"This is where we shift from critical to curious. Isn't it worth asking the question, what would drive a kid to lose control that way? It's so easy to be critical. But you're gonna get a lot better return on your investment for being curious."

Meet Dr. Matt Zareski (he/him), clinical psychologist, international speaker, and advocate for all things neurodivergence, specifically within the LGBTQ+ community. Join Leela and Dr. Matt for an engaging discussion about bringing equity to our workplaces and schools, accommodations for all, the cognitive biases that maintain power structures, Taylor Swift, Shaquille O'Neal, and planning an Eighteenth Century themed costume party.

Links!

The Neurodiversity Collective:

https://www.theneurodiversitycollective.com/

Dr. Matt Zakreski's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/drmattzakreski

To learn more about CB Beal's Preemptive Radical Inclusion, visit:

https://justiceandpeaceconsulting.com/preemptive-radical-inclusion/

Transcript and notes:

https://dev.intensivesinstitute.com/episode/interview-dr-matt-zakreski

Recorded 4 December 2023.

Leela Sinha 0:01

Hi, everyone, and thanks for tuning in. This is another interview bonus episode of Power Pivot, the podcast where we talk about power and how to use it for good and community and how it supports everything that we do. Today, my guest is Matt Zackreski. Did I say that right?

Matt Zakreski 0:22

Nailed it.

Leela Sinha 0:23

Dr. Matt Zakreski, who is with the Neurodiversity Collective. And I thought we would get to talk a little bit about power, about giftedness, which I know he's interested in; about marginalization and whatever else comes up. So Matt, would you please introduce yourself?

Matt Zakreski 0:38

Yes, and thank you for having me. So my name is Dr. Matt Zakreski. Everybody calls me Dr. Matt, so please feel free to do the same. I'm a clinical psychologist, and a advocate for all things neuro divergence, and specifically within the LGBTQ community, and really just trying to get the word out there about kids with different brains and how to serve them, and what our role as stakeholders looks like in that.

Leela Sinha 1:07

Fantastic. So you do most of your work with kids?

Matt Zakreski 1:11

Yeah, kids and teens.

Leela Sinha 1:13

That's a really interesting place to start with power. So what do you find- How do you find that their age affects their power?

Matt Zakreski 1:24

Oh, so kids who feel out of control will control whatever they can. Most of the time, that power is expended on adults. Parents, coaches, or teachers, right? Those are the big three. Right? So you know, you'll have a kid who doesn't want to go to gym class, who makes it their mission to make going to gym classes their teachers problem, right? I'm not leaving the classroom. Right, because if they feel out of control, they feel unsafe to go to where that thing might be. They cannot enter into that space. Ergo, they're, you know, they feel out of control. And kids. You know, I mean, they're, it's an intersection. It's an interesting sort of intersection of lack of power. Because they're younger, so there's automatically less power. They may not have the skills to articulate what they're trying to say, in a way that adults can understand. Right? I mean, what we see as professionals is that if I'm running late to be on your podcast, I shoot you a message and say hey, I'll be here in three minutes. And you say, Cool, thanks, Dr. Matt. And then it's a non issue. But if a kid is three minutes late to English, they get written up, right? They get sent to the principal's office. They are not afforded that same level of equality, right? Or I mean perhaps a better word there is equity.

Leela Sinha 3:01

Or good grace.

Matt Zakreski 3:01

Or good grace.

Leela Sinha 3:03

My assumption, if you message me and you say, Hey, I'm running a few minutes late, my assumption is that you have a good reason for being late, and that you will be here as soon as possible. And you're trying to be courteous by letting me know. Whereas the assumption in a school environment is usually that the child is being disobedient, that the child is being disrespectful, like there's all this storytelling that we do around the behavior of anybody who has less power than us institutionally or structurally, but especially children and young adults.

Matt Zakreski 3:32

Absolutely. And what's really powerful and remarkable about that in those conversations, is, once those narratives take root, then I mean, you know, the horse is out of the barn at that point, right? It's really, so you know, like, once it starts rolling downhill, you are hard pressed to change that. And I can't tell you how often I get into a school system or community, and I start working with a kid or a family. And I think, wow, three years ago, I would have had a fighting chance. But everybody in this school thinks that Johnny's a- giant air quotes- "bad kid," so they see everything he does or doesn't do through that lens. Right? And are, you know, this is where we get into the cognitive biases that maintain power structures, things like you know, the fundamental attribution error, right? I see my behavior based in context. I was only late because I hit traffic. My goodness, anybody could hit traffic. You see my behavior as a reflection on who I am as a person, i.e. Dr. Matt doesn't care. Right. And those conversations get repeated over and over and they're amplified for our Black and Brown kids. Our you know, our kids of, you know, from lower socio economic groups and certainly our LGBTQ kids and

Leela Sinha 4:58

and that also happens with our neurodiverse kids, and our diverse adults, right? I think that this storytelling, what I'm calling storytelling, not in a good way, I usually love storytelling, but this is where we assign meaning. And, you know, I come from a religious background, you know, I used to be a parish minister. So when we talk about meaning making, usually that's a good thing. But But this habit that we have of making meaning out of other people's behavior, contributes and compounds in layers, depending on how many marginalization you're carrying, and by the time you're an adult, if you're poor, if you're disabled, if you're marginalized in any, any way, that thing that you were just talking about, where people just decide you're a bad kid carries on. So once the system has decided, you're a bad kid, it's very hard to get out of it.

Matt Zakreski 5:51

Well, and then the trauma that comes with that creates a self perpetuating cycle, right? Because if I walk into a room with a sword and a shield, and realize I've been hurt and disappointed by all these other grown ups, and all these other systems, I'm gonna stab you first, before you could hurt me. ,

Leela Sinha 6:08

If I stab you first then you'll be injured, and then you won't be able to hurt me as badly.

Matt Zakreski 6:13

Right? And then everybody goes, Well, why is Johnny so aggressive? It's like, you know, I- one of one of the things my mentor told me early in my career, and I try to keep this in mind is that there's no original pain in the world. Everything's recycled, right? We're all playing these dramas out with each other. And, and it doesn't excuse behavior, but it provides a necessary context. And I think that if I can give one message to the stakeholders who are listening to this, it's, you know: "be curious, not critical.", Right? It's so easy to be critical. But it's, it's, you're gonna get a lot better return on your investment for being curious.

