Forming strong relationships with teachers in preschool, K-12, college, or graduate school

Today we discuss strategies for neurodivergent individuals and their families to foster positive and productive relationships with educators. The episode covers practical tips on how to navigate school systems, communicate effectively via email, and advocate for necessary accommodations.

Hosts Dr. Anne Elrod Whitney and Danielle Sullivan also highlight resources available through Neurodiverging and share personal experiences to help listeners better understand how to support neurodivergent students in educational settings.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Youtube

About Neurodiverging

Neurodiverging is dedicated to helping neurodiverse folk find the resources we need to live better lives as individuals, and to further disability awareness and social justice efforts to improve all our lives as part of the larger, world community. If you’re interested in learning more, you can:

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Transcript: Forming Strong Relationships with Teachers, from Preschool, K-12, College, or Graduate school | Community Q&A

Community Q&A Introduction

Danielle Sullivan: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Neurodiverging Podcast. My name’s Danielle Sullivan, and I am here today with my friend Dr. Anne Elrod Whitney. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: So here’s what we’re doing today. I’m here for this new podcast series. We’re calling it “Neurodiverging Community Q&A.” And honestly, Danielle, it’s because I have questions. Every time I meet with you, and every time I engage with something at neurodiverging.com, I always learn so much and yet I always have so many questions.

News flash, I am not alone. I think I am not the only one having questions. So, you and I are here today, we’re just going to take up a question and answer it if we can.

Danielle Sullivan: We are not promising easy or tidy answers to anything, but we are neurodivergent people raising neurodivergent kids with tons of experience coaching and teaching and otherwise engaging in this stuff. So, I think we have a lot to give to you.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Danielle, now I’m feeling nervous. Like, what if we don’t have a lot to give? But I’ll tell you one thing is that I’ve found in life, even identifying the question is usually a huge step. So, if nothing else, we’re going to discuss some questions, and if someone wants to call it answers, hey, that’s cool.

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Introduction to this Episode and Our Topic

Danielle Sullivan: Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Neurodiverging Podcast. My name’s Danielle Sullivan. I’m your host and the founder and coach over at Neurodiverging Coaching. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: For those of you who have not heard me before, my name is Anne Elrod Whitney. I am a professor, a researcher, a writer, a parent of neurodivergent kids. I am a neurodivergent adult with autism and ADHD, and I have a lot of questions, and that’s why we’re here.

At Neurodiverging, there are so many resources ranging from the community where people discuss concerns and desires and joys that we have in common to classes to coaching that I’ve been privileged to receive and also offer across all those spaces. I always have questions. I think I’m the only one with that question, and then I ask it, and I found out that I’m not, and so we are talking about questions. This is Community Q&A.

Danielle Sullivan: So excited to be doing another Community Q&A. Anne, I’ll send it over to you for the topic.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Well, Danielle, today I think we should talk about teachers. For those of us who are experiencing back to school, this might be the time that you meet your children’s teacher, and you wanna set that relationship off, right?

For older students getting into secondary school, you have multiple teachers. You have to learn to understand their different systems and get to know them. And then there’s many folks going to college, graduate school, you name it. How do you meet the teacher and form the right kind of relationships there that you need?

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, and I think this is really important as somebody, I’m somebody who is in a family with kids from four to 14, and I also teach, and I also work with parents and students. We work with students at Neurodiverging, some of whom are adults in graduate or undergraduate, but also some of whom are in high school and are really starting to learn those skills of forming their own relationship. Right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: And trying to learn from somebody, and also perform well in the classroom in terms of like maintaining social relationships and turning things in and getting all the work done.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right.

Danielle Sullivan: But also learning how to have, like, a professional relationship, really. I think teachers are often like the first, sort of professional relationship you have where you’re friendly, hopefully, and you get on together, but also you are trying to fulfill tasks, right? And, solve problems together. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: Absolutely. If you can break it down. There are different concerns at these different ages. So you’ve got younger kids like preschool and elementary, and then we can talk later about secondary school and college.

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Younger Students and IEPs

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. So my partner has a 4-year-old trying to start second year of preschool, I think just started this week. This kiddo does have an IEP. Right? And so part of the work that his parents are doing is trying to figure out what’s gonna serve him best in the schoolroom.

