Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!

Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope today’s newsletter will bounce us up as we contemplate the upsides and challenges of being neurodivergent, a little beauty, some creativity, and just general yeehawesomeness.

Table of Contents

• Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!

  • Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope t …

• A Testing Situation

  • Beyond Lonely, a BBC Sounds Podcast (Episode 2)

    • Yeehawesome!

  • Wonderful Wednesday

  • Today’s Beany-full Summary:

A Testing Situation

One of the reasons we’re in the UK at the moment is for one of our sons to take a battery of exams, called the GCSEs, which stands for General Certificate of Secondary Education. These exams are the end of compulsory education in the UK.

Students can go on to take A-Levels, which our other son is currently studying for. A-Levels are generally for students who might wish to proceed on to university, and they are subject-based, which means students usually zero in on 3 subjects.

As you can probably guess where I’m going with this, these exams are geared toward your average neurotypical kid. If you need access arrangements (accommodations) for during the exams, you need diagnoses and lots of hoop-jumping.

Leading up to the tests, organizing your time, your notes, and your reviewing is extra difficult for neurodivergent folks.

Executive dysfunction can be a bear. Anxiety and catastrophizing can also play a big role here.

I offer this post as a support for anyone who needs it, for whatever tests you are facing.

This article from YoungMinds in the UK gives some exam tips for neurodivergent and disabled young people.

Here’s some of their advice for starters:

Their advice for review/revision time:

• Prioritize and work out a routine with someone who is supportive.

• Keep it varied. Don’t study one thing for too long.

• Ask early about adjustments/accommodations.

• Let others know how you feel, including about your anxiety.

• Trust yourself and ask for help if needed.

More advice for during the exams:

• Go in with a plan.

• Ask the invigilators/proctors for support.

• Wear appropriate clothing so you’re comfortable with temperature, etc.

• Prepare your gear in advance (clothing, food, drinks, etc.).

• Believe in yourself.

What to do after your exams:

• Decompress and rest.

• Acknowledge your feelings.

• Have a plan to focus on for the future, which will help you get into a new routine.

I wish I had had these tips (and access arrangements) for when I was taking exams as a kid and college student. And I really could’ve done with an executive functions coach (although I doubt that job even existed back then). Procrastinating, rushing at the last minute, catastrophizing, walking up and down the dorm hall at 3 AM reading my linguistics textbook trying to stay awake and absorb the contents, difficulties with memorization, typing papers in my suitemates’ room at all hours while everyone else slept, never going to bed the night before my humanities exam and wearing my pajamas to the test—that was my normal. After all my research, I know it’s not neurotypical. And at the time, looking around at my friends and how they coped much better than I did, I thought there was something really wrong with me. Somehow I did well grades-wise, but I certainly didn’t sleep much or eat right.

Well…here goes…

Exams ahoy!

Big hugs for everyone taking tests soon, or even anyone in a testing time.

Beyond Lonely, a BBC Sounds Podcast (Episode 2)

Well, folks, I can’t promise that the second episode of the Beyond Lonely podcast is super-duper happy-clappy and uplifting.

But it does offer an alternative viewpoint and lifestyle, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Last week I mentioned that the podcast is hosted by Professor Jason Arday, who teaches at Cambridge in the sociology of education department. He is autistic himself, and grew up unable to speak until he was 12.

As a teenager, his mother introduced him to snooker, which is similar to the game of pool, but more strategic and intense.

It fit in with Professor Arday’s love of routine, and he ended up practicing sometimes 4-5 hours a day. He says that this set him up for how he would approach his career, and it also intensified his loneliness. It’s a solo game when you’re practicing and it left Jason alone with his own thoughts for many hours at a time.

He’s sharing in the podcast about himself and also about his concern for Gen Z, who are ages 16-24.

A lonely generation.

Back to Noreena Hertz, the economist and professor he also interviewed in the first episode. She says that her students are now coming to her privately and confiding that they are extremely lonely. This is a new phenomenon, according to Professor Hertz.

(One question I might have: Is this generation just more emotionally intelligent and able to express themselves better? I can’t imagine as a college student in the 1990s ever confiding in a professor that I was lonely, even if I had been.)

Anyway, Professor Hertz says that from her research, there was a big uptick in loneliness beginning in about 2011. Social media platforms deliberately design their programs to be addictive, and Hertz’s research has shown that it decreases the quality of interaction among friends. People have FOMO (fear of missing out) when they’re on social media all the time, and they feel more unhappy with their own lives.

In addition, Professor Arday interviewed Amelia Worsley, an academic, teacher, and essayist on loneliness.

She says that people in the 18th century worried if someone had their nose in a book and ignored others around them. It’s not a new concern.

But Worsley also says that even 10 years ago when she walked into her classroom, she’d have to get the students quiet. There was lots of chatter.

Not so now.

Her classroom is absolutely quiet while her students stare at their phones or laptops. She says students struggle to even know how to make conversation.

The next interviewees are Jameson and Lucy, high-school girls from New York who’ve started a Luddite Club.

They realized that during Covid they got way too comfortable with not meeting anyone in person, and that it was too easy to stay lonely and isolated.

Now they’re shunning smartphones and gathering in person for their club.

The girls say that when the devices are out of the picture, creativity and conversation happen.

Imagine that!

Stay tuned for a summary of episode 3 next week, dear Beany folks…

Yeehawesome!

Yeehawesome! is a happy-brain roundup in each issue of Beany Brain. What’s happening that’s good in brain land? What’s bringing me joy?

1. Being part of the Marlow Wombles again, a volunteer group that picks up trash around town. I do this unofficially all the time in Japan, and it’s nice to have my own neon pink high-vis top and to be part of the gang while I’m here. There’s plenty of rubbish to target, especially on the high street, in the parks, and in parking lots. It’s one of my very favorite things to do.

2. Students in Wales are trying augmented reality to help them with anxiety around school and it seems to be helping. (I know, just above I was praising the Luddite Club!)

3. Signage at a safari park in the UK warns families of “strong smells,” “low lighting,” “free-flying bats,” etc. so that kids with special sensory needs can be aware before they enter certain areas. Parents are saying it really helps to prevent meltdowns. Well done, Longleat Safari Park.

Beany Brownie Points and Extra Bonus Funniness

Wonderful Wednesday

Wonderful Wednesday was a day once a year in college when they would suddenly and surprisingly call off all classes and we’d play all day. The cafeteria provided special fun food and we’d do stuff outside like slip ‘n slides and jello wrestling in sumo suits. This segment of Beany Brain is dedicated to that memory of silliness and fun—no words, just a photo from the week that I’ve taken or found that reminds me to let the joy in. Since Beany Brain is published on Wednesday every week (at least, Wednesday in Japan), I hope you enjoy this Wonderful Wednesday.

Today’s Beany-full Summary:

• Exam tips and encouragement for neurodivergent and disabled folks.

• Episode 2 of the Beyond Lonely podcast from BBC Sounds was about Professor Jason Arday’s own experiences with being lonely, a professor and a teacher whose students are battling loneliness and isolation, and high-school girls from New York who’ve started a Luddite Club and are loving shunning their devices.

• Go forth in Beany joy. What will help you feel yeehawesome this week?

Thank you for reading this installment of Beany Brain! You’re very welcome to hop on by any old time.

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