ASD Heroes and Where To Find Them

Seeing a neuro-atypical hero who resembles yourself is jarring.
Seeing one that defies toxic masculine stereotypes is thrilling,
bad probably for business.  People prefer reductive stereotypes.

Throughout my life I've been kindly described by friends and family as 'marching to the beat of a different drummer'. In less supportive circumstances I've met people who take an immediate and intense dislike to that difference.  When I was younger this often involved a gathering of like minded people and me getting a beating.  It persists into adulthood and frustrates many of my attempts at socializing.

As an adolescent I tried to harness the anger I was feeling in those beatings and express it physically, but just couldn't. The thought of hurting someone else while I was in a rage was something I couldn't bring myself to do. I recall several instances when a part of me was impassionately observing my assailants. The look of sheer, savage joy on their faces was utterly foreign to me; it's something I couldn't begin to emulate.  Knowing that this kind of viciousness is pretty common in human beings is one of the reasons I'm so cautious with them.  I've yet, at nearly fifty years old, laid knuckles on anyone else in anger, it just isn't in me though I've often wished it were - it would make being male much easier.  I suspect my gender dysphoria is at least in part due to this sense of alienation with what most consider to be appropriate male behaviour.

Being the bottom feeder it is, media is only happy to capitalize on this base, stereotypically reductive male behaviour.  Unless your hero is an aggressive sociopath he isn't a real man.  You'd be hard pressed to find any male hero that isn't written into this bizarre little box and then used as a dimensionless plot device to drive adrenaline fueled violence.  For men looking for another way of being male that isn't founded on this mythology, there isn't much out there.  For a neuro-atypical male the opportunity to see heroes that in any way reflect my experience is pretty much a zero game, I never see anyone like myself on film.

Last weekend we went to see Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the latest Harry Potter film. I'd almost been talked out of seeing it by CBC's movie critic Eli Glasner, who seemed to dislike every aspect of the film, but especially the main character, Newt Scamander, who he described as awkward and unlikeable. I don't disagree with Glasner's analysis of the plot, I think JK(Rowling - the author) tried to fit too much into one film and it gets a bit jumbled (I'd love to see an edited version that cleans up the plot), but when it comes to Eddie Redmayne's character Newt I was annoyed at Glasner's neurotypically prejudiced response to his complex, non-typical heroism. Fortunately, I'm not the only one:

(at 9:12 on): "Newt exhibits the characteristics of someone on the autism spectrum. He's awkward in social settings. He doesn't like being touched. He feels intense empathy for others but has trouble connecting to people and making friends... careful viewers will notice his aversion to direct eye contact.... Newt's social anxieties are not framed in the stereotypical ways we've come to expect from Hollywood."

That description of what ASD can feel like certainly resonates with me.  What a stark difference it is to every other male hero you see in film.  Newt's neuro-atypicality allows JK to avoid the toxic masculine stereo-trap while also presenting a viable alternative hero.  Many examples are shown in the video above of the kind of sociopathic, violent movie hero we show our boys in film.  The majority pick this up quickly and then weaponize it socially as shown in Ontario's recent boys' private school scandal or pretty much any sports locker room.  Fantastic Beasts has managed to side step the stereotypically male hero, but avoidance may also be its downfall.

I'm glad we didn't let Glasner talk us out of seeing Fantastic Beasts.  His dislike of the main character is in tune with criticism found all over especially North American reviews and another reminder of how hard it is to find a male movie hero who isn't toxically reductive.

Fantastic Beasts goes well beyond toxic masculinity by actually showing us a nuanced, non-stereotypical ASD hero, which is quite frankly astonishing, and perhaps unique. The instinctive dislike of him by most people (as evidenced in pretty much every movie review you'll read) reflects my own experience and will be why the franchise fails.  It will become yet another reminder to those on the ASD spectrum, or any male that doesn't want to put on the toxic masculinity society expects of them,of  just how peripheral they are.  Reductive toxic male stereotypes are the only ones that sell.

