Interview with Speaker 1 (Meg Proctor) and Speaker 2 (Corrie Price)
Episode 42: Inclusive, Strengths-Based Preschool with Corrie Price
[Introductory note]
Hey, podcast listeners! Meg here. If you’re a professional who listens to this podcast, chances are your work reflects both your values and pro-neurodiversity practices. But if you want to test that theory, I made a free quiz just for you. The Learn, Play, Thrive quiz takes less than two minutes to complete. And after you finish it, you’ll get tons of information about your strengths, your blind spots, and possible next steps. You’ll find the quiz at learnplaythrive.com/quiz. So, give it a shot, see how you do, and maybe learn something new. Now, here’s the episode.
[Introductory music]
Welcome to the Two Sides of the Spectrum Podcast. A place where we explore research, amplify autistic voices, and change the way we think about autism in life, and in our professional therapy practices. I’m Meg Proctor from learnplaythrive.com.
Meg:
Before we get started, a quick note on language. On this podcast, you’ll hear me and many of my guests use identity-affirming language. That means we say, ‘autistic person,’ rather than, ‘person with autism’. What we’re hearing from the majority of autistic adults is that autism is a part of their identity that they don’t need to be separated from. Autism is not a disease, it’s a different way of thinking and learning. Join me in embracing the word ‘autistic’ to help reduce the stigma.
Welcome to Episode 42 with Corrie Price. Corrie is actually the director of my 4-year-old’s preschool, and I invited her on the podcast for a very specific reason. Corrie has created a truly neurodiversity-affirming inclusive preschool space. She’s actualized a vision that so many of us dream of, and I wanted to talk to her about why and how she made this dream into a reality. So, Corrie Price is a life-long advocate for children and families. She is dedicated to co-creating happy, healthy, life-ready humans through personalized learning and heart-centered approaches. In 2018, she opened Evolve Early Learning in Asheville, North Carolina which she describes as an inclusive and equitable preschool that values the innate brilliance of all people. In this episode I get a little bit more personal than usual. You’ll hear more of my own story as Corrie and I share our experiences of Evolve. And you’ll walk away with a larger framework as well as specific, concrete ways that you can help create inclusive cultures and attitudes for the kids in your work and your life. Here’s the interview with Corrie Price.
Hi, Corrie! Welcome to the podcast.
Corrie:
Hi! I am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Meg:
Yeah, this is so much fun. Corrie, I actually want to tell you kind of a long story as we get started about my own experience with your school and how we came to find you. I don’t think I’ve ever told you this story before.
Corrie:
Oh, I’m so excited to hear it.
Meg:
Yeah. So, okay, as you know, and some but not all listeners know, I have a four-and-a-half-year-old son, and he’s not autistic. But he does have very strong interests. And when he was three, he went to a visual arts preschool. And he was just really bored. And I kind of thought maybe he was a kid who just doesn’t like school, which is not what you want to hear about your kid if they have to go to school. And everyday, he said, “I mean, I like my friends, but I’m just really bored. All the activities, they’re boring.” And I think some of the things that he loves to do kind of got him in trouble too, because he loves science and tinkering, and he loves big motor challenges. And that can come across as mischievous if it’s not aligned with the culture of the school. So, it wasn’t a good fit. And I started looking at other schools and came to tour Evolve even though it was across town. I figured it was worth a try. So, I don’t know if you remember this, but when we came to tour, it was still pretty like, early in COVID. We weren’t allowed into the classroom. You told him to put his toes at the edge of the door and peek in.
Corrie:
Yes, I do remember.
Meg:
So, he peeks in and he immediately starts peppering you with questions about the light switches.
Corrie:
Uh-huh. [Laughs] I still remember it.
Meg:
You do? [Laughs]
Corrie:
Yeah, absolutely.
Meg:
It was — it was a very authentic moment for him. He was like, “Why is there an extension cord there? What does that light switch turn on? Why are there so many lights? What does that switch on a power strip do?” He wanted to know everything about how it works. And okay, I’ve been on a lot of preschool tours at this point. And he’s asked a lot of similar questions. And people do kind of a, “Oh, that’s cute,” brush off often, or kind of ignore it, or treat it like a nuisance. And you squatted down to his level. And you said, “I love the way your brain works. My brain works like that too. And I would love to get to know you better.”
Corrie:
And that’s real. And I have enjoyed getting to know him on so many levels and so authentically. He definitely brings that curiosity in the classroom. That’s so valuable. But I also have been on a lot of preschool tours that had a similar kind of like, “Oh, we don’t have time for this.” It’s kind what it felt like, so I’m so glad that was like an impactful moment for you. Because I hope that’s how all parents feel and all kids feel when they’re in our environment.
