About Jonathan Mooney
Jonathan Mooney’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, HBO, NPR, ABC News, New York Magazine, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. A nationally recognized advocate for neurological and physical diversity, he’s been speaking across the nation about neurological and physical diversity for two decades, inspiring those who live with differences and calling for change. He has published three books: The Short Bus, Learning Outside the Lines, and Normal Sucks.
Different
In this presentation Jonathan looks at how inclusive learning environments and communities believe that individuals don't have disabilities but experience disabilities as about as a result of environmental constraints, have a deep commitment to disability as a form of human diversity and have taken steps to include disability within a larger diversity and social justice and civil rights paradigm, and lastly have a strength-based human centered design approach to engaging and empowering rather than pathologizing people with cognitive and physical differences. This presentation draws on cutting-edge research in inclusion and neuro-diversity concrete examples of best practices from communities around the world and ultimately affirms and celebrates the inclusive movement as a fight for every human being's right to be different.
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In addition, Jonathan provides concrete strategies to support teachers in building a positive learning identity when many students like himself believe they are “stupid, crazy, and lazy;” he outlines a strengths based approach that gives concrete ideas on how to scale students' strengths and build contextualized learning pathways; and he explores the power of student-teacher connections and relationships as the foundation of transformative learning environments. And through all of this, Jonathan celebrates educators as change agents and education as a powerful tool for personal and social transformation.