I call basically anything that happened prior to the Holocene “Dinosaurs”. Why? Because what else do you say to a well-meaning passerby who asks, “What are you reading?” when the real answer is stromatolites, stratigraphy, dimetrodon, Gondwana, or hallucigenia and they have no idea what that means and no interest whatsoever?

My formal education in science has been dominated by cellular, molecular, and chemical processes. The “micro” parts of science. My hobby of studying “dinosaurs” developed via an interest in air pollutants which lead me, very briefly, into Climatology… a field with a “macro” vibe which I felt wholly unequipped to comprehend without an in-depth understanding of how we got where we are now. It didn’t take long to realize that index fossils are invaluable to understanding virtually anything that happened in the past, even what was going on in the atmosphere. Before long, I was caught up in the fantastical nature of the organisms themselves and what was going on in the atmosphere became secondary. Perhaps I will return to my original pursuit eventually.

When I first started reading about “dinosaurs” I felt totally lost. While I can read and understand almost any article in biomedical journals, I have had very little education on evolution and have never taken a geology class in my life. In the beginning, anything I read was like trying to read in a foreign language.

I still know basically nothing about “dinosaurs”. Firstly, there are billions of years of “stuff” to consider. Secondly, my understanding of the paradoxically vast yet paltry bits of information humans have elucidated is in fledgling stage, at best.

I am listing here (with links) some sources that have best helped me make some sense of “dinosaurs” so that I can easily find and reference them. I will add more as I come across them.

The Day the Dinosaurs Died By Douglas Preston (Published in The New Yorker)

A Brief History of Geologic Time (PBS Eons)

Dimetrodon Is Not a Dinosaur: Using Tree Thinking to Understand the Ancient Relatives of Mammals and their Evolution by Kenneth D. Angielczyk (BMC Evolution: Education and Outreach)

Jet lag: (noun) extreme tiredness and other physical effects felt by a person after a long flight across several time zones.

Close, but I need another word.

I leave the hotel in the dark to get to the facility.  This week the sun set in central Alabama at 4:30. I left the facility in pitch black each day for my hotel an hour away on winding roads lined with trees.  I see nothing but the lines on the road and the headlights of the cars I pass.  I cannot figure out the cruise control on this vehicle.  Yesterday I opened someone else’s hatchback by mistake because I can’t remember which rental car is mine.  It’s not this car, it’s that other SUV… Sorry…

As I leave the facility at noon for my flight the sun is low in the sky.  I take a flight from Birmingham to Orlando to get to Houston which should be enough for strange.  The Wi-Fi works on this plane so I can work on my report.  That is good.  I get emails asking for my report from my trip last week that I haven’t finished.  I look at the clock, 5:30.  My laptop battery still has a charge, and the sun is setting.  Wait, why?  We are on eastern time now.  The sun is up, the sun is down.  There is no time there is only movement from one location to another and the constant recording of information.  Notes, photos, typing, regulations, interpretations.

I get off the plane.  *BAM* I am somehow startled to see the chair by the airport cafe where I charged my phone last time.  But when?  Yesterday?  I haven’t been here in years?  Haven’t I?  No, it was more recent.  Why was I here?  I cannot remember.  My gate is at another terminal.  Which train do I take?  I can’t remember how many terminals this airport has.

There is only one airport, and they are all airports.  They are all the same except that one that wants your ID only (not the ticket), and that one has the slow scanners, and the one with only bad food, and which was the one with the yogurt stand?  They are all one airport.

Does that sign down the way say “Gates 90-99”? My eyes feel blurry.

As long as your luggage fits the guidelines it will go in overhead storage on the plane except when it can’t or if you are in the front rows.  Can I make a meeting at 9 AM tomorrow?  Which time zone?  It doesn’t matter, there is only one time zone because all hours are spoken for.  I can move the other 3 meetings that are already on my schedule for 9 AM.

There is only one plane, and they are all planes, and they are nowhere and everywhere at once.  If you don’t look out the window or it is dark, you have no idea where you are and it’s like you haven’t moved at all and you will exit the plane and go back into the All Airports because you never left.  It was only an elevator.

Time and space are all meaningless.  The only place that is real is home.  And home for me is my family.

Today was the first day of synchronous online class for a course I am attending related to neurodiversity and, of course, there were introductions.  Generally, I loathe class introductions.  However, during the introductions today, a most serendipitous thing occurred. 

In my introduction I explained that I work two jobs.  By day I am an Environmental Scientist, by night, I am an Executive Function Coach and Neurodiversity Educator.  I explained that my EF Coaching practice is different than many others in that I am not a behaviorist and the methods I use are not based on behaviorism.  Somehow, what I said was unclear to one of the other students and she messaged me to say, “I would love to hear more about your work as an Environmentist.” 