Meg:
Yeah, it really was authentic. And it’s carried through, right. So, there was a kid with headphones on who I asked about. No, I didn’t ask about, my son asked about and you gave the most strength-based answer to him, like, “Oh, here’s the thing this kid loves to do and wants to do, maybe gardening or something. The problem is, it’s so noisy, and his ears don’t like noise. So, with the headphones, he can do it.” And it was very much, here’s what he likes, here’s what he wants, here’s what he needs to make that happen. So, this is great. I searched in a Facebook community for the name of your school just to see what else I could learn. And I found one parent, and I messaged them. And they actually said, “Oh, my kid is autistic. And when I came to tour, Corrie spent two or three hours with him getting to know him and making him comfortable.” So, I mean, you really are living it. And I said, “Do you have a science curriculum?” And you said, yeah, kind of, but we really do follow the interests of the child. And I went, okay, we’ll see.
So, we enrolled him, obviously. And I immediately start getting pictures of him doing Snap Circuits. And he came in deep in his Magic School Bus phase, which, for people who don’t have young kids, that’s a book series. It’s a TV series too, with a sort of eccentric teacher named Miss Frizzle, who takes kids on all these science adventures. And immediately there’s like, a lot of Magic School Bus things happening. The newsletter says the whole class loves Magic School Bus. He and his teacher dress up as Miss Frizzle for Halloween. I think you were Liz, the class pet.
Corrie:
I was. It was wonderful.
Meg:
I very much got a sense that he as his full authentic self was part of the community, is part of the community. And he doesn’t hate school. He likes school.
Corrie:
Yeah. Yeah. And I would say that school really likes him. Like, I really enjoy having him there. He adds a lot to the classroom. And I find that with every kid, if you metaphorically get down on their level, you can absolutely bring out that love for learning. Because the natural state of being is learning and growing. And it’s something that isn’t hard if it meets the person where they’re at.
Meg:
That’s so true. And we talk about this a lot on the podcast, how — especially autistic kids, or any kid who thinks and learns differently — can be taught from such an early age that their authentic self is bad and needs to be changed. And you start watching it happen with your own kid, and that really hits home. I want to ask you your story, Corrie. How did you wind up here with a mission to create this lovely little neurodiversity-affirming strengths-based preschool space?
Corrie:
Yeah, thanks for asking. My story’s a little — it has lots of twists and turns in it. But I think it really goes to show how we can put together pieces of our life into a passion and a purpose, and if we get to live in our authentic self. So, that’s a lot what my story is, is about finding what was my authentic path in the world. And so, I would think my like, origin story would really start in my early years of school myself, when I was in kindergarten. I have a sister that’s 18 months older than me. And so, I got to watch her walk into a school system that was not affirming and not strength-based. And she was an atypical learner and she was brilliant, and to me, hung the moon. But then as I watched her transition into school, I recognized that she was really struggling. And my parents were struggling, and the teachers were struggling, and I kind of was always a really observant kid. And I really took that in on a soul level, watching her kind of be picked apart by this system that was there trying to help her but not knowing how.
And even though I was very naive and young, it really stuck with me. And as I got older and was trying to decide what I want to do with my life, I came to, “I need to be a teacher,” because there’s something here that’s happening. Where I was kind of one of those kids that always liked everyone and was friends with everyone and tried to like be in that middle which came with its own challenges of perfectionism and pleasing, and that’s a whole ‘nother thing that we could get into, but really watching my sister struggle throughout her academic and social experience really gave me this heart for wondering what would happen if the system gave more to the kid than the kid had to conform to the system. And so, I think that was a very transformational experience to me that I didn’t even realize was happening at the time. But then as I became a kindergarten teacher and stepped in the classroom, I kept having these kids come into my class who were experiencing a lot of stress and a lot of pain from trying to fit into a system that wasn’t made for them. And I was starting to uncover some of my own philosophy, and education, and some of the things that were working and not working. I worked at a public school at the time. And I was pulling from experiences I’ve had. I’ve literally worked at every type of school you can imagine. So, public schools, private schools, community schools, I think Montessori is only type that I haven’t ever worked at, but familiar with.
And it kept dawning on me that we’re using an archaic system of industrialized education that had a purpose and had a place. But now, we have kids coming in, in a system where — one of my other backgrounds is instructional technology. And so, recognizing that technology has advanced us to a point beyond rote memorization and recall as a necessary way of learning. And it was kind of like an ‘Aha!’ that like, okay, something is possible here. We need education, the parental piece to it, the community piece to it is so necessary. But the structure that we’re doing it in is maybe somewhat outdated. And so, as a researcher, as someone who’s curious and I think innately creative, I started to kind of look for solutions and things that I could try and apply myself. And it was about that time that I met an amazing leader, named Dr. Meg Hanshaw whose local here to Asheville, and she had a budding non-profit called i.b.mee. And the whole concept of i.b.mee was the International Body-Mind Empowerment Education. And it’s a movement and it’s kind of a directive. It’s like, it’s time for us to recognize the connection between the body and the mind. And to really do — what you started, the story, was so perfect, in leading up to this because the outcome of all of her research and all of the work that she did was authenticity.
