Building 2e Micro Schools Online

Traditional education systems suppress the natural gifts of twice-exceptional (2e) children - their holistic intelligence, pattern recognition, and heightened sensitivity. As we enter the AI era, these very qualities are becoming more crucial than ever. The system continues pushing outdated methods like memorization, even as AI makes such skills obsolete.

As parents, who both understand these challenges firsthand, we are creating micro schools focused on nurturing rather than suppressing their children's natural abilities. These schools will be project based and will embrace AI as a tool while preserving students' natural cognitive flexibility and holistic intelligence. 

We are inviting other parents who sense something is wrong with traditional education to join us in protecting and cultivating our children's innate gifts.

The core message is clear: We must stop breaking sensitive, gifted children to fit an outdated system. Instead, we need to create environments where their natural intelligence - both cognitive and somatic - can flourish. Our children's future depends on maintaining their wholeness, not fragmenting it. 

Interesting in our 2e Micro Schools? 

Find out more by emailing us at info@giftednd.com and will start including you on our monthly planning meetings.

Transcript

Building Micro Schools For 2e

Lillian: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the gifted neurodivergent child podcast. I'm Lillian Skinner. Today, I'm back together with Beth Anne Johnson. That's right. She's back. We had a little bit of a break cause Beth Anne , but she's back again. . Her oldest is in Montessori, which is a switch from the last time she was here. And what do you think of that Bethann? 

Oh, Montessori is just like an answer to a long winded journey to get here. And. It's just the perfect solution to what my heart was longing for. 

 my youngest is at home. 

So we do accidental homeschool , with my youngest, who's just a year and a half, and then my oldest goes to Montessori eight to noon. Monday through Friday. 

Oh, awesome. My youngest thinks that her boys are the cat's Meow and is always asking when we're going to go see them next, even though it's six hours of driving. I [00:01:00]

Beth Anne: love that. 

 Lillian: I can ask Beth Anne to do this podcast with me because we just had a big, election in the U S. While the outcome doesn't really change the trajectory of the path that we're on. It may speed it up. So we need to. Start speeding up what we're doing. I think this election means that we have moved in fully to the next era. 

We're at a crucial turning point in education. And we're not going to turn, that's the key thing is that. We're going to settle in. We're going to get entrenched. I've seen. News article saying that the Trump might be defunding our education department. 

 that indicates to me that if we're going in any direction, it's not going to be one that modernizes it, but rather one that goes backwards with it. That locks it down that makes it more harsh and more cruel. 

And my children will be destroyed in that sort of scenario. And they have incredible potential to navigate the future with ease because of [00:02:00] their sensitivity. 

We were told that if we handed our children over to the system, or at least generations ago, they were told this. That they would use science to make their children as smart as possible. Well, they actually did though. Was you science to make children who are easiest to. Control. The smartest. That's a very different thing. The children who are most impressionable in most likely to do what the system wanted them to do was the ones that they valued. 

The ones that are creative, the ones that were critical thinkers. They have been devalued . 

 The people who have the potential Virginia's no longer can even fit into the system. They were destroyed by it. We know this because we don't have any, and yet we have 8 billion people in the world. We know this because there doesn't seem to be any savant. 

And here I am saying, I come from a family of them and I can tell you what happens to them. They're destroyed. I have three children who are prodigies and they cannot [00:03:00] fit into our system. They are not great students. People think that we get straight A's. No, we just skip a lot of grades, but we're solid B students because we can't understand it. Because it 

doesn't work in our dimensional thinking, our higher dimensional thinking. 

If you have or were one of these children. You can feel in your bones. that this does not work for them. That's why you're listening to this podcast. because this podcast is for those of us who are twice exceptional, twice gifted, and you know, your child is struggling and there's nothing wrong with them. 

Lillian: That they're actually. Brilliant. So why are they not showing this? Why is everything working against them? 

 Why are they being broken rather than educated or growing? 

