Different Is Good
Neurodiversity is what makes teams strong.
cherry tomato on a kabob stick/ train stop on a Metro map/ bead/ single-prop airplane headed straight for you/ bicep/ unhitched trailer/ Minion goggle/ boa constrictor that ate a basketball/ wingnut/ gall in a tree trunk/ one-wheel electric scooter [What do you see when you look at this shape? Drop a comment below.]
Last spring, I was invited to give a talk on neurodiversity for an audience of 170 tweens.
As an Autistic person, the topic is close to my heart. As an artist, I credit neurodiversity as key to my co-creative success. As a professor of design thinking, it’s a theme I always make sure to champion.
A few weeks prior, I’d thrown my biennial extravaganza art party, PKAN. My niece had been one of the many awesome folks who had helped me put it on, and she’d been telling her art teacher about it. After looking up my website, the head of her middle school reached out.
I pitched a talk on my creative process. It’s heavy on collaboration, I said. For PKAN alone, I had included a dozen collaborators, including artistic, culinary, musical, cinematic, mixological, lighting, and of course, games.
The dean was all about it. Would the middle schoolers be?
The morning of the event, I arrived at the auditorium early to familiarize myself with the venue and set up the space. The theater was gorgeous: a 400-seater, with two radiating main aisles and a big booth in back for the A/V tech. I introduced myself to the crew as I prepped.
The school’s dean kicked off the assembly by introducing me from the podium. When she handed me the mic, I passed her a pad and pen and invited her to join me in one of the two folding chairs I had prepared in the center of the stage. Next, I clicked my slideshow to life on the giant screen in front of us. The outline of a black rectangle leapt from the projector. I explained BrainSpin’s instructions, and with a timer counting sixty seconds down in the top right corner, we made our lists.
The kids were rapt.
Being perhaps the single-most-experienced BrainSpin player in the world (#sorrynotsorry), I beat the dean 11-7. Still, she was grinning from ear to ear as we read our answers.1
I thanked her for participating in the demo, and we exchanged a classic “good game” handshake as I walked back to the mic. The students clapped eagerly.
Retaking the podium, I shared a couple of slides of credentials. Photos of my game on the shelf at Target—Dumb Questions to Ask Your Friends debuted there in 2024—blare legitimacy. I had pics from my days as a hospital experience designer, too.
Most notably, I indicated the custom Beautiful Chapstick t-shirt I was wearing under my blazer. “See how the AUTI & STIC letters are in blue?” I asked. “I’m Autistic and proud.”2
“If there’s one message you take away from this presentation, let it be this: our different brains are what make collaboration so powerful. Did you see how many answers Dean Robbins and I came up with between the two of us? And how few of them we had in common?”
“Neurodiversity is what makes teams strong.”
I had an Oprah-style surprise waiting for them next. “I’ve given each of you a BrainSpin card of your own,” I said. “You may retrieve it now. It’s taped under your seat.” The tweens fairly rippled with delight as they reached down to find what I’d secretly placed there an hour before.
The game was on.
I put up a timer and Ready-Set-Go!ed (-Went?), then called “Pencils down” one minute later.
They’d written their lists.
I asked for raised hands.
One by one, students called out their answers.
“Ooh!” their classmates murmured, listening as they looked up on the big screen at the shapes in question.
“Yeah!”
“Whoa!”
Ideas kept pouring out of the students as I swung my pointer finger around the room. The message got clearer and clearer as answers accrued: Neurodiversity. It has power. You’ll never see all the possibilities by merely leveraging your own life experience.
Modern tweens are encouraged to value individuality and inclusivity. When given the chance, they feel more comfortable expressing themselves now than in past generations. They ate my message right up.
The next day, I got some of the best feedback I’ve ever received. “Well done,” said the dean’s thank-you email. “I’ve never seen the kids more engaged in an assembly.”3
The future is bright. That brightness is multifaceted, to say the least.
And I’m here for it.
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Copies of BrainSpin are for sale on my website. If you think your organization could benefit from a deeper dive on the BrainSpin Method, send me a DM, and let’s chat.
One fabulous result of the conditions that BrainSpin creates: you feel like you’re winning even when somebody else wins the round.
I’m always happy to talk about being Autistic. Feel free to reach out. I also write about about my experience at https://www.frankieabralind.com/blotism
Here’s a clip the talk. My sister, mom of my niece, came to watch and recorded it. https://frankieabralind.com/speaker#brainspin-middle-school-talk