And the teacher’s obviously trying to figure that out too. With what, like 20 other kids. Anne, I don’t know if your kiddos, when they went to school, were they on IEPs yet or was that still kind of in process?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Well, I can talk about that from a professional perspective and as a parent. The first thing I’ll just say about specifically the neurodivergent side of having kids with IEPs or with, needs of any kind.

I have seen this both with kids who are exceptionally gifted or advanced with kids with pretty significant learning needs.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

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Supporting the Teacher in Knowing Your Child

Anne Elrod Whitney: Kids with social and emotional needs. The main thing to think about with younger children is that your job is to help the teacher know your child.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Your expertise is on your child because you have that child throughout years and throughout the clock, you know, day and night.

Their expertise is in teaching and learning. And they know things about how to teach that you might not know or might not have tried with your kid. The difference is though, not only do they not know your child yet, they oftentimes do not know what a particular ability or disability looks like in your child.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And that’s not because they don’t care. It’s because they don’t know. And teacher education is actually not very common for there to be much extensive work on students with disabilities in general teacher education preparation.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: When there is, unfortunately, a lot of it is very focused on behavior and preventing so-called problematic behaviors.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So I don’t want parents to go in antagonistically toward that. I want parents to go in knowing that they really do have a gift that they can give the teacher.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And that is knowledge about who their child is and about where the struggles are for their child. And if so, what has worked so far?

Because the teacher won’t have any of that, no matter how much they know about abilities, disabilities, teaching and learning.

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Sharing What Works Well at Home

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. And I can just step up on that and say, when my kids were in public school settings, my eldest did have an IEP for several years, and one of the things we talked about a lot when we went into those meetings were his strengths and what worked well, like Anne just said, at home that could maybe translate to the classroom.

So one thing we noticed, as I talked about in a previous episode, was at home, giving him small, reasonable responsibilities that made him feel like he had a place and like he was competent, really helped him feel focused and organized and calm and receptive to learning. And so one of the things we looked at was could the teacher give him little jobs in the classroom, right? And be very direct in what she asked. Right.

We also talked about, for my specific child had hearing loss that had resolved by the time he was in preschool, but had delayed his speech quite a lot and had delayed some of his like, what we call auditory processing, right. His ability to understand what people were saying. And so we talked a lot about like, look directly at him, say his name, get on eye level, and like give him a chance to repeat back or acknowledge what he has heard to make sure he understands it right. Those are things that were worked well at home and that we could pass on to the teacher as like, here are some really specific strategies that serve well. Right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: That’s really helpful. One thing that we sometimes run into is that there either it will not be in the capacity of the teacher—

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm. Totally.

Anne Elrod Whitney: to do that particular thing, right? Because there’s many children. Or there will be some expectation that the teacher has for the class that’s not working out for your child.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

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Teachers Can Give You Valuable Insight

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I’ve seen this as a parent and as the teacher. I’m gonna give you an example from one of my kids when she went to kindergarten, she was very kindergarten-ready. She was highly verbal. She was socially very competent for what kindergarten was going to take. But a couple things happened. One was that she experienced what I saw as regression.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: In terms of things that she could do at home, but then became problems at school. Anything from like hygiene, toilet, clothing, things like that.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I was shocked. Like, what do you mean? It made me panic. I thought it meant she was stressed at school.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That is something to pay attention to. If your child has a so-called regression at school, find out why. But I’m really glad I asked why. I asked the teacher, what do you think happened there?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: The teacher was able to tell me, your child was so focused on what we were doing, and her eyes were so intently on whatever I was sharing and on whatever the other kids were doing that I think she forgot to feel the signals.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Or when it came to taking off boots at school was a thing.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That she didn’t want to miss anything at the carpet. So she was running to the carpet still in her wet boots. So that was not a problem, was it? Those things became non-problems because I had insight from the teacher into why.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

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Get Curious About the Teacher’s Intentions: Their Answers Might Surprise You!

Anne Elrod Whitney: Another thing that happened kind of worked the opposite direction, and that was that they would be coloring and you know, they were making all kinds of art. They were doing all these fun lessons, reading books, learning songs. But these coloring sheets would come home, and the teacher had marked them where my daughter had colored outside of the lines.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I flipped my lid internally about this. I am like a hyper-creative parent. My kids had been doing art freely and beautifully from day one. This kid could draw anything. She was writing a little bit, and she was getting literally a mark on her paper for coloring outside the lines. I was horrified. 

