Breaking Barriers and Expectations: The origin of the SEA Bridge curriculum

by Katrina Martin on October 26, 2021

The following is an excerpt from our launch event on 10/21/21. You can watch/listen the excerpt here, or read the transcript below.  

Hi, I am Katrina. I am the founder of Bridges Learning System. I’m going to start by modeling some of what we teach. Self-advocacy. I am great at a lot of things, but one thing that is hard for me is finding my words when I’m nervous. With all that’s riding on tonight’s success this is prime nervous territory for me. So, even though it defies social norms and expectations, I’ve prepared a short speech and will be reading it. This will allow you to have a clearer understanding of what I’d like to convey, and me to feel more comfortable and confident in my ability to effectively communicate my message to you.  

I am beyond thrilled to be bringing this curriculum to the world tonight. It’s been a labor of love by so many.  

While the curriculum started its official development 8 months ago, the ideas that initiated its inception have been rolling around in my brain for decades. I have always found incredible strength in my neurodivergence and hold that a big part of that is that I wasn’t ever taught or treated by my family as though I needed to change. Instead, I was given tools to navigate a world that wasn’t designed for my neurotype and a belief that I was just exactly who I should be, and that I should be proud of the things that make me me.  

As an adult I spent some time wandering the wide world a bit lost and confused. I have always felt drawn to autistic and neurodivergent people and so that’s the field of study that I entered. But with each passing year I questioned more and more the status quo of how neurodivergence is characterized.  

The strengths weren’t discussed, the natural variance that should be expected in the way the human species interacts with one another and their surroundings, wasn’t mentioned. Instead, it was all about change, and not the good kind of change in which the world becomes more accepting of different ways of thinking and being, instead the focus was on changing the people themselves. This obviously was all wrong, but it is the path that many of us have taken to get into this line of work, because for a long time it was the only formal path that existed.  

As someone who has experienced the school system both as a participant and a researcher I can tell you firsthand that the prevailing theme is that there is a right and a wrong way to be. As a neurodivergent person, I did the things that I was told I was meant to do all the way through my advanced degree, including speaking in front of large groups of people without notes, though my voice trembled, and I had no idea what I actually said. I spent hours carefully reviewing in detail every email and written document to ensure that I didn’t have was would be viewed as “careless” errors.  

In other words, I bought into neurotypical social expectations. Because even though I was taught in my home life that I was just who I should be, I was also educated in a system that told me that to be taken seriously I must be “better” than who I was authentically.  

This idea that there is one correct type of brain, the neurotypical brain, is not only incredibly damaging to neurodivergent individuals, but it also does an incredible disservice to the human species as a whole. Diversity in ways of thinking and being is a gift to our community, not a flaw to be extinguished. Yet all societal standards still imply that some ways of being, communicating and interacting are superior to others.  

Unfortunately this flows through all of the existing curricula around social emotional learning. Curricula specifically designed for neurodivergent children both explicitly and implicitly teaches that Neurotypical ways of communicating, and interacting are the gold standard that all should strive toward.  

There is no room for debate, requiring, expecting, asking or suggesting that one should sacrifice their authenticity in order to meet the ableist assumptions of those around them, is indefensible.  

For a time, I thought perhaps I could be a covert operator that managed to change things from the inside. But the more I pushed a different way of thinking about disability the more I was pushed aside. Eventually, I realized, a new way must be forged, from the ground up. So, I leveraged my neurodivergence and made a nearly impossible plan.  

I surrounded myself with passionate, talented out of the box thinkers to create an unstoppable team.  It was exceedingly important to us to not only include Autistic and Neurodivergent folks in the beginning of the process but throughout the development of both the curriculum, and our company. As a company our employees are a neurodiverse team made up of Autistic, Neurodivergent and Neurotypical people, all working together. In our team we practice what we teach. Each of us advocates for our needs and bring our unique skill set and lens to our work. I am truly honored to be working as a part of this team.  

So we began, we immersed ourselves in the Neurodiversity movement and worked tirelessly to align our curriculum to those goals. We started by redefining disability and with it what we hoped students would learn.   

We discarded the medical, deficit-based model of disability which only serves to “other” people. In it’s place we adopted the social model of disability which holds that social constructs and environments are what need to change not the individual themselves. As a team we vowed to create a product that was fully informed by the community, sustainable and practical for educators, all while being meaningful and fun for students.  

For us fun isn’t just about making something amusing. Instead, all of our materials are intentionally designed to be engaging and relevant. There are no flashcards in our curriculum. No dry rote tasks. Instead, children are taken on an adventure to the land of the Insight Sprites, where they will find a charming cast of neurodivergent characters who they will quickly and easily connect with and learn from. 

Over the past year I have spent countless hours dismantling my own ableism and creating materials to help others do the same. A big part of my journey has been stepping back from my role as the perceived expert and more fully listening to the voices of the Autistic and Neurodivergent community. In just a few minutes Kat will tell you all about how we worked with the community to create every aspect of the curriculum. Unlike research that determines what is different about neurodivergent kids and seeks to “fix” them, we approached the development of our curriculum by starting with what the community wants, this has allowed us to truly meet the needs and desires of the people that we are serving.  

What we came up with is nothing short of revolutionary. Today we are launching a curriculum organized around 40 workshops that have been specifically designed to fit easily within the Individual service provider, small-group model. All aspects of the curriculum were designed to support student learners while helping educators and caregivers reframe their way of thinking about neurodivergence.  

SLPS, OTs and Mental Health Counselors will find, within the SEA Bridge Curriculum, that everything they need is at their fingertips in order to support students in becoming their authentic selves.