Leela Sinha 7:01

And I think we're trained. That's a really interesting point you bring up because I think that we're trained to be critical.

Matt Zakreski 7:09

Oh absolutely.

Leela Sinha 7:09

With the intensive, expensive framework, I often talk about how, you know, our culture trains intensives and expansives to be critical of each other. Intensives are trained to be like, Oh, well, you're boring and slow, and you never come up with a new idea. And expansives are trained to think of intensives as flighty and irresponsible, and can't you just grow up? And so we go into our work environments, our home environments, our interactions with our children, all with that overlay. That sort of slimy overlay to everything that we're doing. And, and how can we, how can we not? I guess that's the question, like we're having this conversation. And clearly you and I have the same perspective from slightly different angles. But but the question is, like, for me is how do we change our fundamental habit of doing that? It's a culturally supported habit. It's reinforced all around us. It's reinforced by our own desire not to be wrong. We go in and we're like, there's a problem. And then we start looking for the source of the problem. And we would much rather find it outside ourselves than inside ourselves. Which is interesting, because we can't change anybody but ourselves. But how do we shift that? You're a psychologist, like, how do we how do we change that that habit of behavior that's, that's so culturally embedded so that we are more curious? So that we aren't as critical upfront?

Matt Zakreski 8:38

Well, I, I will do my best to answer this question. And, and I will be the first to admit I don't have all the answers. I will provide to you what I can, which I think is more than most. So there's a there's an exercise they do in family therapy a lot. I call it the supervillain test. Right. Yeah, it's got its good name. So you know, so let's say, right, I'm your parent, and you want to go to the Taylor Swift concert. And I say you can't. right. Now. You know, this is a drama that plays out with kids and parents all over the world right. Not always about Taylor Swift, but she's obviously in the cultural zeitgeist right now. So if

Leela Sinha 9:22

it's if it's not about Taylor Swift, it's because the parent wants to go to and the kid doesn't want to sit next to them.

Matt Zakreski 9:27

Right? Like God Mom no stop it. Right?

Leela Sinha 9:31

Right. You're so embarrassing.

Matt Zakreski 9:35

Yes, I am. Right. Whatever the concert is, and it was it could be Avenged sevenfold if you're on that side of the musical spectrum, right? The idea here is I say to the kid: so you know- you want to go to a concert. Your parent knows that you want to go to the concert. Your parent knows that if they said yes to you going to the concert, their lives would be easier, right? And the kid says of course, right? And I got to go, I'll be happy. Awesome. So if your parent knows that, and is still saying no, they must have a pretty good reason. And the kid stares at me and I'm like: or they're a supervillain. Right, which is why we call it the supervillain test. Right. So either they're the Joker-

it's always possible?

Right? Yeah. And that's what the kids say, like, well, maybe my mom is a supervillain, I don't know. But it what it does, it provides a nice backstop to the reframing of this. Like, you know, I mean- I often say to my clients, I have a lot of clients who are in college, I'm like, listen, I can't stop you from going to the frat party. Frat parties can be fun, right? That, you know, it's a whole thing. But I'm going to point out that there are costs to those choices. And I'm going to point out that you have other obligations for being in school, and what feels good right now may not feel good tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon. And you're going to make the choices you're going to make because I'm not a supervillain. But I am going to point out these alternate avenues of behavior. Because even if your brain stops for a second and goes, well, what if I stayed in for an extra hour and studied? You know, it's not a all or nothing thing. It can be a, even if we take one or two steps in towards the middle, it's better. And that that's, you know, as I think how we drive that behavior change is not by saying, you know, from an organizational perspective, "these are bad kids." To saying no kid would choose to feel this way. No kid would choose to act this way. Right? Isay this to administrators all over the country. It's like, Listen, you got Johnny, who's so upset, he punched a hole in the drywall. You think Johnny woke up this morning and thought, You know what I want to do? I want to put a hole in the drywall outside the Home Ec lab? And you know, they're like, Nohe still shouldn't have done it. Like, absolutely. No one is going to say Johnny should have done that. But this is where we shift from critical to curious. But my goodness, Isn't it worth asking the question? What would drive a kid to lose control that way? Right. And if we're asking those questions, we're giving our kids a fighting chance to be seen as three dimensional humans. And if they're seen as three dimensional humans, then we can serve their needs in a meaningful way.

Right? Right. I love that, that if, if we can see anybody, as a three dimensional human, we can serve their needs in a meaningful way. And I agree that kids are particularly vulnerable, because of the many, many positions they're in, in society. But again, I think that we see this increasingly in adult communities as well. And like, what would it be like, you know, if you're in a nonprofit organization, and you have that one problem volunteer, what is actually going on with the problem volunteer? Because they're volunteering, like, they're giving up their spare time, and their skill and talent to show up at your organization and try to be helpful? So if they're getting in the way what's happening?

Yeah, you know, and this gets into, this gets into one of my, you know, tenets of, of therapy as something that I often, you know, talk about and refer back to is this idea that: you are allowed to feel how ever you feel about whatever happens to you, that is your right as a human being. Whether you are the CEO of the company, or an unpaid volunteer of the company, whether you are the principal of the school, or a second grader in the school. But it's what you do with those feelings that matter. So if you're that unpaid intern, right, or, you know, you're giving your time, you have a right to be upset about how you are treated. You're giving something up, and you are entering into a social contract with that organization that says, by me doing XYZ, you're gonna give me ABC. And ABC may be as simple as a letter of recommendation and treating me with human dignity and respect. But what's the thing that happens to our unpaid volunteers? They don't get paid with dignity and respect, right? You know, people hold the letter over their head, like, like a cudgel, right? It's like, Oh, you better keep giving us extra more unpaid labor. We won't give you that letter. Right. It's a whole thing.