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And so it’s gonna happen sometimes that you see something that horrifies you from school.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: I am so proud of myself because I can really go off half cocked. But what I did was I asked the teacher, “I noticed these markings about coloring outside the lines. But I know Emily can draw and can color her inside the lines, no problem, if she cares about it. Why is this a thing?”

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And the teacher was really gracious and answered that question, and she told me it’s something I didn’t know. She said, “First of all, I’m hoping that the kids will find a way to invest in what they’re doing. And so if she’s coloring outside the lines when she can color in them, then that shows me that she’s not really, like, invested in that. She should be coloring a different page or drawing her own picture at that time.”

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Now that answer delighted me, right?

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Because I was imagining this strict scenario in which kids were being told to color these pictures correctly, and I was feeling very critical about that. What I saw as like restrictive and bossy teaching that was just gonna dumb everybody down. It wasn’t that at all.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It was actually that Emily was selecting things to do, and she could have made a different selection there. And so that was a place where I could support.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And say, “Better to choose something fun that you care about.” That was a skill that my child was able to acquire that has served her well all the way to college where she is today.

The other thing about it was that I didn’t know, having been a secondary and college teacher, that the coloring inside the lines was part of the fine motor.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That was going to be needed for writing. And because I had not studied that area of that age group of children, and because this was my first kid and because I didn’t remember learning to write, I had no idea that part of what those coloring sheets were about was she was using them as a screen.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: To start to notice who might benefit from some intervention. And I’ll tell you what, my kid actually did need some intervention with how she was holding the pencil and stuff. 

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And, if I had raised a fuss without understanding that practice, I wouldn’t have known that.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah

Anne Elrod Whitney: You know, I always wanna be on the side of teachers, but as a parent, I’m just gonna say, ask why.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Sometimes you’re gonna argue with the reason, but sometimes the reason will convince you.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: You know?

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

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Knowledge and Curiousity Provide Opportunities for Change

Anne Elrod Whitney: Similarly, there was a time when my, one of my children wanted to get a library book and was not being allowed that library book without permission. I was going crazy, justice, censorship, you know, all the things. And my kid can read that book. Why can’t they take it out? And the answer was given, “Well, that book has a red dot on it. Those books might not be appropriate for the children that age.”

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And, I didn’t like that answer at all. I disagreed with it.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: But now I knew why. 

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I had a reasoning that then I could make my argument against.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And over time, I ended up working with the librarians to change that policy so that books could access all of the books that they chose to access, but that kids weren’t kind of accessing books that they didn’t want and weren’t ready for.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Um, to try to find the appropriate spot where censorship and caring for the children could kind of meet and be friends.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Asking why it’s really important.

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Assume Best Intent

Danielle Sullivan: Asking why is super important, and a lot of times in coaching, we say assume best intent. Whenever we have a, especially with a new person, you don’t know them. You don’t know their value system. You don’t know their communication style. Whenever there’s something that happens that makes you get your guff up and feel defensive, taking that breath and saying, “Okay, if I assume that actually this person is not trying to be terrible, they’re trying to be helpful in some way, can I go in there and have a conversation? And just try to figure this out together, right?” And, and approach it as like, okay, what if we’re on the same team for our kiddo and as a team, we’re gonna try to solve problems together? Right. I think that really helps.

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Teachers and Support Staff as a Part of Your Team

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. And that’s another aspect of that I had in the elementary years, and that I see a lot with teachers that I work with, is that when there is a problem with a kid, you’ll be sitting around the table at an IEP meeting.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Or perhaps the teacher has called home with respect to a behavior or a problem, or you’re seeing something that you’re worried about. There’s this tendency to look at this issue or concern as something the teacher should fix or something the parent should fix. You know, we need to get this child to sit quietly, say. 

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And you’re not teaching in a way that’s gonna make him sit quietly.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And you’re not parenting in a way. And as you see immediately, that is not really what the meeting is about. That meeting is about, we are both here to support this child.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

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Advocating for Support and Realistic Expectations for Your Child’s Teacher

Anne Elrod Whitney: What can I do from home that would support this child? What can the teacher do that would support this child? And then this is the question that people don’t always hear automatically, and that is what would support the teacher?

