Stories from The Future of Normal
EDUCATION
MARTIN
Neurodivergent Private School
New York City
REX
Homeschooling
Rural Vermon
JAKOR
Inclusive School District
Teaneck, New Jersey
SYSTEMS
NEUROINCLUSIVE HEALTHCARE
DR. MEL
Vermont
ADVOCACY & WORKPLACE
SUMMER
Rural Vermont
“We all have different brains. We think, learn, play, communicate and experience the world differently. One size fits all’ does not work for all. Everything we do, we offer in multiple different ways. We believe this is an important part of helping people feel like they belong.”
- Dr. Mel
PRISON REFORM
DANTE
San Quentin & SF Bay Area
“I was what they considered hyperactive. I got put on Ritalin and Thorazine. I was thirteen. I think it stems from doctors just trying to put a Band Aid on a bullet wound.”
- Dante
“Growing up, I realized that I was different early on. My younger self really struggled to fit in ... and it made me feel really invisible. Having an autism diagnosis is allowing me to really belong. It made me feel this connection that I had been longing for most of my life.”
- Summer
PUBLIC POLICY
ASHLEY
School Board, Baltimore
“I remember struggling to read. There was a point in middle school, where I felt like kids in my classes had other classes that I didn’t know about. I graduated from high school with a 1.4 GPA.”
- Ashley
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF NORMAL
HIGH TECH & NO TECH
Breakthroughs and Throwbacks
“My hope for the future of normal is that we would, as a society, step back and question, why are we obsessed with this concept? Why are we so concerned about producing and reproducing things and people in our own image and punishing so harshly when people don’t conform or subscribe to those to those definitions? At the end of the day, what we urgently need, in every realm of society, is a greater capacity to recognize, listen, learn, and imagine things that might be beyond our comprehension and have the curiosity and commitment to question our norms.”
Jody Lewen | Director, Mt Tam College, San Quentin
EQUINE HEALING COMMUNITY
Square Peg: Horses, Autism, Nature and Movement
Montara & Sonoma, California
BRAIN IMAGING
TEEN MENTAL HEALTH
Neurocognitive fMRI Reading Diagnostics
Haskins Lab, Connecticut
EXPERIENTIAL INTERVENTION
Neuroscience-based VR & Video Games
Neuroscape Lab, UCSF
Mirror Journaling App
Child Mind Institute, USA
MINDFULNESS IN EDUCATION
Meditation Programs in Schools
Mindful Life Project, West Coast