Neuroqueer Learning Spaces

neuronormativity = a set of norms, standards, expectations and ideals that centre a particular way of functioning as the ‘right way’ to be

neuroqueer = subvert, defy, disrupt, liberate oneself or a space from neuronormativity 

neuroqueering = the process of being neuroqueer and transforming oneself or a space as an act of liberation from neuronormativity

Definitions inspired by Nick Walker’s “Neuroqueer Heresies” (2021)

More Realms has always been a space for me to push the boundaries of Autistic Realms and explore other ideas, theories, and possibilities of learning in different contexts by drawing on more diverse materials, including art, literature, and philosophy. Inspired by Stimpunks’ idea for Cavendish Learning Spaces, I invited Ryan Boren (Co-Founder and Creative Director of Stimpunks) to join me on a path to explore Neuroqueer Learning Spaces as a way of transforming education away from the enforced ideas of normality. This is forming part of my neuroqueering journey and to potentially form part of a chapter submission for Nick Walker’s upcoming Neuroqueer Theory and Practice Anthology.

This feels like a natural evolution and a bridging of Autistic Realms, More Realms and finding possibilities in the gap, the ‘ma’ that I began this blog series with. Often, within the gaps, the caverns, pleats and folds of spaces, we can shapeshift and find other meanings; connections can be formed. A collective flow can bring new possibilities, open up potential and allow us to find the ‘magic’ (Walker, ITAKOM Presentation, 2023).

This blog series will introduce and expand on the concept of our Neuroqueer Learning Spaces project. This will also form part of Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2024 and demonstrate our support of Autistic Collaboration (AutCollab)’s work by ‘Celebrating the Infinitely Diverse Ways of Being Human’.

Once again, I have started the beginning of this project in the middle of everything else! We dived in deep and realised our project had been underway for many years, but neither of us had the vocabulary of ‘neuroqueer’ and ‘neuroqueering’ (Nick Walker, 2021) to describe our thoughts and help us understand our journey. Now we have that vocabulary; it has opened up another world within a world. It enables us to connect and learn from others who are also interested in the neurodiversity paradigm and postnormal possibilities. It is carving out a pathway for us to expand our community networks and help facilitate a shift in the way education is currently structured. It is helping us move towards what Kay and Dan Aldred (2023) describe as an Embodied Education, which could be seen to be the golden thread that runs through Neuroqueer Learning Spaces.

Embodied education is a concept we will return to and weave through our work alongside other emergent ideas about being a ‘space holder’ to allow the freedom of creative learning to take place. Aldred (2023) wrote, ‘There is no learning without the body.’ We will collaborate with different communities to discover what an embodied, neuroqueer education and learning space may mean for those facilitating education and how it could support young people.

embodied education = educational paradigm based on wellbeing, co-regulation and creativity, which advocates for body-first, relational and embodiment approaches

Definition inspired by Aldred’s “Embodied Education” (2023)

Drawing on the work of Octavia Butler and Adrienne Maree Brown, “The idea of interdependence is that we can meet each other’s needs in a variety of ways, that we can truly lean on others, and they can lean on us. It means we have to decentralise our idea of where solutions and decisions happen and where ideas come from. We have to embrace our complexity. We are complex.” (Adrienne Marie Brown, 2017) Within an educational context, this means decentralising education, or at least making attempts within our own lives to change the way learning spaces are set up and used, moving away from the hierarchical model of ‘Master’ and ‘Student’, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”(Audre Lorde, 1979).

We need safe spaces to be with each other in embodied, meaningful, collaborative, and responsive ways. Our children deserve to feel cared for, understood and safe to explore. We believe we need radical inclusivity to prevent the continuation of the severe mental health crisis our young people are experiencing today.

Over the past few years, I have discussed the current education and mental health crisis in the UK that has led to so many children experiencing burnout and living with the impact that the barriers of our UK education have created. This education crisis is also echoed in other countries, including America, where Stimpunks is based. Many of the issues are highlighted in Gray-Hammond’s (2024) CAMHS in Crisis, which I recommend for further insight into these problems.