These are. The results of the system it's meant to crush us for sensitivity. It's meant to destroy our holistic intelligence, which has been proven in study . 

We're not serving our children. they need creativity. You know, that's not what [00:04:00] we're giving. So Beth Anne and I are coming together to make sure that our children can maintain what they need, their cognitive flexibility, their pattern recognition and that incredible connection of emotions between mind. and body. Because it is not energies. That these children are working with. It's a full flood flooding of emotion and that flooding of emotion is the neuro-transmitters delivering the pattern recognition, the memories, all the data they have from their subconscious to their conscious . 

 Without having that cultivated. Your child's working on a small part of their intelligence because all of the patterns that they've learned in their lifetime and how it all comes together and how you survive and thrive in change is being cut off so that they can be slotted into a system. That is falling apart. 

What is your take. Bethann? 

Beth Anne: Yeah, so when you are a diversity working professional, which we [00:05:00] are, right? Your specialization is neurodivergence. for the last few years I've been, an educational consultant in this world. And so when you work with those with diversity identities, and you see how. Systemically, we oppress folks, right? And that trauma. We're not surprised when realities exist, like this election result.

Now, what makes us sad is those folks who cannot afford options, right? That's the harm. So we see, but like you said, regardless of what comes of the outcome, The future we're trying to prepare for is education that helps our sensitive kids manifest their strengths rather than remaining in this two dimensional learning, , and forcing them to mask, to code switch, to alter who [00:06:00] they are and not be in a room as their authentic selves. And ultimately that's the biggest freedom that we want for our kids. So that's my take on it. I love the story of when We were in a session and we were talking I asked you, how do you know you're a 3D thinker? , tell me what that's like. 

 You asked me to describe a piano. And so the cool thing is, there's so much I learned about myself by seeing this piano. So I was in an auditorium, sitting in the audience, looking at the stage. I saw a baby grand piano, because what not, that's the most iconic. Looking piano, right? And then you're like, okay, take note of the details. 

 So I'm thinking through what do the keys look like what the color of the piano is. Really getting those details, right? So I started in the big picture, went into the details. that's how I see, right? I see from big picture to details. Then I think the funny component, and this is why we make [00:07:00] such a great team, is the moment you told me to say, or the moment you described, okay, tell me about the piano.

I took that beautiful scenery that I had illustrated and translated it to a sight card. I think when we work in industry. As creatives, that's often what we are required to do, right? We naturally see in this 3D world and then if we're capable, translate it to this 2D process. And what we want for our kids is to allow that 3D process, that 3D learning, that 3D component to manifest so that they can become As ultimately gifted As they are. 

Lillian: What she just described is basically the evidence of how they break us. What we are taught is a test for neurodivergence, but really it is a test for whether or not we have been broken [00:08:00] by the system. 

 As children, we all are. 3-d thinkers. which means we didn't get broken. Ironically, it's the test for those of us who didn't diverge. It's a test for those of us. Who stayed the same. We still learn as toddlers. We still immersively learn, and that is a gift and they take it away. 

We were promised in our first system that if we conformed. If we did the standardization. We would have stability. We would get credentials in the system and we would have jobs and it would be good. 

 We would achieve things, , our retirement, all of those things were offered to our grandparents, or our great. Grandparents and they gave our parents up to the system for childhood so that our parents could be educated in a way and provided with a path that these children could take. but If your children are like ours , if they are 2e there was never a path for them. 

There is no path for the twice exceptional, all the paths for the, for those who are broken. The twice exceptional can't be broken. they are the creatives. And so they [00:09:00] gave passed to the. The creatives that were we're only exploitive, only ones that broke towards their cognitive . So we see actors, we see musicians. We see these people achieving amazing things. But they lose their minds in the process. 