If we can allow kids to be themselves, if we can remove shame for who you naturally are, we can all find our place in this world and thrive. And I started to apply. And at first it was very rocky, and it didn’t always fit in the public school system. But there were so many moments of transformation for my students, for my parents, and for myself, that it became completely clear with me that this is the direction we have to go. And the piece that I think that really changed everything was becoming a coach myself. So, being in the coaching model versus the teaching model, which could be health and wellness coaching, life coaching, or trauma-informed coaching, all of those things kind of worked together and there’s lots of avenues to get there. But the way i.b.mee does it is really focusing on the internal yes of a human and how do we remove these perceived or real obstacles for folks, whether it’s access and equity, or whether it is a FBA that maybe isn’t asking the right question, or whatever those things are; getting curious. And then, a lot of it had to do with like asking permission and forgiveness for trying things that were new and different in the school system. And there became a point where Meg and I looked each other and we said, this isn’t gonna go further here. Right now, the school, they’re just getting into mindfulness, they’re doing these things. But it’s not a practice, it’s more of a policy. Which, for me, I was starting to get a little impatient. I was ready to move forward and say like, “How can we land this into something that’s tangible and can like, change hearts and minds?”
So, we went full time with i.b.mee, I became a coach, started working at local elementary schools as a behavior interventionist. We worked at traditional schools and non-traditional schools, and we had massive success with individuals that we were able to work with. But the workaround was always that the policy of being in an academic space focusing on the material at hand always trumped the need for emotional regulation or trauma-informed work with the family. And so, we found that those barriers were also real. I’m not saying they’re not real, the teachers and the administrators want to do the work. It’s not that they don’t. It’s that the system is still that archaic background model. And so, from there, Meg and I were like, we need a model. We need to create something that can really flesh this out. Like, we have ideas, we have evidence, we know it’s working. And if we don’t actually do it to the fullest extent, how can we know that all children can thrive? And so, that’s kind of the seed of Evolve. We opened in 2018, and we closed again during the pandemic for a few months and we decided to come back together in community in June 2020, and we have been going ever since. And it’s been really cool to be in community in this kind of difficult time. Because it has grown me as a leader and grown us as a community more than I think we could have in 10 years. And not to say it hasn’t been hard, but it has got us really up close and personable with what’s important in our community. And so, that’s where my authenticity has found, is like, that’s what I want. I want to raise my kids in a community like that. And so, here we are.
Meg:
I love that story, Corrie. And I think a lot of that will probably resonate, especially with school-based therapists who are sort of trying to align their work with their values and running up against so many barriers. And it’s hard, and they’re trying to figure out what to do with it. So, I’m sure that really resonates with those folks.
Corrie:
And just to say it, ya’ll, you’re doing it. You’re showing up and you’re that smile, you’re that safe person, even though it might not feel like it some days and you wish you could go further. You’re doing it, and that matters. It really matters.
Meg:
It really does. Yeah, I think that can’t be overlooked. Okay, so you are doing it and you have a neurodiverse student population. And, of course, there are times when everything is smooth, and there are hard things for staff and students to navigate. I want to read something that you wrote in one of your monthly newsletters, so I’m quoting you. “Inclusion has always been the vision for Evolve. Our world is best experienced when we truly celebrate the diversity and specializations we each possess. They are gifts. We are thrilled that several families with children who need extra time, attention, and accommodations have trusted us to truly listen to and love their children so they can have friends, learn, and be themselves. It is truly a magical thing to witness — the empathy, understanding and tolerance that children naturally possess when they are given the chance to work through challenges and triumphs with peers of different backgrounds and abilities. Together, we all grow more flexible, loving, and resilient. Not because it is hard, but because it is possible. Inclusion benefits us all.” I’ll be honest, as a parent, this made me cry.
Corrie:
It’s emotional. Yeah.
Meg:
It is. And it’s lovely. Because it’s not saying, “This is working because it’s easy.” It’s saying, “We can do hard things, and it’s good for all of us to do hard things. And we’re gonna do it kindly and authentically, and we’re going to do it together.” I think I said on a recent episode with Greg Santucci that the most important thing about school as a parent is for your child to be loved, supported, and accepted by the people there. And unfortunately, neurodivergent kids are so much more likely to be in scenarios where they’re treated like a problem, coaxed into submission, taught to be inauthentic, and you’ve been so intentional about fostering acceptance and authentic participation. And this shows through your teachers, not just through you. Can you give me some examples of how you’ve created this space of inclusion in the school and in the classrooms?
