195 What's Your Excuse? Lessons on Problem-Solving, Asking for Help, and Doing the Next Thing
Non Linear Learning - Rethinking Education for Neurodivergent LearnersShow Notes
This may be the most heartfelt episode I've ever recorded. In this deeply human conversation, Maxwell Ivey: The Blind Blogger, and I talk about what it means to keep moving when life doesn't hand you easy options. Maxwell lost his sight as a child, taught himself to code, built a business, and learned to ask for help without shame.
We talk about the quiet power of asking, the courage to act before conditions are perfect, and a rare take on gratitude-not as politeness, but as the willingness to use what's been given.
Somewhere along the way, we find ourselves reflecting on The Four Agreements and how "don't take things personally" and "don't make assumptions" become essential mindsets in the world of disability and education.
It's unpolished, honest, and full of wisdom that only comes from lived experience. Stay to the end to hear Maxwell sing his original song, Don't Wait on Someday.
You can find Maxwell at theblindblogger.net.
More from Non Linear Learning - Rethinking Education for Neurodivergent Learners
Your child isn't choosing to melt down. By the time behavior shows up, the brain has already decided, and the thinking brain is out of the room. Dr. Lisa Riegel explains why schools most often miss this, and what to do instead.
Why spelled communication is not a guessing game:
We don't make a neurotypical kid prove they can read before we hand them a book. We just teach them to read.
You've talked to 10 therapists. Tried 20 strategies. And your child still goes from calm to crisis in 30 seconds - for reasons no-one understands. Understanding a body requires that we understand the sensory information coming in. And Dr. Dana Johnson - OT, PhD, and founder of the Spellers Center - tells us that there are not 5 but 8 senses. Dana joins Non Linear Learning for the 3rd time to talk about interoception: the eighth sense, the one almost nobody gets taught, and the one that might explain what's been happening in front of you all along. Listen along to learn: Why your child's meltdown appears so sudden
We talk a lot about what our students can't do. But something that educators have found over the years is that there is a scatter to the skills we see in our students. The wildly uneven profile that we see could actually be a blessing. Mark Talaga, counselor, speaker, and founder of the Center for Identity Potential, joins the podcast to talk about asynchronous development in gifted and twice-exceptional learners. And here's what hit me: we're working the same problem from opposite ends. Where there is a sharp strength, there is often a significant deficit, but the opposite is true as well! This conversation got under my skin in the best way. Tune in to this episode to learn: What "asynchrony" actually means in gifted and disabled learners