It feels like we have reached a point where no one is happy or benefiting from our current education system. Fisher’s (2023) ‘Changing our Minds’ work highlights this from the perspective of teachers, students, and parents/carers. It has made me question our educational aims and what our schools are trying to achieve; it feels like we have lost our way. We no longer need workers for factory production lines; children are becoming more ‘disembodied’ as time goes by, and teachers and students have even less autonomy than ever.

We are teaching children to be proud of what they know yet also ashamed of not knowing, teaching children that there is somehow a ‘right’ way to learn through reward charts and positive behaviour support programmes and revising for prescriptive exam criteria. However, it is by having a sense of wonder, curiosity, and unknowing that real learning takes place. This is why we chose the white rabbit symbol for our project. Our white rabbit (also known as Space Bunny) symbolises playfulness, curiosity, wonder, hope and the possibility of expanding learning potential. We use this as a symbol for people to follow us on our Neuroqueering Learning Spaces adventures. We are starting off down the rabbit hole, learning about the three Primordial Learning Spaces as theorised by Thornburg (2013).

Cavendish Learning Spaces are Neuroqueer Learning Spaces

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

Lorde (1979) declared, “Revolution is not a one-time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses…” Our triskelion motif reflects this, with the golden thread of embodiment (being with yourself and being with others) weaving between the three primordial learning spaces. We will be exploring this in more detail as the project evolves. This allows children the opportunity to flow between their cave, watering hole and campfire spaces as needed and be in a perpetually evolving spiral of new learning possibilities by revisiting and expanding on thoughts, ideas and play processes to keep building on connections.

Without information and training, many teachers are likely unaware of the different paths and the need to DE-SCHOOL their learning spaces, UN-LEARN their training and embrace radical inclusivity. A quote often credited to Maya Angelou reads, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” We hope this project will allow people to learn from others so we can all ‘do better together’. Teachers can not take that ‘small opportunity’ if they don’t know where to look for it or even understand why it is needed.

When I was working in class as a teacher, I was often far too busy with the day-to-day planning to think too far outside of my next lesson. Only now, with the privilege of time and hindsight, I have discovered new possibilities by connecting with various communities and seeing the potential of neuroqueering education. Likewise, families also need an opportunity to access information and find out how many infinite ways there are to access education for their children. Education does not and should not only happen inside a school building between 9 am-3 pm sat behind a desk. We are passionate about expanding learning opportunities and neuroqueer spaces for learning to take place.

We want to create a campfire experience by bringing community networks together; we want to share stories, knowledge and create connections to be with each other. We want to provide a space that brings agency and autonomy back to families and school staff. Educational settings and families need freedom for niche construction so children can move seamlessly and weave between different learning spaces. For families opting for alternative learning routes, these pathways need to be made more accessible, and the journey and support need to be much smoother and more empowering for families.

Neuroqueer Transformation = Unlearning, Collaborating, Creating

niche construction = directly modifying the environment in such a way that it enhances someone’s chances for success

For families opting for alternative learning routes, these pathways need to be made more accessible, and the journey and support needs to be much smoother and more empowering for families. As part of our Neuroqueering Learning Spaces Project, we propose the framework of Cavendish Spaces to create a free flow between caves, campfires and watering holes, as explained briefly below. In addition to this we are aim to provide practical resources for professionals and families to support them. For families this may include resources to support them in being able to advocate for their child (such as template letters and signposting to research). For educational settings this will include practical ideas to launch their neuroqueer learning spaces in their own setting.

Caves, campfires, and watering holes are:-

• Necessary to provide psychological safety and sensory safety.
• Necessary to positive niche construction.
• Necessary to intermittent collaboration
• Necessary to design for neurological pluralism.
• Essential to our conception of Cavendish Space.

The three primordial learning spaces comprise of:

Caves: Space for quiet reflection, introspection and self-directed learning. A private space to transform learning from external knowledge to internal belief. Home of reflective construction.

Campfires: Space for learning with a storyteller. Education facilitators need to actively subvert neuronormativity. They need to embark on their transformative neuroqueer journey so their re-storying can inspire neuro-cosmopolitanism.

Watering holes: Space for being with peers and social learning.
Community enables thoughts and ideas to expand rhizomatically. Embracing unique strengths expands creativity into new horizons and a collective flow full of potential.

