Neuroqueer Learning Spaces Summary

Neuroqueering Learning Spaces

A collaboration between Autistic Realms & Stimpunks

Follow our journey as we explore ways we can create radically inclusive, embodied neuroqueer learning spaces.

Enabling cognitive and somatic liberty.

Facilitating responsive learning opportunities and endless possibilities for children to be and become.

Follow our journey into #NeuroqueerLearningSpaces

Autistic Realms
Stimpunks Foundation

Autistic Realms and Stimpunks are excited to announce that we are collaborating on a project: Neuroqueer Learning Spaces.

Follow our white rabbit, which is a symbol of curiosity, wonder, hope and possibility for #NeuroqueerLearningSpaces.

This project is just beginning. We’re defaulting to open and iterating on the open web. We’ll show our work so that anyone can contribute and learn from the process.

Introduction

A radical change to learning spaces is needed to enable children to be embodied, feel safe and feel liberated enough to explore and be curious about the world around them. We can work and learn in infinitely creative ways, but we need to be embodied in order to do that. To feel embodied, you need feelings of safety; people need to value strengths, validate difficulties, and provide support where needed. The work by McGreevey et al.(2023) based on the Life World Model by Todres et al. (2009) applies equally to health care and education. It offers a humanising framework for everyone, not just autistic people. Everyone deserves to feel a sense of togetherness and have their journeys make sense so they have agency and autonomy over their learning journeys.

We have created a lilypad to launch our project by inviting discussion around the following ideas:

The contemporary classroom is a temple of neuronormativity. Every act in the fight for the right to learn differently can be a neuroqueering act (based on Nick Walker’s Neuroqueer Theory, 2021). We suggest fundamentally neuroqueer learning spaces that enable “freedom of embodiment” and “cognitive liberty” are needed. We need learning facilitators to be ‘space holders’ so children’s bodyminds are allowed to live and learn authentically. Our Cavendish Space is an incubator and catalyst for neuroqueer becoming.”

Cavendish Spaces” are based on flexibility, interaction, movement, and the role of embodied responsive experiences. They reject the boundaries of traditional classroom settings and examine how they restrict embodied experiences and lead to disembodied experiences and harm. Our project is multidimensional, non-linear and de-hierarchical. We need to deconstruct, dismantle and un-learn as part of the neuroqueering process to lift the burden of neuronormativity that is weighing our children down. We are exploring the idea of an embodied education. We are exploring how learning spaces may impact neuroqueer learning potential and radical cognitive and somatic liberty. Inspired by Ira Socol who suggests Zero-Based Design as part of this process which means children will be no longer be trapped in your past. It will enable us to:

Reimagine the Learner Experience.
Reimagine the Learning Spaces.
Reimagine How Professionals Learn
”. (Ira Socol)

We are asking: How can we transform and liberate the expectations of neuronormative education and create neuroqueer learning spaces?

We are suggesting: A neuroqueer transformation = unlearning, collaborating, creating

How can we transform and liberate the expectations of neuronormative education and create neuroqueer learning spaces?

A neuroqueer transformation = unlearning, collaborating creating

Education

Unlearn

Teachers need information and knowledge to UN-LEARN their training, discover new possibilities and become neuroqueer facilitators of education

Collaborate

Trust from settings to allow educational facilitators to have autonomy of their students learning journey and follow their lead

Create

Freedom to create neuroqueer learning spaces

Family

Unlearn

Educating families on different possibilities for learning – it does not have to be the neuronormative way

Collaborate

Valuing community networks so they can foster empowerment and share stories and knowledge, validate experiences and create connections

Create

Providing resources for families to give back agency and autonomy so they are equipped to advocate

Neuroqueering Learning Spaces: An Exploration” is our introductory piece.

Cavendish Space” is a scrollytelling journey through our conception of a neuroqueer learning space.

Open Invite

Open Invite: Neuroqueer Learning Spaces

We’re requesting community writing and art about neuroqueering education, play, and learning spaces.

Ryan of Stimpunks and Helen of Autistic Realms are collaborating on a project. Any community work will be shared on the Stimpunks website and some work may be included in our chapter submission for Nick Walker’s new Neuroqueer Anthology. We are tight for timing though so will see how we get on with that, but the website pages are up and running now.

Cavendish Space” is the first piece in our “Neuroqueer Learning Spaces” project. It’s also our explainer for the project.

The campfires in the “Cave, Campfires, and Watering Holes” concept introduced in “Cavendish Space” are places for storytelling. They are places for elders and experts to pass along knowledge. We want to weave campfire wisdom into community storytelling. This community storytelling is part of our neuroqueer journeying and becoming.

For each section of the “Cavendish Space” piece, we’d like to have a “Campfire Wisdom” (working title) callout box featuring submitted writing and art. We want to highlight the wisdom of experts and elders in our community and associate it with the campfire primordial learning space and the storytelling and cultural transmission it facilitates.

We’ll integrate submitted writing and art into “Cavendish Space” and other pieces created by this project.

We’ll also publish standalone pieces of just your work.

Anything of any length welcome.

A poem,
a paragraph,
a painting,
a plea,
a picture of a partridge,
in a pear tree

All submissions will be attributed and linked to you whenever used.

https://twitter.com/autisticrealms/status/1767714896991358997?s=46&t=OtnJm_i6RmnJaG6IeO_SnA

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