Not an Environmentalist.  An Environmentist.  I love this new word!  I frequently tell my clients that while therapists work inside the mind, I work outside the mind.  I do not work to change the person, but rather the environment.  We explore surroundings, types of work or schooling, what we want to do with our lives, where we want to do it, and who we interact with.  The more the environment is tailored to the person, the more the person’s executive function improves. 

The neurodivergent community is a rich and accepting environment.  It is where many of my clients find “home”.  I am not a behaviorist.  Perhaps I am an Environmentist.

Dear me of many years ago,

1.  Depth and Complexity vs Acceleration

Assuming a kid must be in a school setting, for neurodivergent (ND) 2Es, if I must pick between the 2, I choose acceleration with the caveat that kids should stay with other children their age, or be placed in classrooms that have many different ages combined.  They should not be moved to classrooms where every other student in the room is older than they are. 

Here’s why: over and over and over I am seeing these kids grossly under challenged in elementary school while they are young, eager, and excited to learn.  They are held back from what they are capable of.  Then, they get to middle school and hit a wall for a multiplicity of reasons.  They begin struggling in classes with material they were cognitively able to easily tackle in elementary school.

The acceleration argument wins in my mind for the simple reason it is front-loading.  By the time they are in high school a great deal of these kids are OVER IT and have shut down just when the grades start to actually matter. 

Additionally, in a public school setting “depth and complexity” in GT and AP classes is really just busy work, or work with an increased extrinsic load which does not enhance learning but rather creates a valueless stumbling block for an ND 2E.

In the end, there is no good fit, so forget about the school curriculum.  Pick the one with the best overall environment and best access to electives/activities the kid likes. 

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2. Neurotype is more important than Giftedness

My kids are getting older, and I have realized I focused WAY too much on giftedness when my kids were younger.  If your 2E is neurodivergent (ADHD, Autism, etc.) learning about neurodiversity and making the necessary adjustments are FAR MORE important than learning about giftedness.  Where their neurodiversity leads them, their giftedness will follow. 

I used to think that pulling 2Es from standard curriculum was really only necessary in highly and profoundly gifted children.  Hear me: public school is not made for any ND child, let alone a 2E regardless of if their (probably technically invalid due to “spikiness”) IQ score is estimated at 120 or 165. 

For a ND 2E, Elementary GT pullout classes are not enough, and AP classes and full-on gifted programs are made for high achievers, not the gifted per se, and can be crushing.  Regular classes are not a better fit.

I’m sure that someone out there has a gifted autistic child who got through school swimmingly (maybe), but I think this is a rare exception.  Most will experience a constant battle from at least middle school until graduation. 

I thought my kids were just the right amount of “gifted”… definitely gifted but not SO gifted we needed to do something radical.  Gifted enough that any disabilities would be overshadowed and they would sail through school: buckle up.  You are in for a ride.  If you stay this course you will hit the wall when they do.  It sucks.  You will be in a place where the world tells you there is something wrong with your child, your parenting, or both.  You will think you, and the kid are broken UNTIL you learn that the problem is society and the systems we construct.  Your child is not broken.  Feelings you had as a teenager come back and you realize, you were not a “rebellious child”, but rather what you felt was real and your assessment of and disillusion with the system were/are valid.

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3.  Studying Debrowski more deeply is not going to bring you any closer to answers.  Read The Explosive Child even if you don’t think your child is “Explosive”.

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4.  Outside of elementary school, counselors are not what you think.  They are not counselors in a mental health way.  They are much more like registrars concerned with course selection. 

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5.  IEPs are only as good as the teachers and school staff let them be.  What kind of people you are working with matters way more than what the IEP actually says.

Pediatric Seronegative Autoimmune Encephalitis surely exists.  It only makes sense that not all anti-central nervous system antibodies have yet been discovered, and so there is no way to test for their presence in patients.  However, I fear that seronegative AE (particularly in cases that did not involve abrupt onset of symptoms) can be used as a “catch-all” diagnosis which can inappropriately pathologize divergent neruotypes. Cellucci, et. al published a paper in Neurology Neuroimmunology & Nueroinflammation in 2020 titled Clinical approach to the diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis in the pediatric patient. Take a look at their flowchart:

Based on what I have read in social media accounts of parents pursuing support for their children, “Clinical Presentation of Pediatric AE” is interpreted by some practitioners as any behavior the parent or clinician finds undesirable.  Spitting, meltdowns, babbling, confusion, headaches, OCD, phobias, picking scabs, being non-compliant, tics, paranoia can all be considered reasonable cause to further investigate AE.  Any number of harmless autistic traits, such as stimming, are often included in the list of undesirable behaviors.  To determine if these behaviors are caused AE, the practitioner orders bloodwork, a urinalysis, a spinal tap, and an MRI. If all these tests show no evidence of infection or auto-immune antibodies but the MRI shows “inflammation”, this alone is considered evidence enough that the child is experiencing Seronegative AE.

