The curriculum in schools disrespects neurodivergent learning styles.

Numberblocks Maths Cubes

Autistic brains are incompatible with the curriculum in schools.

At school they do a few minutes of literacy then a few minutes of numeracy.

My kid wanted to do weeks of one thing.

At school they were hiding his favourite Numberblocks from him to encourage him to do other things, but I now realise that it’s deeply distressing for him to be interrupted and change task.

When we were forced to quit school to home educate he chose to play with Numberblocks all day for weeks. (There are physical bricks that clip together, plus a cartoon series, numeracy apps, magazines, worksheets and themed craft sets.)

I now know that he deep dives, that’s how his brain works.

He had no interest in Alphablocks, the literacy equivalent, or letters at all.

It was to be about a year of home education aged 5 / 6 before he showed any interest in learning to read.

Suddenly he got into the Alphablocks, for weeks.

So across the course of a year he still did both Numberblocks and Alphablocks. He also played a lot of video games.

Three years on and he hardly games. He can read fluently, he taught himself.

He has a deep fascination with evolutionary biology and botany and he spends hours searching for lichens on the moors, or researching them at home.

Then he will suddenly switch to being interested in black holes or chemistry for a few weeks.

Five minutes of Numberblocks followed by five minutes of Alphablocks jarred his monotropic mind: He needed to understand all of Numberblocks before moving on.

What if children could choose their own learning paths? What if we trusted children to want to learn? Would we have a rich biodiversity of intelligences?

Gaming taught my child how to deeply concentrate. Age 8 he now applies those skills to biology, physics and chemistry. He creates with clay, hikes for miles to find plants to photograph, listens to funny audiobooks, climbs trees, plays out with the neighbours on his scooter, and cares for his pets. My point is that there is more than one way to be “well rounded” - we don’t need to make children switch tasks continuously. If they are interested in something, they will learn.

With the Schools bill in England scapegoating home educators for systemic failures of the state, I’m speaking up for home education.

We could let the children learn the things that light them up and see what a creative world they build.