Honoring Neurodiversity
When Dr. Edmund Cervone established the Center for Learning at The Pennington School in 1975, he established a mission for the program that still stands today. This mission includes the tenet that students who learn differently, and who have been labeled as learning disabled, should have full access to the same college-preparatory program as their more typical peers. Dr. Cervone envisioned an academic environment that honored the individuality of all learners, both neurotypical and neurodiverse, and he approached teaching so that all students had the opportunity not only to achieve their academic goals but also to attain individual excellence.
At the time that it was first articulated, this vision may have seemed somewhat radical. Even today, there are still those who may think that addressing the needs of students labeled with learning disabilities within a college preparatory setting might compromise the rigor of the academic program. Over fifty years of experience serving neurodiverse students at The Pennington School has demonstrated otherwise, and we remain as convinced of that vision today as Dr. Cervone was in 1975. In articulating his philosophy of learning, Dr. Cervone asserted, "that understanding transcends memorization, verbalization, and coverage, … that processes bear equal value to content, that there are multiple intelligences, … and that the best principles of learning for students with differences or disabilities are the best principles for all students."
Working to continually develop and refine a curriculum that will help students meet the changing demands of college and life in the twenty-first century provides exciting opportunities for educators, and few moments in our history have offered opportunities as exciting as this one. From the perspective of the Edmund V. Cervone Center for Learning, these opportunities go beyond reasserting our founding beliefs about learning. For neurodiverse students, this reframing of educational goals represents a shift away from a sole focus on basic skills that may have been stumbling blocks in the past. Instead, we see a move toward curricular goals that are accessible by their very nature and, increasingly, achievable in ways tailored to each learner. A curriculum that also focuses on higher-order thinking skills, cross-curricular understandings, collaboration, creativity, and real-world problem-solving abilities appropriately challenges all students. And for those who learn differently, that difference can be a strength they can bring to bear in meeting these curricular goals, particularly as new tools emerge that are designed to recognize and respond to that difference.
The concurrent development and further refinement of educational technologies add to the excitement. Assistive technologies remain an essential part of our toolkit. Voice recognition software allows students to use their strong verbal abilities without being hampered by difficulties with written expression, and text-to-speech software makes electronic text accessible to students with reading difficulties. These tools continue to help students get over, under, and around obstacles that once stood between them and their strengths.
But the emergence of artificial intelligence represents something different in kind, not just in degree. While assistive technology has traditionally helped students work around areas of difficulty, AI-powered learning tools can meet students exactly where they are and build from there. An AI tutor can present a concept in many different ways until one clicks for the student. It can adjust pacing in real time, offer practice at precisely the right level of challenge, and translate abstract material into whatever format helps a particular learner make sense of it, whether that's visual, verbal, step-by-step, or big-picture. For neurodiverse students in particular, this means instruction that is not merely accessible, but genuinely individualized: technology that adapts to the student, rather than asking the student to adapt to it.
We approach these tools thoughtfully. AI is not a substitute for skilled teaching, human relationships, or the hard work of learning, and we are careful to help students use it to build understanding rather than bypass it. But used well, AI is not only transforming the way that all students interact with the curriculum; it is also allowing us, for the first time, to tailor learning to each student's individual strengths at a scale and precision that simply wasn't possible before. Dr. Cervone believed that "learning should be a nurturing of success rather than a cataloging of errors." In every way, we should focus on what students can do well, not on what they cannot. We are continually finding ways to help students work to their strengths, and AI innovations and a focus on 21st-century skills are working hand in hand, allowing us to serve all of our students, neurotypical and neurodiverse, better and better all the time. Now more than ever, we can see "that the best principles of learning for students with differences or disabilities are the best principles for all students."
—Jo Prockop, Director of the Edmund V. Cervone Center for Learning
Edmund V. Cervone Endowed Chair