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: To support this child. Because oftentimes the teacher needs help in order to serve your child.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: They might. It might be that your child needs an aide so that there’s another adult in the room.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: It might be that your child doesn’t need an aide, but that the class in general is so rich with students’ diversity and needs that an aide is appropriate for that teacher.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It might be that there’s a resource that you have as a parent ’cause you’ve really, you know, drilled down on your child and some of their issues that the teacher doesn’t know. And you can, kindly and with respect, provide that resource.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: You can look at the administrator at the table, at the IEP meeting and say, “How are teachers being supported to do whatever it is that you’re wanting to happen?” And a lot of times, administration can come up with something for your kid that was more possible and more helpful than whatever it was the teacher wasn’t able to do.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah, that’s very true. Yeah. So, that team-building spirit is so important.

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Helping Your Teen Develop Collaborative Professional Relationships with Their Teachers

And I think it’s also if we move up in age a little bit to our young adults, right? Our teens and young adults, some of whom are maybe still in middle school or high school and are learning these skills of how to create relationships with teachers and educators themselves.

And also even into college and graduate school, you have full adults who are still learning these skills. I certainly was when I was in graduate school, anyway.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Oh yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: Right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Me too. Me too.

Danielle Sullivan: Still learning these skills. So what could we say if we have our folks from their teens on who are listening, and you’re starting to really do the work yourself, right? Without that parent intercession of creating relationships. I think a lot of these same advice still applies, frankly. Right? Like asking questions, not assuming, opening with best intent. What has come up for you? ‘Cause you’re a parent of teens. I don’t have teens yet.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. 

Danielle Sullivan: You’re a parent of teens. What were some of the things that helped your children start to take those relationships and own those relationships? 

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Supporting Your Teen with Their School Email

Anne Elrod Whitney: Absolutely. No, it’s such a good question. It’s such a good question. One thing that I experienced as a parent was that emails about school things—

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Don’t always come to the parent.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Once you get to secondary school, they start to just deal directly with the child, and there’s times when my child has not been able to respond appropriately, right?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So if a field trip form comes at the bottom of a long email,

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: My kid might not necessarily hand me that form for a signature, and then now he’s not signed up for the field trip.

With assignments, if there’s something due or if there’s instructions that were long and for whatever reason my kid didn’t understand them, I might not have even seen that something was due. And now it’s a big surprise and a problem. So the first thing is to try to equip your child to just be communicative with the teacher.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

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Making Sure Your Child Knows How to Access Their Email and Other Online Classroom Tools

Anne Elrod Whitney: So that looks different depending on who your kid is, what their needs are, what school you’re in. But for example, if there’s email, does your child know how to access that email?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: Is there a time of day when you and your child can sit down together and look at the email? Right. If your child is really, intellectually or educationally not gonna be capable to function as their own agent in email, can you get, as an accommodation, yourself added.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right? Not because you’re doing seventh grade and not because you’re doing 10th grade, but because you are the home support—

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: for executive function when it comes to things like responding to emails from all these multiple teachers. The multiple teachers thing is really hard.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: For kids who struggle with executive function, so the first thing is, are they able to access the place where teachers are communicating?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: If there’s an online system—I know for my own kids, sometimes there would be multiple systems, and this teacher uses this one and that teacher uses that one. We always set a homepage or like a shortcut to each teacher’s home-thing.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And we looked together and tried to learn, here’s how this teacher wants things to go.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Um, and it, they’re not just trying to be difficult, it’s because they’ve just been handed some tools and said, here you go. People adapt tools in different ways, and different classrooms and different subjects are gonna be different.

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Teaching Your Teen Proper Email Ettiquette

So that’s one thing. The second thing is, can you teach your child how to address an email appropriately to an adult?

Danielle Sullivan: Oh, that’s so important. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: You would be surprised.

Danielle Sullivan: Please do that.

Anne Elrod Whitney: I know. I say that as a college professor and as an adult, just out in the world, too. Make sure that your children know how to say, “Dear Mr. Or Ms., Mx. So and so.” Ask their question, ask it in a non-defensive manner, and then say thank you and their name. It sounds so basic, but you know—

Danielle Sullivan: They don’t know how to do this.