Yeah, or, or it's even simpler than that. It's it's people volunteer because they want to feel like they're contributing meaningfully to something in the world. It's improving things, instead of just whatever else they do in the rest of their life and, and the relationship between the volunteers and the organizations, especially these days. What we're seeing a lot in volunteer-driven organizations is that the people are tired. People are super tired, they just don't have it to give. And when they don't have it to give, they don't give it. They, that's one of the places where they cut back in their kind of emotional and energetic budgets, and then the organizations start to pressure them. And when I see that happening, I'm always like, can we talk about consent? Yeah. Can we talk about consent based volunteering. But but the organizations are feeling so desperate for survival, that they continue to pressure and continue to pressure. And what ends up happening is, of course, the relationship deteriorates. Because that's not on either side. That's not who we want to be or how we want to be. And I think you're right, that when kids, when kids find themselves backed into a corner, they, like everybody, are more likely to act in a way that they would rather not act. And so this question of, of "what might be causing that?" And for me, there's a second layer, which is, what if it's not wrong for them to need or want the thing that they need or want?

Right? Yeah, I mean, that gets into this idea, this is a very similar concept of, you're allowed to feel however you feel; you're allowed to want whatever you want. It is worth working with the kid to find a compromise. The person- not just the kid. Compromise. Like, you know, if you need certain things at work to feel successful- you know, like, let's say, like, use something else from the cultural zeitgeist. You say, to be successful at work, I need to work from home full time. And the company says, we need you in the building full time. When I work with a lot of companies in my role as a consultant we say, like, listen, there are, what twelve, twenty days a year the person actually needs to be in the building. The all calls, the corporate meetings, the blah blah blah., So listen, my client will guarantee they will be there, those 20 days, if you let them work from home, any other day that they do not need to physically be in the building. And 99% of companies are on board with that these days. They're like, that's fine. Right? We are edging ever, so slowly out of COVID. Right. And it's the idea that a lot of people, especially if you're neurodivergent, do better working from home. And that's not even getting into issues of, you know, equal access to things from socio economic perspectives, or something more insidious, like how our country is wildly under equipped to handle people who have handicap needs. Right? Accessibility needs. I mean, but the idea is, is that instead of it being all or nothing, can we focus on what helps a person be successful, rather than inverting the narrative, and only focusing on what they can't do? Right.

So let's look at it from the power holders' perspective for a minute. So we're talking about the teachers, we're talking about the principals we're talking about the coaches. We're talking about the bosses and the CEOs. What do you think? What do you think? I won't say forces, but what do you think causes people to lean into that power. To grasp it and try to hold on to it and try to, like, prove that they're powerful. Because you can tell when you see some of these memos from the CEOs of companies, and you can tell when you're a kid, and you're listening to the principal talk, like sometimes they have a point. And sometimes they do not have a point. And their whole point is just to feel like they have power.

Ding-ding-ding, right? So so here's sort of how I see it. Here's how I think about it. You said you were a youth pastor before, right?

I was a I was mostly a parish minister, but I did long ago, I was yes. I went through almost every position.

You took the tickets, you know, you did all the things right? You played the organ. When you're in those positions, do you know everything that's happening in your religious organization?

It depends on how small the organization is.

Right. And there are some very small ones out there. But I would argue that even if you've got 17 people in the room, there's no way to know everything that's going on. Right? And some leaders can accept that as a cost of doing business. The organic limitations of being a person. And some leaders can't. You know, I find the more stressed out that leaders get, the more they seek to control. And they enter into what we call the paradox of surveillance. The more you surveil, the more you realize there's need to be surveilled. So you surveil more and then you find that you need to surveil more, but in doing so you drive your employees out. Right? Because nobody likes to be surveilled. So there's a, there's a unhappy uneasy marriage of, we know they're gonna get away with some things. And I want them not to get away with things. So like, how do we find that middle ground? And

but when we treat people like humans, I think there's a lot less to get away with.

Absolutely,

there's a lot more, that's, that's not actually getting away with something. But somebody, often, you know- I'm gonna draw parallel to drug use here. Because often people are, when people are taking street drugs, the reason they're taking them is because they're self medicating, and they can't get a hold of any other way to treat whatever it is the pain, the mental health issue, whatever it is. And similarly, when people are, quote, unquote, getting away with something at work, often they're just allowing themselves the space to be human in a way that the technical rules don't permit.

Yeah. I mean, I absolutely. And, you know, when I used to work in travel sales, and

really, that's fascinating.

oh yeah, I was very good at that. But I even I struggled with some parts of that job, because I'm not a very good, like, aggressive salesman. I'm better at making relationships and like, you know, let me work with you to figure out your needs. And so they put me on the advanced sales team, right. And so people were going to travel like two years before they were actually gonna do it. So we could fundraise and I could get to know them and all these wonderful things. And I was great. I was sitting sales records left and right. But one of the things about me is, in addition to being a gifted kid, I also have ADHD. Which means I need to take a lot of micro breaks, right. I'm the person who like will have ESPN up on one screen and my work thing up on the other screen. And I'll be like to do writing, writing emails, on the phone, but also checking my fantasy football team. And that would drive my boss crazy. they'd say you can't work that way. I was like, I have to work this way. Because if I force myself to white knuckle through it I'm gonna burn myself out and be less productive. Give me a ninety-second micro break to read something about the starting pitcher for the Yankees. And that scratches that dopamine itch, and I'm back in the game. And I'm like, and listen, my numbers speak for themselves. The nice thing about that is that there's a quantitative argument to be made to like, Oh, he's actually really good at this.

Right. And the idea that, Oh, you would be better if you only did it my way is ridiculous, but so pervasive because of what Pace & Kyeli call the common error, which is kind of believing that everybody else operates the way we operate. And so if your boss would have gone ahead and turned everything off and gotten into like, really focused mode with nothing else going on, then your boss is gonna assume that you too, would function better. And so you would be even more productive than you already are. And your numbers would be even better, if you would just do it the way that he would have done it. Or she would have done it. And no, actually,

yeah. Well, and to me, you know, it gets to this idea of- so oftentimes, what I use is the language of top down versus bottom up thinking, right? So top down, thinking is our default. We want things to be perfect. We want things to be our way. Right? And, you know, and like- we just passed Thanksgiving? Did you celebrate Thanksgiving?

No.

Okay. So in your mind what's on a traditional Thanksgiving plate, or table like what's on the table at a traditional American Thanksgiving?

Usually turkey and cranberry sauce and some kind of very overcooked vegetable dish, and gravy and sometimes cornbread, and then then it diversifies depending radically upon the family and its culture. My father used to stuff the turkey with pulao.