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 and connected within ourselves and with the world and people around us. To feel embodied, you need feelings of safety; people need to value strengths, validate difficulties, and provide support where needed. The neurodiversity-affirming 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 for radical inclusivity. 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)

Neuroqueer Community

We are looking at neuroqueering from all angles across the community. We are looking at ways to give agency and autonomy back to families and support those working in educational settings that facilitate and guide learning experiences. Importantly, we want to offer children timeless learning and neuroqueer space to be themselves and ‘become’ and ‘become what they are’ (Watts, 1955).

The path to escape the box of a sick society involves rediscovering timeless and minimalistic principles for coordinating creative collaboration.

Bettin, Jorn. The Beauty of Collaboration at Human Scale: Timeless patterns of human limitations (p. 292). S23M Limited.

Could it be that humans have always occupied these diverse learning spaces, moving between them as needed?

From the Campfire to the Holodeck by David Thornburg

NeurodiVentures are a concrete example of an emerging cultural species that provides safe and nurturing environments for divergent thinking, creativity, exploration, and collaborative niche construction. NeurodiVentures are built on timeless and minimalistic principles for coordinating trusted collaboration that predate the emergence of civilisation.

The Beauty of Collaboration at Human Scale: Timeless patterns of human limitations

Invitation to join us on our journey

“The global mono-cult pretends that all aspects of life can be categorised and understood in terms of normality — by the hump of the bell curve. But the living planet does not conform to anthropocentric normality; it is chaotic, but it is beautifully and awesomely diverse.” Bettin (AutCollab, 2024)

We are documenting the neuroqueering process of our journey as a live- stream across Stimpunks website as the project unfolds. It is a reflection of the kaleidoscopic rhizome of Stimpunks, which is a beautifully awesome and diverse learning space in itself.

Our project shows an example of a neuroqueering workflow transformation, which we will expand on in future blogs. Stimpunks is a virtual space holder for my personal neuroqueering process and the community joining us. As a space holder they provide safety to explore, try out new ideas and work collaboratively towards a mutual goal without fear of judgment.

To neuroqueer, you have to un-learn. I visualise my neuroqueering as being like fractals in a kaleidoscope. It is a process of turning, changing and becoming by un-learning and re-learning and time-less learning from others in a campfire space, having time for self-reflection and self-directed learning in a cave space, joining in with and alongside others and celebrating diversity in a watering hole space. We are not perfect, and the project may be chaotic and messy in places. However, we feel passionate that we are heading in the right direction and want to celebrate the ‘beautifully and awesomely diverse’ potential of neuroqueer learning spaces with you.

Created Serendipity

“Seemingly serendipitous events are also based on our willingness to create connections and be in the space, and to put in the effort in the first place. I often tell people that if you start connecting with others in online spaces, you won’t just find great ideas, but the great ideas will find you.” (George Couros)

Created Serendipity is a beautiful thing. We would love for you to join us and expand the potential of neuroqueer learning spaces!

“Chance favors the connected mind. Opportunities for serendipity increase with bigger, more diverse networks. Build personal learning networks. Expose yourself to new perspectives. Listen in solidarity. Be in the space. When we seek perspectives different than our own, share hunches, and connect ideas, we participate in created serendipity.” (Ryan Boren, 2022)

We have opened our submissions page.

We’re requesting community writing and art about neuroqueering education, play, and learning spaces. “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. 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. The writing might be included in a chapter we’re working on for a neuroqueer anthology. We’ll also publish standalone pieces of your work. Anything of any length is welcome. A poem, a paragraph, a painting, a plea, a blog or any other inspiration you may have for Neuroqueering Learning Spaces.

“…human nature is to nurture and be nurtured” Immordino-Yang (2023)

Blog Post Submission Form

All submissions will be attributed and linked to you whenever used. We plan on writing up this project and submitting a chapter for Nick Walker’s new Neuroqueer anthology.

Feedback and enquiries are welcome.

#NeuroqueerLearningSpaces Project 
Helen Edgar (Autistic Realms) & Ryan Boren (Stimpunks)

This piece is also published on Helen Edgar’s MoreRealms: Neuroqueering Learning Spaces: an exploration | Mar, 2024 | Medium as part of Autistic Realms