Anne Elrod Whitney: I am a full professor at a university. I get emails that say, “Hey,” as the opener.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Or that they’re a complaint that’s not even for me.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Not cool. 

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. Yep.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So teach them how to do that.

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Email as a Necessary Communication Skill

Danielle Sullivan: Yep. I’ve had students where I’m—Since ChatGPT is a thing in papers now, right? For better or worse, I won’t spend too much time on this. Mostly for worse. I had the school I work at has an AI policy.

I had a student submit something that looks like to me, AI. I had to go down the channels and submit it. I wrote to the student and I said. “Hey, you know this,” I said it professionally. “You know, this thing happened. I’m writing to inquire,” and because this is a first-year adult student who may not really understand the difference between plagiarism and AI usage, my job is to educate. And that requires having a conversation with a student.

So I said like, “Hey, can you tell me a little bit about your process for creating this work? Because I would like to help you understand better.” I got like two sentences back from this guy. They were not coherent. Not because he is like, a English as a second language student or something like that. But because he just did not take the time to write me back, the result is that I had to report several of his works, higher up. And I still don’t know if it’s because he cheated in the sense of on purpose, used AI, or he cheated in the sense of he doesn’t know how to cite because I could not get information. Right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right, right.

Danielle Sullivan: And that’s a challenge. That as a, like, as a teacher was really frustrating because I wanna support the student and I, I literally can’t because he does not have the skill to have an email conversation with me. Please help your high schoolers, if possible, avoid that because like, this could have been avoidable, right? I worry that he’s gonna get thrown outta school because of this communication gap, as opposed to he’s, especially trying to cheat and I don’t know. Right? So—

Anne Elrod Whitney: Exactly.

Danielle Sullivan: That communication is really important and teaching students how to have a professional email communication with an authority figure is. It’s gonna save their butts later on, whether it’s in their job or in grad school or whatever. 

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The Downside of Online 24/7 Communication for Teachers and Students

Anne Elrod Whitney: Absolutely. Yeah. And that actually connects to my last point about secondary school.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Which is that, you know, there’s this thing that’s developed now where assignments and grades and responses to assignments are typically online now.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And because they’re online, what that means is that students receive them throughout the day and night.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And if they have feelings about the response they got, or if the teacher has made a mistake, like didn’t count their paper that they turned in, or, you know, missed a question that the student answered. Now that discrepancy is feeling like a huge emergency.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And it’s, it’s activating whatever anxiety and stress response is. Whether the student is right in the situation or wrong in the situation.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Both ways, either way.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It’s that now it’s a big panic.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And so that’s the next thing that I would encourage for secondary school students is to learn that just the way that they are sometimes at school and sometimes at home. So is the teacher.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Sometimes at school and sometimes at home. And so is the mindset or the headspace. You can stop being at school to be at home.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And you can stop being at home to be at school. I, that might sound silly to say, but I really notice it in my own children, and I notice it in college students more recently than the ones I had at the beginning of my career is because everything’s kind of 24/7 we react fast and we expect these fast reactions of others and then other people feel behind and mad about it and imposed upon, if I have just graded papers and I get a ping back from a student saying, “You should have taken off three points instead of 10, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Immediately, I’m feeling this bad feeling about that student.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I’m also feeling kind of interrupted in my night. That said, the student might be correct.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I don’t hear me saying, “Oh, student don’t complain.” If you have a complaint, make it, but make it at the time when you imagine the teacher is ready.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: To hear you.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right. And that might not always be in an electronic communication.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

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The Value of Face-to-Face Communication

Anne Elrod Whitney: If it is, start with dear Ms. Whoever, or dear Mr. Whoever, please. But if, if not, a lot of times the face-to-face conversation is gonna be better.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So I, I constantly have had to coach kids to say, okay, what you do is you need to arrive at that class a couple minutes early.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And say, yeah. You know, ma’am, mister, “Do you have a moment?”

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: I, and then to say, “I have a question.”

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

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The Power of Asking a Question

Anne Elrod Whitney: That, “I have a question,” is always gonna be the way to go, I think in human communication. 

