E has been engaging reliably in CRA for several months now. My continued focus has been on mental health, social emotional awareness, and self discovery. While we have often discussed the different types of brain powers people have, today we had our first discussion about an area of struggle that E’s specific brain causes.

After a bumpy start, E and I have settled into a math routine and I’ve witnessed as his confidence has grown. This week, I wanted to see if he was now able to access the content within the virtual classroom environment instead of solely with me as his teacher. My goal was to yet again, give him a teacher-based experience and the awareness that he can learn alongside peers. He wasn’t keen on the idea of watching a recorded lesson because he recalled how angry these lessons had made him at the start of the school year. But, I reminded him of how confident he has become and that we would only watch the teaching parts - skipping the other kids talking. He reluctantly agreed to try. The topic was review from our last lesson together so I know that theoretically he understood the topic.

One-on-one, we play the exact same game that the teacher was using to introduce the lesson, called “richer or poorer.” I have taught him with the same strategies and even the same words that the teacher uses because I have watched her lectures myself before presenting the content to him. The lesson today was continuing the game which is essentially teaching base-10 addition and subtraction through fake money manipulatives with dice to decide if the students add or subtract and by how much. E and I have played this game for weeks and he has giggled and been silly as he tries to push me into debt and fantasizes about the situation that would occur causing that roll of the dice to happen. “Oh no, Apple called and they heard you were using Google Docs, you must pay the bank $28!”

Today, E setup his bank as the teacher instructed and the rolling of the dice began. The teacher allowed each student to roll individually so as each roll was announced, I paused the recording so that E could take the action. Three rolls in, E asked to sit in my lap. Looking back, this should have been the point at which I said “It seems like something may be making you feel uncomfortable, should we do this our way instead?” But, alas, I had sixty pounds in my lap, one hand on a video player I was trying to pause accurately and the other counting fake money.. all with a dog begging for attention at my feet (I won’t even begin to talk about the breakfast dishes waiting to be cleaned and the grocery delivery person ringing the bell or the dentist calling to reschedule his appointment or the friend seeking moral support as her kid battles COVID!) So, I missed my moment. And, by the 4th roll of the dice, E leaped from my lap in tears. “I am a failure! My brain is too slow! Everyone else knows all of the answers and I can’t do this!!!”

I closed the video. Ignored all else. Focused on E. “I can see you are upset, can we talk about this together?” He proceeded to explain that he feels like his brain is too slow and often he can’t keep up with others. He shared that he frequently feels stupid because everyone else can do things so much faster than he can, siting that I (30+ years older than him) can do math faster than he can. He feels this way a lot.

I hadn’t planned this lesson, but quickly realized that I had to seize the opportunity as it presented. Today was the day to begin discussing the challenges that come with neurodiversity. E knows of his gifts and he knows of his anxiety. He understands how anxiety makes it difficult to think. But, being at home for school, he rarely encounters typical classroom experiences where he truly senses processing speed challenges. I support him with the gift of time at CRA because it is one of the greatest gifts of our independent schooling journey. But, this video based lecture series had thrown him into a classroom of students - many of whom sound far younger than him - who shout out answers at a rapid fire pace. Even when the teacher keeps the students to hand raising, she calls on students so quickly that those who are processing now feel slow. It is the opposite of a learning experience built on the gift of time. Yet, faulting the teacher would have been me avoiding the truth. Instead, we talked openly about processing speed and how it is a challenge for E. I explained that processing speed impacts rapid computation. We also talked openly about conceptual thinking and his love of complexity. We discussed the true meaning of “mathematics” and brainstormed about the truly gifted mathematicians throughout history such as Einstein verses the people great at computations. I let him come to his own conclusions about which kind of brain he has and the strengths it has to offer.

In the end, he felt empowered with the words, “My brain needs a bit more time, but my brain is powerful” because as he said, he will be an innovator that changes the world because he can think about the world’s greatest problems and he can innovate complex solutions. He may need a calculator or he may write a program to do the computation, but his brain can do things that others can not.

He is decisively different and, exceptionally engaged. I could not be more proud of him.