Designing From the Margin

Because almost no one fits into the mold of average

In 2016 I attended a Neurodiversity In the Workplace conference at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, CA. Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity and great friend to the autism community, was the keynote speaker. Another presenter gave a talk on a concept that would open my eyes wider to the power of micro-schools and their ability to contribute to positive social change.

The talk was on “Designing From the Margins,” a design ethic that includes designing with and for people that are most severely impacted by an issue or societal flaw. One example of this type of design is the iPhone’s interface. When designing the iPhone, the creators were tasked to make a product that would work for the most people. To ensure that they did this, they considered how a person without the use of their legs or arms might use a phone. As a result of this design process, we now have a smartphone that we can navigate with the tip of our noses.

Almost no one fits into the mold of average. This is why designing for the middle leaves so many behind. When we design for the outlier, for those on the margins of society, we can know that we’ve created a product, service, or experience with the best hope of working for all.

I had always felt that what I was doing in education design lived distinctly, however vaguely defined, in the realm of social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideals. My overt interest in these ideals was catalyzed by the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the subsequent acquittal of his murderer.

Systemic racism, as a fact within the conventional school model, was something I’d heard mentioned only a handful of times and only then in hushed tones as I grew into an educator. Now it seemed the conversation was everywhere, but particularly on the internet. I finally had access to high-level discourse on the racist tendencies of school and ideas about how to become anti-racist personally and within the current educational paradigm. 

I’m trained in Nonviolent Communication, a peaceful and effective communication technique founded on the nonviolent principles of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and developed by Marshall J. Rosenberg. The nonviolent values central to this communication technique, alongside the increased awareness for justice within the conventional school model, would cause me to wonder how micro-schools might be designed to combat injustice in education.

Twice-exceptional children, particularly those who come from the most extreme circumstances and who also happen to be Black, Indigenous, or children of color, represent the margins in education. Even if we were to isolate their cognitive capacity, leave behind their other identities, and design only for that, we would still observe an extreme outlier phenomenon because twice-exceptional children develop asynchronously. As one scholar in the field describes them, 

The term twice exceptional was coined to describe students who have a disability and who also have characteristics and traits associated with giftedness. These students may appear to be capable and bright but do not demonstrate that ability when asked to produce work in the classroom (Baldwin, et. al., 2015).

Oftentimes the results of a twice-exceptional child’s intelligence test, like the WISC-V, will have upwards of a two standard deviation difference between subtests. They may have a verbal reasoning score of 130 and a processing speed of 95. This extreme difference in cognition is rare, but not non-existent. A child with this large a spread in abilities presents quite a challenge in the conventional, linear classroom. 

To be honest, I don’t think I should have to persuade anyone about creating learning environments that work for children with outlier characteristics. I shouldn’t have to legitimize designing for these children by explaining that creating for them will help all children, even those who are served by the current, conventional school model. (Throughout my life, whenever I’ve explained both the micro-school model and the profile of the child that I serve, I’m inevitably met with a round of “what abouts.” If that’s you, above is the definitive answer to any “what about” questions you may have.)

In the last fifteen years there has been a quiet amassing of thoughts and research regarding how to best serve twice-exceptional children in educational settings. In general, due to their unusual presentation, they’re targets of derision. Stories about bullying from teachers and other students due to their differences are rife (Espelage and Matthew, 2018). Their educational experience is not differentiated for their strengths or their challenges, making school both boring and too difficult (Reis, et. al., 2014).

Anxiety and depression, the two most easily identified symptoms of mental illness and unease, is nearly a given within the twice-exceptional community (Winsor and Mueller, 2020). In general, in conventional learning environments, these children aren’t receiving opportunities to express their strengths nor are they given appropriate services for their challenges (Willard-Holt, et. al., 2013).

For example, a typical student of mine might be chronologically eight years old, essentially a third grader. They might have the reading skills of a highschooler, the emotional maturity of a kindergartener, and outstanding visual-spatial abilities. This student, due to their asynchronous development, is experiencing life wholly outside the norm for a typical third grader. 

These children feel that they are wrong because the world around them tells them they are wrong, both in word, by denigrating their personalities, or in deed, by not providing working educational solutions for their strengths and challenges. Due to their advanced cognitive abilities and lagging skills, twice-exceptional children exist in a realm of extremes. They are having a marginal experience while, at the same time, they are marginalized. How might we let the experience of these unique students inform how we design educational experiences and learning environments? Through the intentional inclusion of their point of view in small, observable settings like micro-schools, we have the ability to learn more about how to make learning environments a more inclusive experience for all.

References

Baldwin, L., Omdal, S. N., & Pereles, D. (2015). Beyond stereotypes. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 47(4), 216–225. doi:10.1177/0040059915569361

Espelage, D. L., & King, M. T. (2018). Bullying and the gifted. APA Handbook of Giftedness and Talent., 659–669. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000038-043

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

Willard-Holt, C., Weber, J., Morrison, K. L., & Horgan, J. (2013). Twice-Exceptional learners’ perspectives on effective learning strategies. Gifted Child Quarterly, 57(4), 247–262. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986213501076

Winsor, D. L., & Mueller, C. E. (2020). Depression, suicide, and the gifted student: A primer for the school psychologist. Psychology in the Schools, 57(10), 1627–1639. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22416