We're surrounded by toxic masculine heroes that trivialize what being male could mean to all men while at the same time encouraging gender driven violence.  Fantastic Beasts' ASD hero sidesteps this trap and breaks these conventions.  It's a shame that it won't sell to the North American public because it doesn't pander to their prejudices.  Fortunately, it's doing better on the rest of the planet.

ECOO BIT18: Reductionism and Ignorance in Educational Technology

I've been ruminating over the latest ECOO conference for a couple of days now.  Strangely, this technology conference began and ended for me with others suggesting that digital technology is a dangerous waste of time and that we should step away from it in our classrooms.  Looking at my ECOO reflections over the past eight years I'm seeing a clear shift from optimism that we will get a handle on the digital revolution to caution and now a determined luddite push to walk away from it entirely.  The now obviously deleterious effects of the attention economy seem to have produced an unprecedented negativity around educational digital technology in 2018, and ECOO book-ended it for me.

These aren't toys, they're tools!
Calling them toys says a lot
about how YOU use them.

I opened the conference bringing armfuls of emerging technology to Minds on Media.  I've long tried to avoid the 'here's-a-turnkey-tech-tool' presentation because it usually comes with corporate compromises.  That split focus in a lot of 'edtech' means much of it isn't really so much about learning as it is about data collection or closed ecosystems that drive profitability.  Besides, I've long advocated for teachers who push technology to actually understand the technology they are requiring students to use.  That kind of technical fluency means you don't get sucked into absurd situations like giving away student data for a 'free' service or driving students into expensive, proprietary, closed technology designed to make a profit when it inevitably breaks.

As in previous ECOO MoM demonstrations, I brought a variety of tech from different manufacturers and simply encouraged educators to become aware of an emerging new medium, in this case virtual reality.  I have no agenda and nothing to sell.  I get nothing for showing the technology and don't benefit from anyone buying one thing or another.  This platform agnosticism means I can talk about the tech without prejudice or hidden agenda.  I was happy to be attending another MoM day and looking forward to showing people this emerging medium.

At least I was until Peter went around the room having the stations introduce themselves.  It all went well until we got stuck on one station that repeatedly described what everyone else was doing in the room as 'playing with toys' while describing their own noble pursuit as being 'real' and technology free (though without ICT infrastructure they couldn't have done what they were doing at all).  This attitude isn't new.  A surprising number of educators refuse to leverage digital tools to make their teaching more effective, but to hear someone shit can what everyone else is doing at this edtech conference was shocking.  There was no opportunity to call her out on it then, but I can now:

Too bad we don't teach it like it matters.  Critical Infrastructure.  Jobs in ICT.

This Minds on Media presenter monopolized the microphone to suggest anything digital was essentially meaningless (a toy) and that when people were ready to stop playing with their toys here she was ready to show them something real.  As a technician who trains engineers and technicians to run the world we live in, this made me angry, especially considering it was done at an educational technology conference that should be advocating for technical fluency across our education system in order to understand and effectively participate in the world we live in.  This didn't put me in a great frame of mind to start the conference, but I soldiered on.

Cybersecurity in our classrooms.

I did two other presentations during the conference.  Both were presenting on platform agnostic technology opportunities that would teach students and teachers about a critical infrastructure (cybersecurity) and addressing our collective ignorance of 3d media.  In both cases I was advocating for not-for-profit digitally powerful learning opportunities that would enable Ontario educators and students to leverage the digital TOOLS at their disposal.  This is the opposite of the reductive and now recessive thinking I kept experiencing.