Almost no one does well, unless they come from a stable, wealthy family who has in's nobody regular makes it up there. There is no rags to riches stories. every child who did have one in the past was twice exceptional and the cost to them was profound. The illusion of predictable futures was never true. We didn't have them. And now we will have a magnified version of unpredictable futures because we pretend that they did because we damage the environment. So the cost of following their path. Is profound. A single generation got retirement? that cost, their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren. Any the chance of [00:10:00] doing that. Degrees today are worth less than the debt. And soon they will be really worth less because they'll be 2d, and I don't see any value of a 2d education system with AI. 

Jobs are disappearing for our children. Gen Z is the poorest generation ever in modern history. they are struggling with not having enough to eat, having decide if they were going to eat or they're going to pay their rent . . 

 What is our system's offering these young people? What are they going to offer our children? It seems like nothing other than punishment. And if your children don't comply, there is no way for them to be successful. We are looking at a system similar to China's where you have to be a good citizen or you have no possibility of being able to partake in the system. That is scary. so we must create something so that children, our [00:11:00] children and other children. Have a chance. Even if its surviving by teaching other people, how to find their holistic intelligence again . this intelligence is the only thing that will keep us alive in chaotic change. In constant. Environmental upset. 

Beth Anne: What's beautiful is we are now raising a generation of kids, that maybe their genetics are holding that truth, right? Like, you will not break me. So I chose the previous care program for my oldest because kids were going there and thriving the moment they hit the local public elementary school.

And now I understand why. if you have been following along on my parenting journey, you know that I was at this crossroads of do I leave this program with a shortage of care in the United States and limitations to what care options I have, , or do I [00:12:00] stay and. I had to leave because their end goal was to break my child and it became really obvious.

 Some teachers will tell you, oh. Your child didn't want to do circle time today. You might be as a parent like, oh my gosh, I need them to do circle time. But to me, that is a child thinking critically that doesn't want to be controlled. Proper boundaries, right? And respecting the autonomy where appropriate, right? We can't have kids running into the street, things like that. But, that's where Montessori really enhances the component of individual learning, individual exploration and individual thinking, right? So the thing that's missing when our 2D programming and our cognitive programming in our public schools is that component to think critically. To think creatively, and to build that now, right? So, when I was an educator, I [00:13:00] would have students in college. That could do a checklist, right? They could complete the checklist and be totally execute it and execute it well, however, if I told them to write the checklist. They couldn't do it. That's a concern when an 18 to 22 year old cannot think critically and creatively to come up with a process to execute a project.

That's problematic to me, and I don't want that for the future of my children. Right. So what are we going to do instead? And that's where these schools are going to come in as well. 

Lillian: Beth Anne has given a beautiful example of young people today, and why they're struggling because AI is going to prevent them from getting a job. Because it's. , it's not feasible for them. If they don't know how to make it get checklist. And they're literally competing with the AI instead of using it as a tool. If they can't figure out how to make things as simple as a checklist, [00:14:00] they're very handicapped by our system. 

And this is exactly what our system's doing. It's not changing. I've talked to teachers, I talked to parents. They're not doing what they need to profoundly change to start being creative. Taking kids on a few more field trips. giving them a couple of hands on things. When they still make them sit in the school seat all day, they're still drugging them. They're still putting them in all of these things that do not teach them how to expand their knowledge. But it's all about repressing. Their innate intelligence. I don't see how these children are ever going to do much. Good. 

 We also need to talk about the fact that many large corporations, if we're having disaster after disaster, and they're only concerned with the short term. They're not. Going to invest in educate. and teaching and training young people. 

They're going to burn out everybody. That's a little bit older. That's been there for awhile and knows stuff and replace them as soon as AI allows [00:15:00] that. 