Corrie:
Yes. I think it — it’s a top and bottom thing. It doesn’t just happen with one or the other. So, the leadership has to be clear. And it has to be very high up in the mission, that those things are important and valued, and that there is a dedication to providing a space where those things are going to happen and is kind of a non-negotiable. And so, I think that has to happen in the top, there has to be that acceptance of this work. And that helps when you’re starting to create the community that’s being grounded. Because every first time I meet with a potential educator or a family that will enroll, I have a conversation that includes inclusion and equity. That really brings to light, you know, that you may have these experiences in here, but here’s why it’s valuable. And it’s become something that either people are very intrigued about and open to and may have some experiences themself and see the value in it, or it’s something that needs a little bit more education. And there’s a willingness, you know. They may not know, or they may have some concerns, but there’s a willingness to explore it. And I find like those folks can actually be really valuable, because they can bring some of those conditioned thoughts and ways for us to wrestle with. And so, it’s been really interesting to have staff that come from all different backgrounds and all different walks of life, all different tolerance levels for noise, or, and I’ll just say among our staff, like we have neurodivergent folks. And so, it’s not something that is a big departure from their everyday life. It’s something that we accept as a community and don’t stigmatize in any way.
And I think that’s a really important piece, is that the teachers feel like they can be authentically who they are. They can wear headphones in the class if it’s too loud. They can say, “I need a five-minute break.” Like, I’ll also give you a great example, we have communication and support techniques like this. So, if our resiliency is very low, and we’re here, we go like this to another educator and make sure that they’re aware that you might be needing a little bit more support, or if we’re coming into a scenario and we’re like, “Hey, I’m here, I got this, I can handle it.” Just little ways so that we also can be doing for ourselves what we are doing for others. And so, I think that’s like the groundwater of the experience, is that those things are normalized, and routine, and open. We do things like having group coaching and therapeutic sessions where we’re humming together, and we’re learning about the vagus nerve, and we’re hula hooping, and trying to do things where we’re experiencing the sensory input, and things that allows us to release so that when we get into a state where we’re not maybe as resilient, that we can go pick up the hula hoop on the playground with the kid and hum with the kids and kind of know that it’s a resource for us as well. And so, I think having those little experiences — we call them ‘Well Days’, so about four times a year, we have a Well Day where we come together. It might have, you know, a short part of our training or something going on, theory, verse, that kind of thing. But then, the rest of it is really about clearing energy and connecting and evolving. It was kind of an action.
The reason we named it Evolve Early Learning was to give ourselves a challenge to continue to evolve it and continue to expand on them, which, I mean, if we could take early childhood and expand it into all K-12 grades, the philosophy and the mentality of play-based learning and those kinds of things, I think we would see huge shifts in humanity’s ability to thrive. And so, we’ve pulled a lot of educators from K-12 environments, middle-school teachers, you know, elementary school teachers who come and they’re like, this is what I wanted when I became a teacher. And so, we’re responsive to not only students, but the teachers. And then, the other thing that I will maybe give you a link for because it’d be way too much to explain, that the i.b.mee training that we do is amazing. And it is, to me, it was the life changing piece that I was looking for as an educator, really, the coaching aspect and non-judgmental. There’s a process within the training that’s called the ‘Wave Process’. And what the wave process does is it gives you a framework for dealing with triggers. And so, you become up close and personal with your triggers. And you validate the emotions instead of pushing them away. Or like, I think there was a thing in teaching where it was like, “You push your baggage in the trunk before you come into school,” you know, this whole concept of being non-human.
And we threw that out the window before the school was even open. We decided like, that was not going to be how we operate. And I really do believe that is what gives us the capacity to take kids that honestly have been kicked out of a lot of other places, who don’t have anywhere else to go, whose parents wondered if they’d ever make a friend. And all those things are possible. But you’re so right. I’m so thankful that you brought that up. The educators in the building are the ones who are the boots on the ground doing that work. And sadly, I can say I’ve never worked at a school that had the level of support, you know. So, that’s something that is going to have to change as an educational paradigm. And I also have support as a leader. I’m working with Meg, still; I’m speaking with professionals like you, you know. So, that’s another piece of the puzzle, how are leaders being supported so that they can do this work?
Meg:
I love your focus here on process, and on adults showing up authentically. As if we could do anything else, right? I mean, it’s like, the putting yourself in the trunk before, yeah. And I think people probably relate to this as parents as well, right, that we have to be able to monitor our capacity and our needs, and go through a process, and repair, and do all of those things as well. I was thinking about this for therapists in Episode Eight of the podcast on mindfulness, Dierdre Azzoparti, who’s a school-based therapist talked about some of the things that you’re mentioning, but doing them together with her students in her sessions for herself. That she was dancing on the brain break, and then she was able to better show up as opposed to those of us who were sitting there taking data while our kids do regulating activities.
Corrie:
Yeah.
Meg:
That is so important. But I want to ask you, what about the kids? How do you help the kids navigate these differences and learn about each other, both preemptively and also with the unkindness and exclusionary behaviors that sometimes come up with young kids around others who are different?
