Art Tells Unspoken Stories
Many neurodivergent students and adults know what it feels to get in the morning and have to face a world that doesn’t understand them. When I first made “The Stage” I hadn’t planned on it coming out the way it had. But I’m really glad it did. It goes along great with a story I tell to my students. Many times my students ask me “Mrs. Allison, I don’t get why my teachers or the other kids don’t understand me.'“ They get frustrated when they come to tutoring because they want to learn but they don’t learn the way everyone else does and it’s frustrating to them.
A neurodivergent is someone who has ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Bipolar, OCD, PTSD, Tourette’s Syndrome and Autism. Their brain’s do not operate like a typical person’s does and they generally have a higher than normal IQ. When learning new information they can be called Twice Exceptional, meaning they process a higher level IQ in one area while they have a lower IQ in another. For example, I have a higher IQ in Language Arts but Dyscalculia. My overall IQ is 140. A normal IQ is 90-109.
When I met with a neurodivergent student who tells me they don’t understand why the world doesn’t understand them I tell them this story that I created.
Once there were a group of aliens that were super intelligent that came to Earth. The aliens looked like them and were very nice. The humans loved all the free advice the aliens gave them. The married them, let their children go to school with them, and lived happily with them for many, many years. Hundreds of years passed. Then one day, the humans decided that they didn’t want the aliens around anymore. They didn’t need their help. The governments passed laws and told them that they had to go back where they came from. Many of them didn’t know where that was and so many didn’t want to leave. They liked it on Earth.
Now I tell my students to change aliens for us and instead of Earth it’s our communities. The humans are people who don’t understand neurodiversity and instead of everyone hating each other we should work together so we can understand and get along with each other. We both have to share this world.
I believe that’s where The Stage came from.
