum, these three values were held in tension.

Some Sunnyside students showing off their emotional support stuffies. 🥰

Freedom: More than anything, twice-exceptional children need access to environments where they are free to be themselves. Oftentimes they are seen for their first diagnosis and not much else. By that, I mean if the child was diagnosed as learning disabled, they aren’t seen for their advanced capabilities. Conversely, if they’re identified as gifted, they will likely not receive services in the realms in which they struggle. In both instances, a vital aspect of the child’s identity is not acknowledged or served. Not only gifted and not purely learning disabled, these children exist at the interface between both identities, resulting in an entirely new profile: the twice-exceptional.

Typically, these children’s unique identities are not seen or planned for within the current educational paradigm. It’s no wonder that twice-exceptional children are characterized as unmotivated and/or underachieving (Townend, et. al. 2014). Returning to our twice-exceptional avatar, Joey (read more about her here), she would often complain that school was either “too hard” or “boring.” This is a common refrain among twice-exceptional children. In many cases, the school’s social expectations or the need to stay focused and organized are overwhelming, while the curricular content is too dry or remedial.

The deeply influential psychological researchers, Deci and Ryan (1980), determined that a person’s motivation to achieve is influenced by the qualities of autonomy, relatedness, and competence relative to the individual. These qualities are particularly urgent for twice-exceptional students. Stories of violent school refusal through running away or risking harm to themselves or others are common within the twice-exceptional community. The choice of what, how, and where to learn is not a matter of preference for them. It is a matter of safety.

A secondary characteristic of twice-exceptional students is intensity (Reis, et. al. 2014). Depending on the child’s psychological profile and their environment, they may have an urgent tendency toward sensory seeking or avoidance that can show up as disruptive and unexpected behavior. This might look like combative behavior from the child towards the teacher or other students. It could look like an inability to share space or respect the personal space of others. 

Freedom is the umbrella under which autonomy, relatedness, and competence take shelter. We honor a child’s autonomy when we provide them with choices as to how, what, and where they learn. We honor their need for relatedness when we provide contextual learning that is personal and meaningful to them. Lastly, we attend to their emerging competence when we make space for them to express their learning in accordance with their strengths and talents.

In next week’s post, I’ll continue to share how we designed Sunnyside with freedom in mind, and how that’s essential not only for creativity but also equity in the classroom.

Until then,

Jade

References

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1980). Self-determination theory: When mind mediates behavior. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 1(1), 33–43. 

Reis, S. M., Baum, S. M., & Burke, E. (2014). An operational definition of twice- exceptional learners. Gifted Child Quarterly, 58(3), 217–230. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986214534976

Townend G; Pendergast D; Garvis S, 2014, 'Academic self-concept in GLD students: What the literature tells us.', TalentEd, 28, pp. 75 - 89