Corrie:
Yes, I think that’s the beauty and the challenge of this age, is that they’re so curious to ask questions about everything they see. And so, anything that’s happening in their environment with a peer, whether it’s why they were wearing two different colored socks, or why do they need headphones, or why are they, you know, moving their hands in this way, you know, becomes this amazing opportunity for us to have a conversation about humanity. And as long as we’re not labelling and isolating folks for what they do, and instead are noticing who they are, and getting to know the relational aspect of that, so I think this, you know, is best setting kind of examples. Because it’s like, when a kid is doing something that let’s just say is harmful. It’s hurtful. They’re throwing their lunch plate or something, and it’s the teacher’s inner reaction could be two things, pretty much — ‘Not okay’, ‘Is okay’. And because young children don’t have a prefrontal cortex, they’re using our mirror neurons to know is the environment okay. Is it safe? And so, as the teacher validates and recognizes, “This has already happened. Me having a huge reaction to it isn’t going to change. This is going to be a teachable moment. But first, we got to figure out what’s going on.” So, they set the tone. And then the kids get to be curious, ask questions, talk about what happened, be validated when they had fear, insecurity, those kinds of things. And then, they get asked the most powerful question, is, “What do you want? What do you want in the scenario?”; “I don’t want to have lunch thrown at me.” “That makes sense. Do you think we could work on this together?”
So, we give them power, I think is the number one thing. Is that we’re not over here saying “That’s not allowed. You’re out of here. Go away and do something different.” We hold space within the incident to come closer to peace and inclusion. And we talk a lot. I mean, it’s an everyday conversation about inclusion and equity in the classroom. And it may look like supporting that person to clean up and make a plan for what they could do instead. It may look like just a child getting to write a note or draw a picture about how it makes them feel. And then it may also evolve into finding out what was the root of that behavior because kids are much better at validating and accepting and forgiving than adults are. And so, giving them that power to kind of have those moments. And if it’s, um — sometimes these things become patterns, right? We know especially with neurodivergent kids that sometimes these things become patterns. And so, when something is a pattern, there may be a deeper level of helping that child recognize what’s going on for them. And you may not ever land on a ‘This and that’, or you may, but the truth that comes from we call them ‘Support sessions’. So, having a conversation where it’s not judgmental. You’re okay, I’m okay, and, “What I’m noticing is this isn’t working.” That’s one of our biggest phrases. “I’m noticing that you’re wanting to play. And it isn’t working this way.” When we’re yelling, when we’re taking, when we’re throwing, folks are going away. It’s causing a lot of, you know, arguments. Are you seeing that? Yes, yes, yes. Okay, let me draw some options. Here’s something; what do you think you would want to do? And then, we go and coach them through it, and not expect, you know, to go to 0 to 50. But look for those incremental things and then help them recognize it.
So, I think it’s a lot of that like, being in their prefrontal cortex role of helping them recognize how they’re feeling, thinking, responding to things. And then, also allowing all students to have a voice and to be heard. Like, we were talking the other day is like, in a lot of classes I’ve worked in, we’ve had a lot of lying and fibbing. But we haven’t had a lot of that, because I think they know that they could pretty much say anything. Like, there isn’t something that they could do or say in that environment that would be a complete ‘No’, we always look for a win-win. Like, I’m not gonna let you climb the fence, but I can help you find something to climb, you know, kind of scenario. And so, I think a lot of it has to do with they know they have a voice and power. And the first six weeks, it’s all about relationship. We don’t even have like an academic focus. It’s like, how do we get to know these kids and get them to know each other? And we don’t view storming — are you familiar with the like, group dynamics part? Like the storming norming —? So, like —
Meg:
I am through Brené Brown, but please explain it.
Corrie:
Yeah. So, okay, I’ll do my best. But like, when a group forms, they form and that’s a dynamic. And then they begin to try to figure out what their roles are going to be in. So, I believe it’s storming comes next. And then, after the storming, usually comes norming, which is kind of where they come up with their rules and structure. And then the performing part is when it all kind of flows. And it’s kind of singular, I don’t think it’s actually linear. I think we do a lot of the above. But I think one of the things that we are learning and the kids have learned is that storming isn’t necessarily bad. I think so often in our society and our community, and I think about this in equity at work I do with adults and things, like, we have those stormy moments. And we’re learning how to brave them together and be okay with that rumble and that ruckus and that challenge, because that’s where resiliency and learning come from, and where the next challenge becomes easier because we know we can do it. We know we can work through these things. And it’s not always easy as an educator, and it is hard when someone’s being hurt or invalidated. And when you’re working through those things in the moment, it can feel defeating. But as we stick with it, and as we see them blossom in the spring here, you know, it’s some of these triggers and things are, you know, multi-years in, so it’s gonna take some time out. The more we validate the challenges as okay, the more they can move through them. And independently too, that’s the really, really cool thing, is like, there’s a lot of independence. Like, let’s see how this plays out. Let’s see how y’all navigate this. We’re here if you need us.
Meg:
I love that. It reminds me a lot of Ross Greene’s Collaborative Problem-Solving Model. Is that an influence for you?
Corrie:
It is. It is. It’s one of many. But I mean, it makes so much sense, right?
Meg:
Yeah, it does.