This is important:  MRI (with or without contrast) alone is *not* capable of accurately, definitively diagnosing inflammation/encephalitis.  Some of my “birthy” friends are already well aware of the limitations of calculating fetal weight based on ultrasound measurements.  Medical imaging of any type simply has limitations.

A PubMed search easily yields several studies that support this statement.  Here’s an excerpt I quickly selected at random from a paper entitled Neuroimaging in encephalitis: analysis of imaging findings and interobserver agreement by J. Granerod, et al, published in Clinical Radiology:

“There is a subjective component to scan interpretation that can have important implications for the clinical management of encephalitis cases. Neuroradiologists were good at diagnosing HSV encephalitis; however, agreement was worse for [acute disseminated encephalomyelitis] and other alternative aetiologies. Findings highlight the importance of a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to diagnosing the cause of encephalitis that takes into account individual clinical, microbiological, and radiological features of each patient.”

I do not deny that seronegative AE exists.  Seronegative AE patients need and deserve identification, diagnosis, and treatment.  But we must be cautious that autistic and ADHD patients are not erroneously swept into this category and subject to unnecessary medical treatments. If a child does not want to go to social events, wear shoes, or for you to ever sit in her favorite chair, but instead would rather play with Legos for 12 hours straight, that does not mean she is sick.  If odd behaviors have a sudden onset, then searching for pathology is of course warranted. However, many families will find healing and happiness by learning about autism as a neurotype, embracing the child’s inherent characteristics, removing offending external sensory stimuli, and kissing social norms good-bye.

Things just keep getting weirder.  TEA has now introduced Remote Conferencing.  https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/covid/remote-conferencing-faq.pdf

Disclaimer:  For those of you who don’t already know this about me, I support our teachers.  This is *NOT* anti-teacher.  Rather, I feel that our teachers are stuck in a system that frequently does not properly support them or the children they teach.

What the heck is “Remote Conferencing”?  Well, it’s not homeschooling, and it’s not remote learning either.  Here’s how it was presented in CCISD online video today:  https://fb.watch/7LUpOd4AcN/.  Teachers in our district already post their lessons to an online platform.  This has been going on for quite some time.  Even this year, prior to this roll out, if a kid is out sick, they can log onto to their teacher’s website, access learning material, and continue to work from home if desired.  This will not change.

With the addition of “Remote Conferencing”, if the kid clicks on a link made available to them while at home sick, they will be sent to a “mini lesson” presented not by their teacher but instead by a “learning coach”.  These lessons will be in sync with the district’s planned timing for presenting TEKs (the Texas equivalent of common core standards) in classrooms.  However, it is extremely common that teachers must deviate from this schedule in order to accommodate all sorts of scenarios (recently the power went out at one of our schools, sometimes kids struggle with one unit but speed through another, etc.)  There also does not seem to be any links for advanced courses so if you are in Pre-AP Algebra I, you will just click on the link for Algebra I.  Also, all Special Ed courses are combined into one link.  For these reasons, the mini-lessons may not match up at all with what is going on in the student’s actual classroom.  Of note, if a student logs on to “Remote Conferencing” while out sick, they will not be counted as absent.

CCISD expressed in their video that the goal of “Remote Conferencing” is for students to remain in contact with the school and receive support while at home.  This seems unlikely as the lessons provided by the “Learning Coach” are likely to be disjointed from the teacher’s lessons which can cause unnecessary confusion and stress.

It appears much more likely that the true intent behind “Remote Conferencing” is funding.  On March 4, 2021 The Texas Tribune Reported that per Texas Governor Gregg Abbott School districts must keep or increase the rate of students learning in person in order to avoid losing funds.  https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/04/texas-coronavirus-schools-funding/

I sympathize for the mess Abbott has made for CCISD and other Texas districts.  Districts are prohibited from requiring masks at schools.  CCISD covid rates are skyrocketing.  As of tonight, the CCISD dashboard is reporting 754 active cases, 1,228 students quarantined, and 89.17% of students in attendance (CCISD COVID-19 Dashboard – Clear Creek).  But the intent is clear, the district does not want students marked absent and the TEA is providing a mechanism to reduce absenteeism (at least on paper) while Abbott continues to try to force students into classrooms, regardless of pandemic status.  To claim that “Remote Conferencing” is being done for the wellbeing of students is disingenuous to the point of being insulting.  This is a continuation of the toxic positivity that I first noticed when the previous CCISD superintendent sent out an email on the first day of school in 2020 stating that many students and teachers “exclaimed” that it was the “best first day of school ever.”  So much for the CCISD Core Values:  Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, and Citizenship.  Like so many other things in public education, they are but a façade. 

This site functions as a place to collect my esoteric musings (many of which I have posted elsewhere) that I don’t want to lose.