Danielle Sullivan: Yes

Anne Elrod Whitney: And I know—

Danielle Sullivan: I agree with you. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: I’m an autistic person who has—I can really struggle with like blunt communication. And I have learned that, first of all, asking a question softens communication. It also leaves room for interpretations can be revised, which is great. And the final thing is that asking a question invites a person to help you.

Danielle Sullivan: Yes. It signals openness. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: And the teacher—Right?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That person did not become a teacher so that they could be a perfect keeper of points, and so that they can evaluate people and give bad grades.

Danielle Sullivan: No.

Anne Elrod Whitney: They became a teacher because they liked helping you understand. And so just as if you had a question about the content, and you said, “I’m not quite understanding this. Will you walk me through it again?”

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Which teachers love to be asked, by the way. We love that.

Danielle Sullivan: Yes.

Anne Elrod Whitney: The other thing is if there’s a discrepancy or a problem or something to say, can you help me understand blank?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Those are magical words for teachers and students.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And for teachers in approaching their student. For parents in approaching their child. Right? When I am mad at my kid, I’m usually right that what they did wasn’t, wasn’t okay. But there—there’s also usually a little bit more to the story that I can hear that will help the whole interaction, right?

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So, “Can you help me understand?” are the magic words.

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How This Applies to Those in Undergrad or Graduate School

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna say for folks who are listening who are in undergrad or graduate school, that a lot of this information, it just applies straightforward. Like, you might not have a parent who can help you with the emails, but like maybe you have a friend who can.

I also just wanna say that just because you didn’t learn this from an adult, doesn’t mean you can’t implement all this stuff now, right? You can still learn to say, “Can you help me understand?” You can make yourself a homepage of a Google Doc with all the links to all of your things and create your own manual. You can get help from, you know, your disability services or your, your educator to like figure out what accommodations are gonna work for you. Right?

And just to respond briefly to Anne’s, the way you communicate is important, right? Choosing between written communication, in-person communication, phone, or Zoom communication, right? If you’re a virtual student. It’s important to take the time to think about what’s the best way to have this conversation with the person you’re having with. I don’t know that students are always like taught that as explicitly as like you were talking about Anne, like telling your kiddo you’re gonna go there a couple minutes early and you’re gonna—so to think about all these ways, right?

And to think about your goals, right? Is your goal to convince somebody that you’re right, or to have that communication and build that relationship and understand each other better. Right? So I think all that’s so important. Just a fountain of good advice, Anne. Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Well, thank you. 

Danielle Sullivan: Thank you for that.

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Identifying Potential Barriers and Asking for Help

Anne Elrod Whitney: You’re inspiring me to, maybe this is something I can make for the future to share with listeners and other folks, is a kind of dictionary of some of those words and phrases to say, I wanna point to the kind of hidden truth here.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: That, that type of language.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And that style of interaction is linked up.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: To socioeconomic background.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It is linked up to class and it is linked up to abilities.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: So, for example, if you come from a family in which maybe you’re the first to go to college or maybe your parents were working when you got home from school and they weren’t as active in your school life. You might not have had that modeled the way that another kid whose mom’s a teacher—

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Has had that model.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right? That is a kind of barrier—

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: To doing well in education, that we oftentimes don’t even know that we’re up against.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: And so for the adult student who is now trying to fill in some gaps like that—

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: what I wanna say is go ask at your college.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Tell people, tell people if you are coming to college from a kind of outside viewpoint, if you say, “This is my first class I have taken at graduate school.” That will help them help you.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It’s not a deficit on your part.

Danielle Sullivan: No.

Anne Elrod Whitney: It is information that is relevant.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

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Finding Help Through the Accommodations Office or Student Success Centers

Anne Elrod Whitney: And the same goes for the accommodations office.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: If you are receiving accommodations, it is appropriate and expected for you to go in there and say, “I’m struggling with X, Y, Z. Is this something accommodations could help with? Can you teach me how..? I don’t understand why…”

Someone in that office or most higher education institutions now have a student success center, and it might be called that, or it might be called tutoring center or learning center or something. But A. there will be free tutoring there for you and B—

Danielle Sullivan: Use it, use it. Use it, please, use it.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah, use it. Use it. It’s there—

Danielle Sullivan: Use it, please, use it. You’re paying for it.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah. You’re paying for it already in your tuition. And there’s oftentimes a coach there who is an academic success coach who can teach you all the secret things about college that you didn’t learn.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Maybe because you were segregated in special ed in your day. Maybe because you were not able to function at the level now that college is expecting of you. 