 I've seen papers calculating when the exact moment is that they can stop paying a salary and switch over to AI. With that person's knowledge, how to extract it from people. It is. Cruel and indifferent what our systems are and what they are going to do. 

the system Teaches us how to only do what we're told it. Doesn't teach us how to figure out what our gifts are. Go into them, blow them out. And be the best at them. This is all gone. if we have a system that's switching over from 2d to 3d plus. And nobody in the system knows even what that. the only place is there an education will be gotten is out. Side of it. And I actually mean. Literally outside. Of it, because when I go through this research and I've been doing this with my own children, The place our children need. the systems keep saying it's too expensive. but really, truly it's free outside. [00:16:00] If we stick them in nature, if we stick them with 2e peers, even if it's on zoom. It's enough because all they need is each other. All they need is our help to figure out and use their super focus and special interest. 

 What we have been told about super focused in special interest is backwards. Super focused is the highest form of integrated intelligence. It's the highest cognitions of both your somatic and your cognitive. Working together to learn new materials. 

It is the highest functioning form. And we pathologize that and our systems. Special interest is the highest form of learning empathy and curiosity. Because empathy is what drives all of this profound interest in wanting to know about and learn . . 

 We are formed by nature. The most sensitive people are not products of the system because it's too simple. Nature and its complexity is what forms us . 

My interoception internal patterns are triggered , by the world around me. And I'm like, I know this pattern. Why [00:17:00] do I know this pattern? it's something deep inside me that knows this pattern. because I know this pattern in my body, I also know what will happen next when I see it repeat outside of me. but I have been stymied from learning this my entire life. 

Beth Anne: And we pathologize our kiddos, which is problematic, right? because They're not a disorder to fix. It's just a matter of working with the boundaries that their body and their intelligence needs. , I think that's one of my favorite things about being a social scientist, right? Is we can use the tools of psychology to name what we're experiencing. But then we can borrow from the other sciences to come up with a creative, strategic solution to what you need. And adapting your specific. Needs according to what works best for you.

And that's the benefit of micro schools there's that very individualized component of [00:18:00] saying, I see you holistically, I see you wholeheartedly. We borrow from all of the sciences to build the best programming for you and the best solutions for you. And I think that's what's , really beautiful and what gets me excited about what we are going to do.

So, absolutely. 

Lillian: The thing you said about borrowing from psychology, the social science and science, itself. That is exactly what the schools break. That is holistic thinking. When you're pulling from science and social science, or story in science. Holistic intelligence is broken in the schools because it separates science and math and English and history. 

It's the separation of those that breaks apart our holistic intelligence. So we send our children to school all day to be destroyed of their holistic intelligence. those who are twice exceptional, those who are the outliers cannot be wiped of it because our brains are hard wired in that way. 

 They [00:19:00] talking about holistic intelligence all over the place, but nobody's researching it holistically. Nobody's doing it from a big picture perspective or top-down and bottom-up. They're all doing it within the confines of their silos. So I can just cherry pick all of this information that points to what I know and am researching and show you how it supports it . Really mainstream shows like Dr. Drew and Andrew Nurnberg, a neuroscientist, talking about holistic intelligence saying, boy, we really wish we could get somebody who understood. I'm thinking I can tell you how it works, because this is how our neurodivergence works. but no one. Can see what's right in front of their face. 

 in foresight and futurism they're talking about this world full of technology and we're going to live on other planets, but we are not recognizing the fact that our energy growth is what is driving the problems. Our use of oil, our constant increasing need for energy. None of that is realistic. You can't [00:20:00] trust the system because everything that they're researching is not encompassing the reality of the world outside of what we think we can continue. To make, because this is what we've been doing making, without any regard for nature. We Can't continue this way. And yet we're continuing it's business as usual. 

 When I look out into the future. I have a plan for that, and I know 2e fits. When I look into our systems. I don't see any fit. 

The system is breaking. and for everyone else, it's going to wear them out. They're going to get worn down. But for our sensitivity, it drives us out because we can't handle it. We can't live in it. It's too much of an assault on every part of our being. but that same sensitivity allows us to actually create our own paths. That allows us to get in front of things and see what's coming. And then. Go into it. 