Really?

Mm hmm.

Well, see. I've never heard that before.

My father is Indian. And so he took a rice dish that's usually cooked in turkey broth. And he stuffed it into the turkey or in chicken broth, and he stuffed it into the turkey. It was great.

That's awesome. Right? You're putting your own twist on it. Right? So if I have in my head, and maybe it's a bias I have never addressed before. Right? But if I had in my head, this is what Thanksgiving looks like. And I have never seen a Thanksgiving table with pulao in it. I wanted it to be perfect up here. And any deviation of that is seen as worse. Right? It's a disappointment. It's a letdown. Right? Whereas bottom up thinking is I could have nothing on the table. But I have cornbread. That's something I have cranberry sauce. That's something. I have mashed potatoes. That's something. I have turkey, oh, it's got pulao in it. That's another something. Right? It's aspirational, it builds on itself. So I often I often tell schools and organizations like you- completely in your own brain, you have this idea of the model student, the model employee. And if you are not treating people as individuals you are treating- you're judging them all based on this unspoken, top down thinking where good employees are x. And anything other than x is bad. And you don't mean it that way. But that's what your brain shortcuts to. Right? When you think about neurodivergent kids who don't socialize like other kids, who don't sit still like other kids, who don't raise their hand like other kids, who don't answer questions like other kids. They are running afoul of all of those implicit biases, not for anybody's fault, just because those are brain differences. And if we do bottom up thinking, it's like, well, Johnny is super passionate, but Johnny has a tough time raising his hand, I'm going to add in more interactive game style things in my class. So Johnny's, struggles with raising his hand are going to be a little bit more neutralized. Then you are accommodating that organically and helping him be more successful, rather than saying, well, he's a square peg and I'm a round hole, and I'm not going to change so he's gonna have to rip off all the parts that make him him. By God. You know, you know, it's like when you said, you know, things, things, you know, I asked you like, if you celebrate Thanksgiving, you're like, No, not this year. And we were still able to make that work. Like, you know, it's not a- I'm not making any assumptions. I'm using the relationship, you and I have to create something organic and authentic between us so we can find a workable example, right? I'm not like, No, of course you do. My God. How dare you? Not? Right. That's ridiculous. But we do this all the time. And those shortcuts hurt us and hurt our kids.

So you go into a lot of different kinds of organizations. You've mentioned schools, you've mentioned companies, you've mentioned one on one counseling situations. What would you say? If you could like shift the way that power structures work? If you had a magic wand, and you could do one thing, what would it be?

I would have everybody start focusing on what people can do, rather than than what they can't. That would be my goal. That would be my purview. I would say, you know, we want to search for strengths. We don't want to be deficit detectives. Because once you see a deficit, then it's like a black hole. It's like punching a hole in the bottom of a jug. Because water is just going to drain out of it. Right. You know? Are you a basketball fan at all?

I'm not.

No, that's fine. Are you familiar with the basketball player Shaquille O'Neal? He's in a lot of commercials and such now, right?

I am.

So Shaquille O'Neal- Hall of Famer, multiple time NBA champion, MVP, all the things. You know what he was famously unable to do?

No.

Shoot free throws. the easiest shot in basketball, right? You get to stand in lines. 18 feet from the basket. You had to shoot unimpeded at the hoop? If you're fouled, right. Shaq was notoriously terrible at that. And the whole narrative of his career, right? Was was sort of became warped by this fact that he couldn't shoot free throws. But you'll notice the things I said about him first- NBA champion Hall of Famer, MVP, it doesn't diminish those things, right. But if all we focus on the fact that Shaq can't shoot free throws, I mean, we miss the rest of the story. Right? So So okay, so Sally has a tough time sitting in her chair in class. You know what doesn't hurt anybody if Sally can wander around the classroom, when teacher's talking, right? When we focus on Sally's intelligence and attention, and willingness to engage with the material, we inherently change how we feel about Sally, and thus, our expectations and willingness to accommodate her change along with it. Right. And, you know, it's it's amazing how a simple shift of focusing on strengths allows-, you know, cascades downhill, and allows us to see a lot more powerful things, and positive things about our kiddos. And really about our employees and our partners and our friends. You know, I'm sure you've got a friend who's never on time, right? You know, you guys are having a dinner at eight o'clock. And you got to tell that friend like it actually starts at seven so they'll be there by eight.

Yeah. I used to do that to my mom, actually, when I was in high school, my mom, I was never on time for anything. So one day I was supposed to be in a conference, and I was leading helping to lead the conference, it was it was like 15 or 16. And I knew that I would not be there on time. And I was at the top of the organizational hierarchy. And so I was like, I have to be there on time. So I told her, it was literally 40 minutes early, and we got there. And she was like, Oh, you're late, you got to go in right away. And I said, No, actually, I have 10 minutes. She was like, what? So yeah, yeah.

And like, I mean, isn't that isn't that sort of thing. But you wouldn't not go to the conference, and we wouldn't not invite you to dinner, because you're late, we would work to accommodate that, right. And this gets back to the inherent power down positions of being a kid. Whereas with adults, we would find workarounds, with kids we expect them to do. Right. And, and broader educational systems in this country are not about creativity, or intelligence. They're about compliance. Follow the rules, and you'll be okay. Because the system is based on our willingness and ability to follow rules. You know, we educate millions of children. There is there need to be rules and structures, I get that. But when we get so married to those things, we lose the humanity of the people we're trying to teach and reach.

Yeah, I mean, what happens if a kid slips in a few minutes late and sits down in a chair and starts taking notes? Nothing. It happens all the time in college, college is ostensibly a more rigorous academic environment. So I think the compliance piece is really interesting, because I think in the last seven years or so people have really come to an awareness of how little compliance actually supports a healthy adulthood. And have started to really question this idea of training ourselves through childhood and well into adulthood for compliance. There are obviously things that benefit from regular attention. Like if you're trying to develop a skill- my East Coast partner has taken up ceramics and goes four times a week because she just loves it. And has she become a remarkable ceramicist in the last two years? Yes, yes, she has, because that kind of regular practice helps. But, but I also think that that's not the same as teaching compliance. And we mix those two things that compliance and discipline are not the same thing. Right.