Corrie:
No one likes authority outside of themselves.
Meg:
No.
Corrie:
It’s not a comfortable place to be. So, collaboration in our problem solving makes so much sense.
Meg:
It does. And I’ll tell you, one person who really doesn’t like that is my child, and he got that for me. And that’s, that’s a strength. I mean, I’ve landed in this position where I can be outspoken and try to change oppressive systems, right. But I wasn’t told my whole life, “Be quiet. Fit in.” I was told, “Keep arguing.” That’s good, right. And we just never know with our kids what kind of things that we’re fostering are going to actually be their strengths that they build their lives off of. You also remind me of — I’m reading Brené Brown’s ‘Rising Strong’. And she talks a lot about how we can’t skip the second act, the messy middle part where everything is kind of complicated and hard, and you’re not sure if you’re doing it right. And it feels like maybe it’s falling apart, and you’re trying to figure out how to get through. And it’s really nice to hear you describe that as part of the process of figuring things out with kids who are maybe having a hard time, or even probably with your staff sometimes, or company culture, that that is an important part of the process to go through. And it doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong. It means we’re doing the process. Is that right?
Corrie:
Yeah, you nailed it. And I think it’s a big unlearning for a lot of folks. And I think it might be a little bit of American culture to sugarcoat things and to feel like if you do have a challenge or a problem, something’s wrong. And so, I think it’s so exciting to see where we’re just starting to scratch the surface of some of this and what this can mean for our kids who don’t fit into the typical box. That maybe they’re not ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ because they look at the world differently.
Meg:
Yeah. Yeah. So, you’ve done such a great job of creating this culture at your school. I want to circle back to therapists who are in positions where they really want to try and shift the culture of the schools, especially — sometimes clinics, but I think schools are the hardest place because they’re so bureaucratic and they’re so — their beasts, right? Do you have any advice to those therapists who want to make those shifts to helping their school or their school system be more neurodiversity-affirming?
Corrie:
Yes. My first thing I just want to say is, thank you. We need you. You guys are experts, and you have wisdom that is so valuable that the folks in the building may not have. And that is very exciting to hear that there are people who are wanting to help shift this, but it is — it’s a marathon, not a sprint, for sure. My first piece of advice is because you have access to the parents, if at all possible, and you can have a conversation with them, building that relationship and letting them be seen, heard, and valued, enrolling them in the process of what their child is needing, is going to change that school system. It is going to push the needle forward because they’re going to know the question to ask the next year at the IEP or they’re going to have a little bit of a different framework in their mind. And parents really do have a lot of power in the school system, especially in the public school system. From my experience, a lot of the public schools I worked at were, they’re afraid of the parents having the knowledge to kind of come in because like, it is a legal right that those children are served. And so, as we come in with that, and I’m not gonna say attitude, but that knowing that our kids deserve to be served in a way that is going to help them grow and learn, and that the parent who is well-educated in their child and in what’s possible in a school setting, can be life-changing and affirming for that child. Even if not everything works, they know that someone was there fighting for them. They know that and that changes things; that energy matters. And so, that my first thing would be to do that.
I think another thing which I’m almost positive that the people listening to this are doing this but is the push-in versus the pull-out Being that presence in this world, because you can see other kids benefiting from that cooperative work together, it’s, you know, oftentimes better for the child, you know, maybe not always, but it’s oftentimes better to be in the classroom and to really see it from that standpoint and to help work with the teachers, because I think the teachers in a lot of cases are hungry, but tired, and they want things to change. Not all — I know you’re gonna come up with that teacher who just is still in the old paradigm and that’s hard. But when you do find one that’s young, or interested, building them up with the supports that you’re already doing, but also just with that validation. Like, you’re doing it, you’re a part of this puzzle, we’re going to figure this out together. Just that okayness that we talked about holding for the kids, those things go a really, really long way. Having an ally makes a teacher way braver to try something that they may not do. And I’ll just say when I — my analogy that I used when I was first doing all this was, I was like, Meg, like, I feel like I’ve walked into the DMV, and I’m singing show tunes. And literally everyone stares at me, like I have lost my mind. I am dedicated to the show tunes that I can’t stop, but I just feel so out of place trying to do these things which were not that off. I mean, they were like letting a kid make a leaf pile during the middle of day. They weren’t that off. But in the setting of the school, I kind of felt like the weirdo, and I’m gonna say let that freak flag fly. Like, go for it. There’s no reason not to dance with the kids and take it to the extent possible because people feed off that energy when they see it working. When they see the kids smile and light up, even the most stuck teacher will be like, “Hmm, there’s something there,” you know, and it just kind of plants that seed. And so, don’t give up. Don’t get discouraged if people aren’t ready. But I think more and more, you’re gonna find that people are ready, they just don’t know what to do.