I have never been really afraid because I can always come up with a [00:21:00] solution. It doesn't matter how severe it is, even now. I can come up with a solution because this is what I have done. 

I figured out how my children and I am actually moves through the world and how it will save us. 

Beth Anne: So you see so far into the future, , that is your strength. , for someone who might be stuck in the present. This could feel like I know something's off, but I don't know what it is. I'm concerned about the censorship of books and the libraries, right?

The library was such a safe space for me as this highly sensitive kid. And, , books were such a component of the loneliness. Like when you are an outlier, you can feel so lonely and books always helped me. feel so less alone, right? And then, , we're always fighting for artistic, funding in our schools because it's the first to be sacrificed often in that budget.

 [00:22:00] And you might have an inkling, you might have your body is humming and you're like, what's going on? I don't understand. I want to put my kids in a safe space. Right. Our kids feel like political leverage and, , or sitting ducks in our schools. Right. And when we drop our kids off at public schools, it's very othered, right?

Like you are, as the parent walking in, you are considered, just an outsider. So even like your limitations of entering that school, you're not a co conspirator on your child's learning. Or so it feels like to me when I go into the public schools, there's concern there. And I think one of the books that you told me about that really resonates with me too.

So again, if you're in the present and you can't see into the future that we can see, John Taylor Gatto wrote a book called Weapons of Mass Instruction, [00:23:00] right? So it's, again, talking about that 2D component of our education systems, the cognitive learning, but it's also really grooming our kids to not think critically and to conform and produce, right? , that's our ultimate fear is that they just become producers for a historically White patriarchal capitalistic world, right? So what do we want to do instead? Well, we want to have these micro schools where it's project based learning, where we have community of folks that can mentor our kiddos.

And again, it builds into that Montessori component of like self directed environment. So like your oldest daughter is like, why do I have to do it this way? When I see it this operate. opening up that door for that novel idea, right? , and just like forgetting the limitations of what learning, and I'm air quoting there with my fingers. [00:24:00] learning. 

Lillian: That's a very good point. Actually, we should clarify that this is about creative learning. This is about children learning by doing, by making by learning holistically because creation is holistic. It's the highest form of cognition essentially. Cause it's the integration of your two and , like, you're compassionate empathy is the integration of your cognitive and somatic empathy coming together to create more than the sum of its parts. It's a magnified greater than the sum of its parts. this is exactly what creative intelligence is. 

 If your child is struggling to learn, in the system, by allowing them to create. your using holistic intelligence. You're using their full intelligence, their body and their mind together. 

 They are pushing the boundaries of their knowledge and growing so much faster. The 2d sitting in your seat, being forced to memorize is just cognitive. you're not learning deeply. You're not learning in a 3d manner and you're really not setting your child up for anything other than being told what to do. 

We also need to teach our children how to be happy again, how to enjoy [00:25:00] learning. Learning is a lot of fun. Learning has always been fun. I've always enjoyed learning. And then I go to school and hate it. And it was cause it wasn't learning. . It's forced to be conditioned. We could take it back and teach our children to learn again, to be amazing, brilliant people, because that's what the future requires to navigate, because there'll be so much change in AI is taking over the cognitive. So I'm really lost. Why. Everybody's not screaming this right. But I am, I'm screaming this 

Beth Anne: yeah, as a 10 year career as a public educator. I'm a product of education, of state education. It really is heartbreaking to see the burnout of, myself included, my sisters included, my mother included of educators who are public educators. I've been thinking about like how and why I turned out okay, and I think it's because they.

I had teachers, so shout out to the teachers who are like, I am going [00:26:00] to push the envelope just a bit to do fun components in our classroom. I think you, you really nailed that, right? Like we're going to bring that play that joy and that fun. And the few memories I do have in the positive components of what I had.

In the school system, but into this micro school, and I think the other component is we're really going to bring in community and parents to do so alongside our kids rate, um, and finding other parents who are like minded. And just creating like an alternative system where it's a mutual care and trust right like a gift economy you already mentioned at lunch that.