Because nobody made her made them be a ceramicist. Right, in what it was, it was freely chosen not forcibly given. And, you know, I mean, you know, we're talking about like, volunteer organizations before, right? You know, you ever been voluntold to do something, right? Like, I'm gonna need you to do this out of the goodness of your heart. Right. And it's, and it's, and it's wild. And we wonder why people are, are burnt out and frustrated and disenfranchised. You know, like, it says things like, where do you work? Like, how often do you come to the office, some people want to come to the office, right? Let 'em. Some people need to work from home. Let 'em. It hurts no one. Right, right. You know, a simple thing we can give to kids in schools is some kids are great at chapter tests. Some kids want to write a paper, some kids want to do a PowerPoint presentation. If you give them- instead of you must take a chapter test, you give them those three choices, the data on this is overwhelming. Kids engage more, they learn more, they get better grades, and they're happier. Who wouldn't want that? Right, that's a win win.

I think the challenge that we face then is that we under compensate our teachers, and that's a lot of work and we give them class sizes that are too big. And then it's an overwhelming amount of work. And we literally have conflicting access needs. We have the teachers who have a need to have a reasonable workload and are being given more and more to do with fewer and fewer resources. And we have the students who absolutely need all that flexibility and all that attention and all that rich, rich, fertile soil to grow in.

Yeah. Well, and that's and that's when you get into this idea of, you know, like, you know, completely up ending how we, what education has turned into over the last 25 years or so, you know, and, you know, like moving away from the standardized test. building in more unstructured time. bringing back recess, bringing back gym, bringing back the arts. You know, I mean, people like well, you You

bringing back 20 person class sizes?

Yeah. And, and you know, when people say it was like, well, you work with gifted kids, you want more STEM, I'm like, I love STEM. STEM is great, but not STEM at the cost of having a 40 minute lunch period where you can talk to your friends. And, and you know, decompress a little bit. You know, kids should have moments in the day where they don't have anything to do. And they're like, no, they shouldn't, because kids are the kid that like, they can't they mean, whatever how are they gonna be productive.

"Idle hands are the devil's playground." Oh, would you stop? Which year is it, 1951?

Right. I mean, it's wild. You know, I cannot tell you how many kids I work with? Who have 17 extracurriculars? Who don't have a free night. And then they'll do things like go play video games for an hour. And their parents are like, how are you wasting your time? And I'm like, I'm sorry, when I was video games. When I was a kid, I played video games all the time. Nobody said anything about it. Right? It's like, we've gotten this, like, hyper achieving thing. And, and, you know, we're burning ourselves out. I mean, the, the best way to get out of the rat race is to stop being in the rat race is to say, I'm good. I don't need, I don't need this, right.

Which we can do if we're well enough compensated at the work that we do, which again, capitalism is an absolute disaster right now.

Oh, end stage capitalism. So it's a whole thing. You know, I mean, you know, and, I mean, it's, it's so funny, like, when I started doing this work, I was getting really involved in the system side of it. I said to my mentor, like, I was like, Jackie, I feel like, if I'm gonna untangle this stuff, I have to untangle everything. And she goes, yep. I'm like, but that's gonna be really hard. And she said, yep. No, she's like, I'm sorry, if you want to change the world, you have to change The World, right? It's like, you know, how we view human worth and dignity, you know, concepts of Basic Income, concepts of what we are owed to be a part of a society. I mean, these are fundamental questions. And, and it's the sort of thing I'm a realist, right? People often describe me as aggressively pragmatic, right? I know, I'm not going to get all these things. But you damn well better believe I'm going to keep asking for them. Because every time I ask for them, yeah, we get a little closer to getting that thing. And when we get a little closer to getting that thing, we feel better. So we do better, right? It becomes a virtuous cycle, unlike the vicious cycles we talked about before, right? When we empower people, when we give them hope and structure, they do better, which helps them engage more, which then helps them do better, which helps them engage more, right? You know, I cannot tell you how often I'll talk to a school, they're like, well, this kid can't get into the gifted program, because their grades or behavior aren't good enough. I'm like put them in the gifted program, their grades and behavior will be alright. And

I was lucky that I knew how to be compliant enough to get into the gifted program. But I have been a nightmare if I had not.

Right. And this is an this is where we make questions of neuro divergence a question of equity, right? Because we wouldn't say to someone in a wheelchair, well, you didn't behave well enough to use your wheelchair today.

People do.

Well, obviously they do. Right. And that's, I mean,

They shouldn't.

We shouldn't. we wouldn't take away somebody's insulin pump we, but at the same time, we also do that as a society, right? Like, I mean, it's the sort of thing like, from a sociological lens of bottom up thinking, everybody deserves the things they need to succeed. And those things are unalienable. Right- Jeffersonian language here, right? inalienable rights. If you need a walker, you need a walker. If you need accommodations, you need accommodations. If you need glasses, you need glasses. And nobody by hook or by crook or by act of government can take them from you. If we allow people to build higher floors, then they will get higher ceilings. Right now we're putting people in the basement and wondering why they can't reach the roof. You know, and that's, once again, it's one of the fundamental problems with how we build things is it's turned into this you know, brutal rat race. And we're not focusing on the things that serve us.Wwe're so busy trying to- We're so busy trying to survive, we forget to thrive. And nobody learns good in survival mode. They learn good in thrive mode. Right. And you know, just like your partner like, you know, you've got to be stable enough to want and be able to and to afford the ceramic classes. But once you can do those things, you thrive in ceramics. Unlike in high school, like if you don't pass ceramics, you're not going to graduate high school, John. And you're like, the wheel {mimicked hyperventilating sounds}. It's terrifying.