3d media in marketing & learning

There is now a two pronged attack on digital technology in the classroom.  The corrosive ra-ra edtech crowd seems increasingly determined to brand themselves behind proprietary corporate systems designed to deliver technology with no understanding required (and with lots of hidden profit centres), while the increasingly loud anti-tech crowd rises up against them, advocating that we receded from technology because it's a distraction and a waste of time.  Both sides seem determined to ignore a simple fact: we're supposed to be TEACHING students how this all works, not branding them or hiding them in a cave.  What edtech there is seems determined to follow consumerism into the most simplistic and ignorant relationship with digital tools possible.  In 2018 you can get branded or abstain from tech entirely and then feel mighty righteous about it.  Is anyone left just, ya know, teaching it any more?

There are technicians and engineers all around the world who provide digital infrastructure that we all depend on.  These people understand this technology and are much less likely to act like the sheeple who stare slack-jawed at their phones for hours on end.  To digitally literate people this technology is a powerful tool that is enabling us to do everything from gene editing diseases and linking disparate areas of study to creating more efficient critical utility systems.  Digital technology has become a vital part of the infrastructure around us, yet the vast majority of us, including many teachers, are completely ignorant of it.

For some baffling reason we seem intent on ignoring the actual teaching and understanding of these powerful digital technologies in favour of using them with the same perverse ignorance, and now fear, as the general public.  What is our role as educators in terms of technology if we aren't producing technically competent graduates who can successfully navigate and participate in the digital world around them?  By the way, our ignorance of digital technologies is staggeringly bad. If you haven't followed any of the supporting links in this so far, follow that one.

The closing keynote ended the conference by banging the same drum as that 'when you're done playing with these toys come and do something real' comment that kicked it off.  This time one of the engineers of the attention economy that is causing so much damage earnestly suggested that we need to recede from digital activity in order to preserve not just learning but our very humanity!  Rather than acknowledge the potential for digital technology to enhance learning, his entire talk was aimed at retreating from it.

This particular group of Silicon Valley architects now wants to save the consumers they got wealthy commodifying.  I get the impulse.  If I had a bank account full of blood money like that I'd feel bad about it too, but as a means of resolving this technological adolescence we're all living in, it won't work - they can't see past the mess they've made and they certainly aren't approaching it from an educator's mindset - but then neither are the educators.

There was not a single example of how digital technology might amplify or improve learning outcomes - a decidedly odd way to wrap up an edtech conference.  Our speaker went on to encourage the removal of personal technology from the hands of students and get back to a pre-digital time when everything was better.  As a digital immigrant I know that there was no such time.  If you think students weren't distracted in class in the 1980s you weren't a student in the 1980s.  These Silicon Valley wolves can't see people as anything other than the consumer sheep they used to prey on.  I'd hope that teachers see much more potential in their students than these attention peddlars do, but I'm starting to think that vapid consumerism is the only relationship we'll ever have with digital technology.

Invent a crisis and then offer a solution
to it. American business in action.

From an educational perspective digital technology offers a powerful tool for learning, but it doesn't work if the teachers, administrators and government driving it are ignorant of how it works.  If the teachers and parents can't manage the tech, then we can hardly expect students to.  I'd hope that ECOO and other curriculum support organizations would understand that and advocate for understanding and the development of broader technical fluency rather than encouraging willful ignorance.

Hiding digital tools and telling people to ignore the way the world works is a poor way to run an educational system, unless your goal is to produce ignorant consumers.  Instead of running away from the digital revolution that is driving innovation and increasingly managing the infrastructure around us, we should be teaching self regulation of personal technology and comprehension of how it all works in order to generate a genuine understanding the world we're creating.  Teaching effective digital fluency means we're less likely to be taken by the consumerist wolves and are able to effectively use digital tools rather than being used by them.

I'm all for being challenged in my thinking and often go out of my way to try on difficult ideas just to see how they fit.  I've weathered Nick Carr's The Shallows and watched society wobbling under the weight of the robber barons of the attention economy.  Now I've attended an educational technology conference that began and ended with an ignorant and frankly dangerous dismissal of digital technology as a toy for idiots that should just be taken away.  Meanwhile digital infrastructure made that very event happen.  It fed the people who attended it and provided them with the resources they needed to travel to it, yet it isn't worthy of teaching in our schools?  And teaching it is precisely the problem.  We pick up edtech and apply it without teaching it to staff or students, and now we're shocked that it isn't working well?  Sometimes I wonder how educationally aware our education system is.