Indigenous folks , we should really go back to indigenous sovereignty and empowering the components of a gift economy and mutually caring for 1 another. We've got to get beyond this [00:27:00] whole good grades, make a good student. 

Lillian: Yes. Grades do not mean you're smart, grades, mean you're good at. Being a systems tool you're good at 2d and you can regurgitate. But truly right now, everyone trying to be good at is being set up to fail. because AI will always be better. 

The oppression of the creatives. We can't do too much about that now. And it's so ingrained into the very pedagogy of the system, into the curriculums. 

There's not. Enough, you can change about it. to make it valuable. . They can't change. They were built on this foundation because this is what they wanted so that they could create this. whole grand experiment of making us 2d for the industrial revolution. 

 Now we're facing the cognitive revolution. And the very thing that made the industrial revolution so successful we'll break everyone in the cognitive revolution. you can read and listen to. Ted talks by sir. Ken [00:28:00] Robinson. There's many talks out there. I've talked about a book the new smart was one I recommended. There's many books that point to this, but nobody's talking about what Bethann and I are talking about, which is your holistic intelligence and really how profound it is for the twice exceptional. The system is going to serve average. 

I am not average. Beth Anne's not average. We are outliers and we are going to serve outliers. And that is the difference. Everybody's going to try to serve average. I can't. They don't even understand what I'm saying. I don't expect them to. It is time for us to start letting go of average as the ideal. Because there is no ideal. It's time for us to understand ourselves fully, because when we do. Everything about us has a purpose and it makes sense. There's nothing wrong with us. There never was anything wrong with us. We just didn't serve the system. 

Beth Anne: Yeah. Prioritization of our [00:29:00] next generation to think seven generations ahead to build a better world for our kids and to just, , empower intuition. rather than break it. Try really hard not to regret the care program. The very first care program I put my oldest into, cause man that blew up in my face.

I'm writing a whole book on it and I'm really trying hard not to regret it, but it is, , my son, even as an informed person has trauma from that experience. Right. , so these systems really. Do really and he was, that school was condemning him and really pathologizing when it was not their place to do so. And with definitions and diagnosis that were intended to self limit rather than really open up the door for opportunity. And so here's the [00:30:00] message Lillian and I want all parents to have is that your kid has a tremendous place in this future. Regardless of whatever identity, diagnosis, or component they have, , we are building a world for them to thrive.

Lillian: Our focus will be on going into your children's strength. Our focus will be on allowing our children to be what they naturally are because they are geniuses. all they need is an environment like an orchid needs, they need their version of the tropics. Orchid survive in the tropics, but they don't just survive. 

They thrive. They blossom, they grow anywhere. They need nothing. It's amazing how orchids can grow in the right. Zone. It's amazing what our children can do. In the right space.. 

I think this is all I wanted to add for today. Did you [00:31:00] have anything you wanted to add, Beth Anne 

no, I think this was great. 

Okay, then our schools are going to cover ages from a two to 15. Those are the kids' ages that we have right now. We do have other people that are going to join us. But we're looking for more because the goal is we are going to create this with our children. Our children are brilliant. We should go into that. This could be an income source for them. If they're creating and making, they will be able to build portfolios. They'll be able to use what they're making and other children will be able to use it. And children love seeing what other children build. 

They love seeing other children grow. We're not going to put their faces on things . But our goal is to really connect our children and allow them to teach each other. And do this in the most fun manner because. Our intelligence is amazing. They're supposed to enjoy what they do. And when you Free children who are really sensitive, what they create and what they build. Will astonish anyone. 

Thanks for listening. everyone. Take [00:32:00] care. 

Beth Anne: This podcast is not intended to replace professional, medical, or educational advice. The views, information, and opinions expressed on this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent gifted, N. D. Incorporated, Lillian Skinner, Bethann Johnson, or the Gifted Neurodivergent Child Podcast.

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