awful. It's awful when I got to graduate school and decided that I wasn't going to go and do more graduate school, although maybe I will eventually change my mind. But graduate school is expensive. I decided I was going to take all the rest of my classes pass-fail. Because I learned I have always been in school to learn. I've always been in school to learn. And I knew that if I was too distracted by the grades, that I wouldn't take academic risks that I wanted to take. I wouldn't do creative things that I wanted to do. I was in what I was, in my first semester, my first trimester. And in graduate school, I had four... three? Four journals assigned to like three different three or four different teachers, and every single one of them wanted us to keep a journal. Because that's what seminary is like, sometimes. I had one professor who was like, Listen, you can, if you don't want to keep a written journal, because I know you're doing a lot of writing, and you just got here. Any of you can choose to keep some other kind of journal, just check in with me, and let me know what you're doing. So this was back in the last days of film photography. So I had this little tiny, Canon micro compact, 35 millimeter camera that my parents had gotten me in fifth grade for a trip to Gettysburg, and it was still operational. And I carried it around in my pocket everywhere. And I took all these pictures of Chicago. I didn't really like Chicago, but I took all these pictures of Chicago looking for the beauty in the city. I would never have taken that risk if I had thought that Oh, my God, I have to make sure I get an A in this class. Yeah. So how I'm going to bring us back to the how do we shift it question because I think it's so important. And I think everything that you and I are both pushing uphill about would be like a third of the weight. If we could shift it, if we could bring- and.... Mostly I work with leaders that are trying to form organizations and communities, that are trying to do it differently. One of my clients was literally the company is called the New Fashioned Company, because she was that committed when she formed the company. She was that committed to making sure that she did things differently. And she figured if you put it in her name, she could never forget that. And she has a great organization and the people there are wonderful and I had a great time working with all of them. But but the how do we shift the zeitgeist? So it's not just you know, 10 companies owned and run by women of color that are doing this work?

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's I always jokingly call when I do professional development for schools or companies, I always say I want to call the PD arm of my of my company, "PD that doesn't suck, LLC," because my professional development doesn't suck. Right? And so much of it does, right. And so what what I would have us do as a way of reframing these conversations, right, is imagine we were going to plan a theme party. Right? So pick a theme, Leela pick a theme, whatever theme you want, right? What should our theme be for our theme party?

18th century costuming?

Let's go. I love it. I'm here for it. Now guess how much on a scale of one to 10. I know about 18th century costuming?

Probably not much, it's a pretty niche interest,

you would be absolutely correct about that. So that is going to put me in a traditional model, in a power down perspective. Right? I don't know what you know, ergo I have less power. Right. But there are skills I have, there are things I bring to the table that are that are power neutral that exist intrinsically to me. Right? So I'm good at mixing drinks, right? Could we have cocktails at our 18th century theme party?

Im sure that there are 18th century cocktails you could probably watch Max eating history on YouTube and find out what the cocktails should be.

All right. So I even if I'm not passionate about 18th century costuming, you could put me in an ascot and one of those cool Revolutionary War, waistcoats. And I could make you know I can make you a Gin Fizz. I'm not sure I you know, whatever fun placeholder we could come up with.

a shrub.

Right? Maybe it's not something It sets my world on fire. But you found the overlap between the thing you want to do and my skill set. Right? And then

For the listeners who can't see his hands. He's definitely doing the Venn diagram

The Venn diagram thing, right? Yes. Yeah, I'm both Italian and ADHD and from New Jersey, talking with my hands. If you had handcuffed them to my chair, I'd be like errrrr, I couldn't do it.

It's as good as a gag.

But that's the thing. And then, so we put people in situations to succeed based on their skills and interests. And then we reset those conversations every time we do something new. Right? Because sometimes, you know, sometimes the the skills apply across different things, right? Someone who's good with Financials can probably always be your financial person. Right? But sometimes, you know, if we switched our 18th century costume party to a craft beer extravaganza, I want to host that thing. I love craft beer. I will talk to you about that until you're blue in the face. Right? So I'm not going to bartend that party. I'm going to emcee that party. Right? I can, I would still be a good bartender. But I'm an even fitter fit, an A plus fit this other thing. Part of having healthy schools, healthy communities, healthy organizations, is you know, my favorite word is nimble, you got to be nimble. And the nimbleness allows us to shift constantly within the dynamic changes of assignments, roles, tasks, and people. Based on the things that come our way. Right?

A lot of people don't like change. What supports individuals in being more nimble. Like if I'm a leader, and I want to be more nimble, but I can feel that resistance every time I have to do it. What will help me be more nimble? What will help me be better at it?

So one of the things that's going to help you be more nimble is to is to invert the question of what works, right? How many times in your life have you been successful when somebody told you what to do? And how many times in life have you been successful when someone gave you some ownership gave you a voice a seat at the table? Right?

It really depends on how much I know about it?

Well, right. And those are sort of the reframe questions that start us thinking in this way. Because we can't snap our fingers and get people suddenly okay with this. It's a process. But often what I tell organizations is like, listen, the way you're doing it, is it working for you? And they're like, Well, no. And I'm like, then really, what do you have to lose? Right, one of the most powerful mental reframes that exist, is "I already don't have the thing I want. So if I go after it, the worst thing that happens is nothing changes." If you don't have a healthy organization, and you make some changes to empower your employees towards having a healthy organization, you know, if you swing and miss well, you your organization is what it was.

The mission isn't suffering, right?

It can literally only improve. And if you allow that reframe to take root, you realize that you are far more empowered to change than your anxiety brain might be telling you. Because your brain'll be like, well if you tried to change, everything will go terrible and you'll die. Like and listen, that's a nonzero chance, like you, you might, it might go poorly for you.

So what I hear you saying underneath this, I'm trying to get to the next level down. And what I hear you saying is that people need to be, people need to feel either safe or secure, or like the risk is low. Something in that neighborhood. Can you go into that a little more explicitly? Right?

Because when we when we move from a place of- Okay, so one some language that's helpful to do this is moving from anxiety to fear, right? Anxiety keeps us stuck, right? It's fight flight or freeze, right? So we're going to anxiety freezes us because it's like, well, what if this will What if this well, what if this well, what if this. and it's paralysis by analysis? Fear gives us permission to move. Fear is flight. Right? You know, I often say people it's like if a bear burst into your living room right now, what would you do with it? And there like well I would run for my life. Of course you would, because there's a bear in your living room. Right?

Well, we hope that you would do so in a slow enough way that you didn't get the better and after you.

