Temple Grandin Wants Us to Think Differently About Kids Who Think Differently.

[elleng]

“Don’t put me on the McDonald’s takeout window,” Temple Grandin said over Zoom from her home in Fort Collins, Colo.

“Not going to do very well there — can’t multitask, cannot follow long strings of verbal instruction.” It’s a little humbling to hear what Grandin says she can’t do, considering how insubstantial it is compared with what she can do and has done. The author, scientist and Colorado State University professor is as responsible as anyone for broadening our understanding of autism, through her tireless lecturing and the many books she has written on the subject. (“Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism,” published in 1995, is the classic.) Grandin, who is 74, also helped transform the meat industry through her design of more humane handling systems for livestock. Though she has been so influential on how we think and feel about autism and animal welfare, it’s the more tangible things that matter most to her. “I am interested in my practical projects,” Grandin says. “Where I can actually do stuff.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/01/24/magazine/temple-grandin-interview.html

[japple]

1. Bookmarking to read later. Temple Grandin is a remarkable woman and

a personal hero of mine!

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I taught an 8 yo who was obsessed with a

sci-fi character, a dragon named Ridley. The way to get him to engage (he was high spectrum austistic) was via Ridley. Not conventional and you had to use his choice of curriculum. And it worked. He’s now older and mainstreaming in school.

Grandin needs more attention.

[Walleye]

3. Reading her book "Thinking in Pictures" changed my life

I saw a lot of myself in that book. I am just about her age. I always knew I had problems. They always told me I was smart. I grew up a photographer and made my living at it.Not sure I could’ve ever done anything else successfully

[Lonestarblue]

4. An author whose works are important but have mostly been ignored in textbooks.

For kids with autism, especially high spectrum, she helps them see themselves in her experiences and understand that they may be different but they can be successful. That is why students should be introduced to a wide variety of reading material in literature and other classes. It’s sad that Republicans want children to read only mainstream works—the dead white guys in literature form the 1800s and 1900s—and nothing by minority writers with whom they might identify. The demand that students never be made to feel uncomfortable about something they read means that they never get challenged to think, to question why they are uncomfortable and to form their own opinions. Conservative parents seem not to want their children to think, but only to parrot exactly what they have taught the children to think.

Education does children a disservice when it never challenges them and never shows them examples of people who grew up without privileges yet still followed their dreams and achieved a measure of success. Diversity of reading material and civil class discussion are enormously valuable in educating a young person to think, to assess, to use new facts to compare to the old—to become a functioning adult. Republicans are trying to kill such education in our public schools, all to serve their master of white privilege.

[NNadir]

5. Thanks. It was a fascinating interview.

[Hekate]

6. Bookmarkingto read later.. I admire this great woman incredibly.

[erronis]

7. Archival link of this interview. She's a wonder.

https://archive.ph/y55nP

Temple definitely knows her mind better than most of us. And she lets the interviewer know, too.