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Maybe that wasn’t accessible to you in secondary school, but now it is. Maybe there’s a cultural thing going on at this institution that you’re not seeing because you’re an outsider in some way.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Historically at that institution. Right? Maybe you’re coming from a different perspective. So asking, the more you can share about your needs, the better. Younger students, the more that you can say for yourself what your accommodations are or what your needs are.

Danielle Sullivan: Mm-hmm.

Anne Elrod Whitney: The more someone can help you.

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. 

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right? As opposed to having a problem and then coming back and saying, “Well, but I was supposed to have an accommodation.” Yes, you were supposed to. So something wrong happened there, but also the more you showed your desire or need for the accommodation, the better you’re gonna get it. And that’s just true in life. Right? You gotta show people who you are if you wanna be known.

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Sharing Accommodation Requirments with Your Professor

Danielle Sullivan: Yeah. That’s very true. And in that same vein, if you are a college student and you have a letter from Disability Services that says, I should be granted these accommodations, the likelihood is that you have to share that with your educator yourself. Disability Services is not gonna share that for you because you have privacy. You have the right to privacy, and you maybe don’t want every teacher you work with to know that. But I’ll say as a teacher, if you don’t share that with me, I literally cannot give you the accommodations ’cause I don’t know about them.

And if you share it with me on week eight of a 12-week class. There’s only so much I can do at that point, right? Because we’ve gone through two-thirds of the class without me giving—like I can’t rewind time. So again, like Anne said, just to reinforce, telling people early, right? You don’t have to disclose medical information and probably shouldn’t, but you can say I have an accommodation for 2x time test or whatever, and make sure I know that on day one, instead of on like week 12 when all the tests have already passed and you failed all of them, and then what are we supposed to do about it?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right.

Danielle Sullivan: Let me help you early. I wanna help you. Like my job as an educator is to support you in your growth. And I can’t do that if I don’t have good information about you. And that does require you to be a little vulnerable. Right?

Anne Elrod Whitney: Yeah.

Danielle Sullivan: And that can be uncomfortable, but like Anne is saying, we don’t expect you to know everything, but we do expect you to ask or to seek help or seek support when you need it. Um—

Anne Elrod Whitney: Absolutely.

Danielle Sullivan: And that’s part of adulthood, right? It’s like you’re supposed to ask, and it’s okay. It’s okay not to know—

Anne Elrod Whitney: It’s hard. It’s really hard. I don’t even always know what help I need.

Danielle Sullivan: No.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Right? In the moment. So it’s just a matter of, like, when you do just know that it’s—there’s never shame in asking for help.

Danielle Sullivan: No.

Anne Elrod Whitney: In fact, there’s beauty and bravery in that.

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Where to Find Anne and Other Support at Neurodiverging

Now that we’re running out of time, I just wanted to mention to folks listening that coaching in this vein is something that you can get through neurodiverging.com. There’s a whole gang of coaches there who can help you with some of this communication stuff, who can help with executive functioning, help you, help you make a plan as to how you approach some of these things. Help you talk through what goes down in school, either for your child or for yourself, and they’re there to help you as are many resources related to these issues on neurodiverging.com.

At anneelrodwhitney.com, you can find some of my writing on parenting and teaching. Um, including some work that I’ve done on how I learned to better advocate for my child by better trusting the teacher. Um, and also just stories from my personal life. I have a blog there and stuff that’ll help you see a little bit about what I do as a educator. I hope that’s helpful.

Danielle Sullivan: Thank you so much, Anne. I think that was beautiful. Thanks so much for our patrons for supporting this podcast and all the work we do at neurodiverging.com. I’ll also pitch that, you know, if you wanna work with Anne directly, of course, go to her website at anneelrodwhitney.com, but also you can find her on Neurodiverging. So wherever you end up, you can work with Anne.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Anne Elrod Whitney: Thank you.

Danielle Sullivan: Remember, we’re all in it together.