Yeah, right. Ah, that's that's bad. Right. But the idea here is weirdly, it's getting this gets back to what like when people leaders are more anxious, they tend to over surveil, right, nobody likes to be surveilled. It's acknowledging that, that we're always going to be a little anxious. That we can't live a life without anxiety. But if we accept that the anxiety will always be there, then all we can do is move forward in a way where we feel more empowered to deal with it. Right? Because what we're doing right now doesn't work. Right. So if we allow ourselves to try something new to, to think outside the box, what ends up happening is the worst case scenario, the anxiety is still there. The best case scenario is we develop some coping strategies, you work with it, you know, that come back to things like trust? Open communication, right? And, you know, I mean, listen, I work with a lot of teens. And I carry a lot of their secrets. Right? And, and their parents were like, Well, are they doing bad things? I'm like, of course they are. Because they're teens. That's what teens did. Do. I was a great kid, and I still did stuff I wasn't supposed to do, because that's what part of being a teenager is. Right? Being a successful parent of a teen being is really about anxiety management, right? You can live in a space of, I am letting some of the little things go, the anxiety. So if something serious happens, my kid will come to me. Ergo the fear, right? Your kid might have had a sip of beer in the woods one time. And if you let that go, your kid is gonna be that much more likely to call you from a party, where their person who's supposed to drive them home was really drunk. Right? And from an organizational perspective, right? Trusting your employees that they may go on their phones, while they're on the clock sometimes means that if they are drowning, overwhelmed at work, they're more likely to ask for help. Because you haven't nitpicked them to death. You've shown like, we don't need to be perfect to be worthy of trust. Right? Our flaws make us interesting, make us valuable, they don't diminish our worthiness, our trustworthiness, anything like that. And the healthiest organizations understand that there are ways to accommodate that that don't hurt morale, that don't hurt the bottom line, they don't hurt productivity. That actually empowers us all to do better by treating each other with empathy and respect.

So if you could create better conditions for leadership so that leadership will create better conditions for the kids, for the students, for the people in their systems? What conditions would you create for the leadership?

The conditions I would create is, is the gift of time. When we get sped up, as educators, as parents, as mental health professionals, as podcasters, as leaders, that's when we make mistakes. Because we're moving from a place of anxiety. Right? It's hard to think best when we are panicked. So, you know, one of the things when I worked for the sales company, one of the things they did so well, is that after every season, sales season ended, there was a couple of days, where we just took a breath as a company. Like yes, the phone still rang. And we're responding to emails and stuff like that. But the new sales goals didn't start for four to five days, depending on how the calendar fell. And I don't know how intentional that was. But it was one of the things as an employee, I remember thinking, I was like, Oh, this is so smart. Because I can't just jump into another season, I've got to decompress. We've got a level set here. And what you'd find is that leads to a healthier thing. So as a organization, you know, taking the time to have staff meetings, to connect with people, whether it's within teams, as a company, as a, you know, as an organization, the time you invest in those things, repeats itself with a healthier organization, happier employees. So I would give people the gift of time, because what that does is it creates those deeper relationships. People feel more empowered feel people feel like they can ask for the things they need. So they get them so they do better, right? It becomes that virtuous cycle. But if we're all sprinting towards that finish line, I can't ask you for something because I'm too busy running and you can't hear me because you're too busy running. So it's really, it's like let's step out of that capitalist death spiral and say, let's do a scootch left. Let's lose a little quantity to gain significant quality. And, and I think you're not going to lose much money for it. If anything, I think you actually would make more in the end, because you're moving from a place of, I trust you as my employees to invest the time in you. And I trust us as an organization that we can take a day off from the grind, to reconnect as a staff as a team. To reset to have a meeting to get charged up. And we're all yes, we're all going out to dinner, and it's going to be awesome. And yes, it's gonna cost the company $37,000. Because that's a lot of chicken fingers for a lot of people, right. But people are going to come back in on Monday ready, raring to go ready to jump through a brick wall for you. Because you've treated you you never forgot to You didn't forget to treat them as people. Right?

Right. It's not the pizza party solution, which some people reasonably complain about it. It's, it's about remembering that your people are people, and making sure that you can take care of them in the way that you need to. So imagine, with me, that it's 30 years out. 30 years from now, you and I and all the people like us have been working our tails off to make the world a different place. And we have managed to get where we need to go. We've managed to get to the tables and get into the boardrooms. And we have made a solid case, we've made a solid enough business case that we've actually shifted the system. What's it like to live in a world where we've managed to de marginalize everybody?

When we've de marginalised everybody it means that anybody can knock on any door they want, and have a fair chance to get in. And I say chance. Not that there should be gatekeeping. Right? But, but there are questions of pragmatics, right? Like, you know, just because I want to go to Harvard doesn't mean I can go to Harvard. Right? But true, de marginalization means that, you know, from the richest kid from the richest town in America, to a kid growing up in the poorest city in America, or shoot, in the world, has a legitimate pathway to get to the places they want to go. Right. And, and this is where, you know, I try to center a lot of my work in equity around this idea. It's like, nobody is more privileged than me. Right? I am a cisgender, heterosexual white male with no visible disabilities, who has a doctorate. You know,

Yeah you're pretty high up on the list.

I feel like there's not much, you know, there's not much I'm missing, right? Like, I am, I am a little bit taller than the average, I'm within average weight, I am relatively good looking like, there are like, I'm checking a lot of privileges. Right. And, and people expect people like me to be in charge, right? There's just that's one of those cognitive biases we talked about before. Now, I'm going to use that to build a bigger table, not a higher fence. Right? Because I cannot sit here from my position of privilege on privilege mountain up here, going, Oh, I therefore have better ideas than everyone else. Because I don't, that doesn't mean my ideas are bad. Right. But I will be the first to acknowledge my path to this table has been shorter and easier than a lot of other people's. Right. So we are going to remove a lot of the systemic barriers. We're going to open more doors, we're going to grease some skids. We're going to put some more stuff down hill for people, right? Because my goodness, like when we can put more voices in the choir the choir always sounds better. You know, and golly, I mean, like, you know, so a de marginalized world means everybody gets to play.

Yeah. Yeah. When I imagine that, it's a really complicated imagining.

Yes.