I've been banging my head against this call for technology fluency for so long that I can't help but feel like this dismissal of technology both by participants and the conference itself in that closing keynote is a betrayal of what I thought were shared values.

I first attended ECOO in 2010.  I joined Twitter, began meeting other technology interested teachers, started blogging and became part of a vibrant online PLN as a result of attending.  Over the years ECOO has given me ideas and offered me a platform to present my own.  What I'd always hoped was an evolution towards greater understanding of the digital revolution we are all living through has faltered now.  We don't want to learn how the world we've built works.  Pro-edtech educators want to keep the curtain firmly in place and leave the understanding and management of technology to others while the increasingly noisy anti-tech crowd are advocating receding from it entirely.  Our only contact with digital technology is through the lens of vapid consumerism and the only response we can have to that other than participating is to run and hide.

I'm frustrated, tired and losing hope in our ability to manage an understanding of the digital revolution that surrounds us.  Education seems particularly incapable of seeing their way out of this digital hole we've dug for ourselves.  The answer has always been to teach technological fluency, but ironically, I'm finding it harder and harder to find an educator who wants to.

Competition Trumps Participation

"Among richer families, youth sports participation is actually rising. Among the poorest households, it’s trending down. Just 34 percent of children from families earning less than $25,000 played a team sport at least one day in 2017, versus 69 percent from homes earning more than $100,000. In 2011, those numbers were roughly 42 percent and 66 percent, respectively."

This isn’t a story about childhood; it’s about inequality."

The Atlantic:  Income Inequality in Sports


I used to love playing sports. Refereeing and coaching at summer hockey camps helped me feed myself in university and I've coached, time kept and ref'd soccer and hockey since I was 10 years old.

As I've gotten older I've found men's leagues echo the pointlessly competitive nature of kid's sports with ex-Junior players playing in D division men's hockey just so they can score half a dozen goals each week and run up the score. It's nearly impossible to find a men's hockey league that isn't populate by assholes.

Max used to love gymnastics, but he ended up getting chased out of it in his pre-teens because the only way to do it was competitively (being female was also increasingly a prerequisite because the entire sport, like all sports these days, orientates itself on the most likely competitive success).

Coaching at school was a way to stay in touch with sports, but that too went sour with student athletes (only the wealthy ones who could afford the time and money to play games and practice after school nearly every day) not showing up to practices and playing with that same pointless competitiveness even when they didn't rate against the opposition.

I'm currently on a hiatus with sports, but I still miss them. I wish I could find a hockey league that wasn't an excuse for men to work out their frustrations on each other. I wish my son could participate in sports for the shear joy of it rather than turning every physical activity into a competition. We'd all be much healthier and happier if we had access to financially accessible and for-the-joy-of-the-game sports.

It's a shame how we've turned sports into an excuse for competitiveness - usually along with the pipe-dream that your kid will one day be made a millionaire for playing a game. Having coached at a competitive hockey camp, it's a tragedy to watch those all or nothing kids not make the cut into professional sports - statistically speaking almost no one does.

Norway sounds like they've got this, like so many other things (they also nationalized their oil reserves and used them to pay off their national debt and offer free education to all its citizens), right.

"Norway’s youth-sports policies are deliberately egalitarian. The national lottery, which is run by a government-owned company called Norsk Tipping, spends most of its profit on national sports and funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to youth athletic clubs every year. Parents don’t need to shell out thousands to make sure their kids get to play. And play is an operative word: Norwegian leagues value participation over competition so much that clubs with athletes below the age of 13 cannot even publish game scores."