Meg:
I love that, Corrie. I love how you really fleshed out how empowering it can be for parents, and how impactful it can be for us to bring them in, and how we’re really spreading our ripples by bringing in parents and encouraging teachers. I taught high school when I was 22 for one year at Asheville High and I was trying to be an anti-authoritarian teacher in the middle of a traditional public school, and I was always in trouble. My kids were running on the football field during exam day; I guess you’re not supposed to do that.
Corrie:
Oh, my God. [Laughs]
Meg:
So, my first week I had kids like jump off of a school bus and run down Hendersonville Road during a field trip. I didn’t want them to do that, and they weren’t even in my class, they were kids that had been snuck on the bus. I was like —
Corrie:
Oh, my gosh.
Meg:
What am I doing? [Laughs] But I did have those people who said, “You know what? This is kind of cool. You’re doing it, it’s not going to be easy.” And it’s important to have those people who stand by you.
Corrie:
And let people know. That was another thing that I really got with working with Meg in the public school system is, I would tell my principal. I was like, “Listen, I’m going to be trying something next week where I’m not going to do that FBA anymore. I’m going to take a week off, because I think it’s making her so anxious. And no matter how I do it, she knows I’m doing it. And it’s just not working. It’s getting worse.” And it worked. Not doing that absolutely worked. And it was it was a real ‘Aha!’ for me, but I don’t think it would have gone as well if I had let her know that I was going to experiment with that. Because a lot of times it feels like you’re in this tug between either/or. And so, I really try to stay in the space of both/and. And like, the school system wants the same outcome. We all want the same outcome. We want our kids to have a better life than we had. I’ve never sat with a parent that didn’t want that. And so, I think when we bring it back to that, and we can realize that it might feel like an either/or, but it’s a spectrum, right? Like, there’s a both/and and like, it doesn’t have to be either/or. We can learn academics and learn how to get along. It doesn’t have to be either.
Meg:
Yeah, that’s a great reminder. We talked about that a little bit with Jen Schonger on Episode 10, who said tie it back to a parent’s deepest, long-term goals for their kids; to be happy, to be fulfilled, to be themselves. Everybody wants that. We get away from it. Shift a little bit to race and class, because you’re running a private school. I’m sending my child to a private school and I grew up in public schools in deeply segregated Jackson, Mississippi, which was the epitome of white flight. The suburban schools, the private schools were entirely white, the non-parochial private schools were founded the year that schools desegregated, the city public schools were almost entirely black. So, going to city public schools was a political choice that my parents made. It was a good place for me to develop socially and politically. I really, I understood what the school-to-prison pipeline meant because I watched the armed police officers making sure that nobody in my almost entirely black public school talked during lunch. Because quote-unquote ‘gang fights’. I mean, it was — racism and white privilege were real to me in a lived way by middle school. And I would get mad. I’d walk down the hall with no hall pass, and the teachers would say hi to me. And then they would, you know, to the black student with me, they’d say, “Where’s your hall pass, go to detention.” I didn’t get in trouble for anything, right. I learned a lot about the world through going to public schools, and I wouldn’t trade it. But I was also a kid who was good at school, good at following rules — sort of — good at navigating all the complicated things. And it didn’t harm my core idea of myself to get through sort of authoritarian inner city public school. But for a lot of kids, these behavior charts that are still everywhere, and the social rules, and the rigid expectations of traditional schools are really harmful. So, then, it’s so important to have a space like Evolve, and you do have kindergarten, and I think first grade that’s safe and nurturing for them. And, you know, having private alternatives to kindergarten is complicated. So, how do you navigate race-class privilege, both for your preschoolers and kindergarteners, to try and create a space that’s diverse and also accessible?
Corrie:
That’s a really great question. And it’s, I think, maybe one of the more important questions that we try to answer every day. During the time before Evolve opened, I actually spent a lot of time sitting in circles with black mamas who had hopes and dreams for their kids. And they openly and authentically shared about their stories and fears. And, you know, Asheville has the fifth largest opportunity gap in the nation. So, we are also experiencing a segregated divide that is only getting worse right now. And so, living within the school system that was creating that divide at the time and working with these mamas who had such hope and dreams for their kids, but so much fear about what system they would send them into, because frankly, it hadn’t been good for them. And it wasn’t something that they thought could actually prepare their child for the world they were going to live in, which really stuck with me. And one day, I got locked out of my car while I was in there. And this is a one of the housing communities near Asheville. And I got to sit on this porch and watch the buses come in. And all the buses were coming in the community, and the way the kids got off the bus, and like the community feel, and like the way that they just lit up, there was so much warmness and excitement to come home, it just sunk in with me like a different level that that’s the feel that these kids need. Like, when they’re coming off that bus, they’re like taking off that costume that they had to put on.
