Karen & I Got to Speak to 80 6th Graders About Neurodiversity, Understanding and Accepting
The Autism Society of Colorado received a message from a sixth grade student at St Mary's Academy in Englewood CO. She asked if we could make a presentation to their sixth grade to help them understand autism and how to reduce bullying of students on the autism spectrum. While Karen and I focus on the adult community, this sounded fun and would be great practice presenting to a very different audience.
As I expected a classroom of sixth graders does have some differences from presenting to adults. The students seemed to enjoy the presentation and there was definitely interest in the subject. We even had a few of them come up and ask additional questions.
My biggest take away is the openness and interest in autism in this age group. We came to learn there is a student being bullied for some possibly autistic traits. There are 2 amazing girls who have told the bullies to back off and wanted the rest of the class to understand better. Kudos to these bold 2 sixth graders who did what many wouldn't and tried to make the world a little better place.
