Cultivating Curiosity

Imagine differentiation as a spherical room. Every learner comes in through a different door, leaves through a different one, and takes their own path across the space between. Once you picture it that way, a lot of familiar advice stops making sense.

Complexity is a good place to start, because it’s the one most often read as “more” - more questions, more content, more pages. But more of what a child has already mastered doesn’t move them anywhere through the room. Complexity is about making connections across ideas, going deeper rather than longer, starting from beyond what’s already known.

If you’re advocating for your child’s learning, this is one of the things we work through together: https://cultivatingcuriosity.com.au/parent-advocacy-support

If you’re a teacher wanting to know more, Cultivating Curiosity partners with schools to design and deliver bespoke professional learning in gifted, 2E and neuro-affirming education, tailored to your staff and students: https://cultivatingcuriosity.com.au/schools-and-staff-p-d

I've spent the weekend reading AutismCRC's new National Guidance for inclusive education for autistic students.

I'm a little excited about this guidance because it isn't another deficit-focused checklist. It's not a framework that asks what's wrong with this kiddo and how do we fix them. Instead, it's built around a strength led foundation.
That different brains learn differently. That inclusive education means changing the spaces and teaching to fit the kiddos, not the other way around.

The nine guiding principles are:
* Collaborative
* Evidence-informed and practice-based
* Neurodiversity-affirming
* Personalised
* Proactive and coordinated
* Respectful and culturally responsive
* Rights-based
* Student-centred
* Supportive

When I read them back, I notice something really important - they're not soft, they're not a workaround, they're rigorous, research-backed, and grounded in lived experience from autistic people themselves - and they're literally the baseline of what all children are entitled to.

But here's what I'm seeing in some media coverage, and it bothers me. There's this idea floating around that strength-focused, neurodiversity-affirming education somehow means letting autistic kids off the hook. As if respecting how a kiddo's brain works is the same as lowering expectations. That as a parent of an NT kiddo, providing ND kiddos with something that works for them is taking away from the rights of the NT kiddos to have NT affirming, designed, centred education.

It's not.

Strength-focused doesn't mean a free-for-all. It means moving from a deficit focus to valuing what kids already bring to the table.

Neurodiversity-affirming doesn't mean never challenge a kiddo. It means challenging them in ways that meet them where they're at and where they need to go to succeed.

Research-based and lived experience doesn't mean we discard everything we've ever done and start from scratch. It means incorporating updated evidence that centres the voices who it relates to and who are telling us what actually does and doesn't work for them.

And for me this is especially important for 2E kids. They are not one or the other of their Es. They're both at once and that is what these standards are calling us to see. Looking beyond the diagnosis and seeing the kiddo in the room. The individual.

These guidelines are for every autistic student. The ones who appear to be coping. The ones who are drowning. The ones who mask so well nobody realised they were autistic. The ones who have yet to have a formal diagnosis. The ones who, because of eleventy-million reasons, won't be able to access a diagnosis.
All of them are entitled to spaces built with them in mind, not despite them.

If you work in education, or you're parenting an autistic kiddo, or you're autistic yourself, this is worth reading. The full guide and an easy-read version are available to download.

https://www.autismcrc.com.au

-exceptional

We need your help…

Our Friyay Flabbergasters are due for an update, and we know you’ve got some absolute gems.

You know the ones…
The questions that stop you mid-sip
The comments that make you laugh, think, and wonder how such a tiny human just said that

Add your your child’s most fabulous, frustrating, and flabbergastiest quote below.
Don’t forget to include their age.
Or if you’d prefer, feel free to send them through via PM.

Let’s build a collection that celebrates curiosity, creativity, and those beautifully unexpected conversation moments.