Because the more things you imagine, the more things I imagine. De marginalizing, the more things there are that could be, the more inclusiveness could be. I have a colleague, CB Beal, who has a framework called Preemptive Radical Inclusion. And they

ooo I like that.

it's amazing, definitely look them up. And and they do incredible work specifically around the kind of 360 inclusion. And it changes everything. We just did. I just, I've been interim directing a small organization for the last year, and we just had our conference. And one of the things that this organization is really committed to is inclusion. And so we did, you know, levels of inclusion protocols that most people would not have considered. Especially not for such a small gathering. And it was, it was wild, to see people change what they understood to be possible by experience, rather than by theory. Not, oh, well, we could but, but to have people actually show up and be fully included. And, and so I imagine that, that a world where even if we haven't managed, everybody, we've managed much more orders of magnitude more than we do now. Is a world where every decision is probably more complicated. Everything we do is probably more complicated and simultaneously, infinitely simpler because there is no debate.

Right? And, and, I mean, I would see that our theme party exercise fits into that pre emptive radical inclusion, because if we ask everybody, what do you want to do? What do you feel comfortable doing? What are you willing to do? At our party, then more people are gonna say, I want to be in charge of the party. More people are gonna say, I just want to buy tablecloths and go home, right. But right now, we are assuming that certain people want to buy the tablecloths and certain people want to be in charge. And we're only meaningfully asking some people if they want to change, right. Like, we have to commit to asking everyone. Just like from a mental health psychology perspective, we need to test every kid in this country for learning differences, right? Because there are kids in rural areas and urban areas in, you know, in the Bible Belt, in the rust belt, you know, in Pacific Northwest in everywhere, that are neurodivergent. Who aren't getting noticed, because they don't fit preconceived notions, and thus, they're not getting the services they desire. Right. And, you know, IQ tests are a flawed measure. I'll be the first to tell you, but it is a tool that allows us to learn more about how kids operate within systems. And the more we know, the better we can serve them. And I don't see any downside there.

I'll go you one better. I believe that everybody needs accommodations, just some people are already getting them.

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes. To that. Absolutely.

And I believe we need to examine how we structure our learning environments, how we structure our extracurricular environments, how we structure our companies, how we structure our nonprofits and our third spaces to ask ourselves, which accommodations aren't here yet? Who is getting their accommodations? And who is not?

Right? I might steal that from you.

Just credit me.

Yeah, you got it. Right. Now, that's I mean, that's absolutely true. Right. And, you know, and what that does, is it normalizes, you know- it's the it's actually the it's like the line from Incredibles, like, "if everybody's super, nobody will be." But if everybody's special then everybody's special, right. Let's tweak it a little bit. Right. You know, it's like, not just special needs, but just needs. Right, right.

You know, one of the lines in my business is everybody's needs should get that all the time, including as the leader, yours.

Right. And that, that's it, it's, it's beautiful. It's radically simple, right. And I think it's so easy to tie ourselves up in linguistic and logistical knots. Oh, well, what about these million permutations? The permutations are always going to exist, right? But if we focus on fundamental questions of equity, and accessibility and belonging, then by doing that we answer a lot of the questions downstream. Right? You know, one of you know, I often joke that there's there's no therapy more effective than giving somebody $500,000, a hug and a sack full of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

Yeah,

right. I'm pretty good at my job

I say grilled cheese and kiss on the forehead, but It's the same basic,

you can pick the other two things, but let's keep the $500,000 consistent, right? Because they

Especially when we're in late stage capitalism. Five hundred thousand dollars can solve a lot of problems.

right? And no amount of therapy will change that. You can't CBT your way out of systemic racism.

Absolutely Ding, ding, ding, right, or out of systemic ableism or, you

or systemic neurotypicality. Right. There's, it's- and for those of you who are listening to this, who maybe feel like we're at-ing you just, I don't want to speak for you Leela but I've listened to enough of these that I feel like, I'm on board here is this idea. It's like, people aren't the problem. Systems. We need to fix the way the systems are built. Right? I'm not calling out a singular principle. I'm talking about how education in this country is built. Like, those are the things we need to dismantle. Right. I think you know, me, I get to work with amazing educators all over the country all over the world. I mean, I am consistently awed and humbled by the amazing public educators in this country. Right. I know, I sound like politician right now. But I genuinely mean it. And, and like,

I came up through a public education system that saved my butt. And I had some terrible teachers, but I had a lot of really good ones.

And that's, it's like, we, you know, we throw our energy at dismantling broken or inequitable systems. Right. And, you know, so if, you know, there are tools and resources to get there. Right. And, and there's nothing you know, and asking for help. And acknowledging that you've fallen short, or you didn't know to ask these questions is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. .

Yeah. And imagine how we could be if we asked those questions, and we made the changes, and we did the things. And we can, you know, one of the things I talked about, you know, this, on this podcast all the time is, how can we make the changes right this minute. Like, what can I walk away from my headphones and go do differently, that will make the world a better place that will improve equity that will improve inclusion, that will honor people's gifts and make people less grumpy and resentful toward each other? How can we do that right now? And sometimes the answers are so simple. Not easy, but simple. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for joining me, and for overcoming the technical difficulties. If people want to find you, and hear from you more, what are their options? I know you do a lot of stuff. So I'm not even going to presume to start to list them off.

Well, I, you know, I still see clients in my therapy practice, I'm doing more speaking and consultings. So, you know, I found that, you know, working with one family helps that family; working with a school or an organization or collective or a company helps lots of people. So, you know, our website is the neurodiversitycollective.com. If you punch my name, Dr. Matt Zakreski into Google that comes up. So that's an easy way to find me.

Would you spell Zakreski for people?

Yes. ZAKRESKI. We also have a really fun Facebook community www.facebook.com/drmattzakreski. You know, it's neuro divergence, and LGBTQ and mental health and nerd culture. And, you know, it's just, it's basically my brain on a Facebook page. So if you've liked what I've rambled on for this last hour, then you probably like my Facebook page. And if not, then, you know, we put out good stuff anyway. But you know, I, you know, I, you know, what attracted me to this podcast and to you in general is just, I think we're both passionate about asking the hard questions, and saying, like, what can we do better? How do we take those next steps? And the more we do that, I mean, the better everybody does. So, you know, I mean, if you're somebody who wants to ask those questions, or is willing to hear hard answers to hard questions, then, you know, please feel free to reach out

and be in good company doing it. I could go on a whole extra tangent about the the way that being among other people who are doing the thing makes it easy to do the thing, especially when it's not a popular thing.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.

And I know folks will be looking for you online. It is always a pleasure to get to talk with you. And it was a pleasure this time, so I'm sure everyone will follow up with you elsewhere. Thank you.