And if people don’t know Asheville, we are predominantly white, in all of our politics and education. And, you know, the large opportunity gap is even more tragic because we have such a small population that we are absolutely failing through gentrification and beyond. But because of that, a lot of good work has started here. There are a lot of people, I feel like in this conversation and beyond, that are ready to do the work. And so, that was kind of, again, from that top-down model of when we started Evolve, that was a umbrella thing. We are working on equity; we are working on making sure that there can be access to our school. So, we decided very quickly that we were going to take subsidy. And so, that helps working parents. That is great for that population of parents that are working and don’t make enough income but need childcare. That has been wonderful. And we serve about 20% of our kids on subsidy. It does, however, leave out a population of young learners whose parents may not be working for many reasons, or they may be working non-traditional jobs, or they may not have access to safe consistent work. And so, they can’t file for those programs. And so, it became an access issue to the point where we had families who wanted to enrol their kids but were unable to because of financials and not applying to the subsidy system.
And so, we got a grant a couple of years ago that we decided in a round table kind of circle with some parents and some teachers to take money from more of like an operating budget and put it towards scholarships as like kind of a bridge scholarships to get these families who are interested in being on subsidies. It’s such a weird system, because they have childcare, they need childcare, they can’t look for a job. And so, they don’t get the childcare until they have the job. It’s like a really convoluted system. And so, this year, we were able to help three families and two of them have actually already gotten on subsidies since being on scholarship with us. But it is everyday work and everyday decisions that we have to make in order to continue to include them. So, for example, all of a sudden transportation might become an issue. And so, we have access to some gas cards that can help but that doesn’t actually help if your car’s broken down. And so, there’s things like that that we’re constantly saying, how can we as a community have a better carpooling system? Have, you know, these ways that we can continue to create access for families that want to come to our school? And what I’m really thinking of is when we first opened, it did feel like — I was like, oh, no, we’re looking very white. Like, Evolve Early Learning, like it definitely has a vibe of private and new paradigm, which can, you know, be in that paradigm of people who may or may not understand what we’re talking about.
And so, finding a community of color who wanted to give input and be involved and work together to come in as a community, instead of saying, like, “Here’s one family, and here’s one scholarship,” was huge into us being able to actually actualize this. It’s something that I feel like we still have a lot of work to do, because I think the original vision was to be in these housing communities in these neighborhoods and actually doing hula hoop events and things to really connect with the community outside of Evolve. And with COVID, that hasn’t really made sense. And so, that, I think, is maybe the biggest challenge and opportunity, is how do we reconnect in community, mostly face-to-face is what’s needed in order to create these relationships. And I think the other piece is continuing to educate staff, continuing to learn and center these conversations in the classroom and in our work day, and taking anti-bias courses. So, we’re doing our inner work so that it doesn’t just become this external thing beyond us, that it’s something that we’re living every day and exposing ourselves to hard truths, you know. Not expecting it to be easy or efficient, even. It’s messy. So, we did Adrienne Maree Brown’s book. I can’t remember, the phrase is… Ah, ‘Emergent Strategies’. We read ‘Emergent Strategies’ as a community in the beginning of the school and that has really been something that’s been a touchstone for us, especially, you know, the quote, “Small is all”. And so, just really focusing on those everyday tiny actions of equity, inclusion, and being open to feedback, if it’s not landing.
Meg:
I love that. And I love that your answer started with listening. Not coming up with the answers, but starting with listening and learning from what communities need.
Corrie:
Yeah. And I think there’s so much more to be done there. And I would love to hear from people if they have solutions to that, what’s working in COVID times to really connect with communities and hear from them, because that is, I think, a dream of a lot of organizations right now.
Meg:
Yeah, I’ll post some questions when this episode comes out on Facebook and on Instagram. And I’ll send any responses your way for sure. Thank you so much, Corrie. Of everything we’ve talked about today, if there’s one takeaway you hope listeners walk away with, what would that one thing be?
Corrie
I think you’re not going to go wrong if you’re yourself. If it feels right, and good, and true to you, and you feel like pushing the needle or being curious about something, go with it. Your inner guide is telling you that there’s something there. And I think there’s a lot of people searching for more right now. And if you’re here listening to this right now, there’s a very good chance that you’re onto something and that you are — it is possible for you to create something transformational, and to do it just by being yourself.
Meg:
I love that. Thank you, Corrie.
Corrie:
Yeah, thanks for having me, Meg. This was fun.
Meg:
Corrie, what are you working on now, and where can we find you online?
Corrie:
We are in the process of working on getting a lot of the training from i.b.mee online so that we can share that with other educators. And so, in the next year or so that should be coming out. And we’ll definitely have links and things on the evolveearlylearning.com website. And that’s the school, and we love to hear from professionals or educators or we’re always looking for other like-minded people that we can connect with; maybe a pen-pal school somewhere, I don’t know.
Meg:
Wonderful. I’ll put some links in the show notes. Thanks, Corrie.
Corrie:
Thanks, Meg. Have a good one.
[Ending music]
Thanks for listening to the Two Sides of the Spectrum podcast. Visit learnplaythrive.com/podcast for show notes, a transcript of the episode, and more. And if you learned something today, please share the episode with a friend or post it on your social media pages. Join me next time, where we will keep diving deep into autism.
