Welcome to Episode 86 of the Think UDL podcast: Different Kinds of Intelligence with Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin is an author, Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, and a sought-after speaker on Autism and Neurodiversity all over the world. She has been named one of the top 10 college Professors in the country by CEO World Magazine, she is the subject of her own eponymous movie biopic in 2010, and a recognized thought leader on different kinds of intelligence. I was surprised and greatly honored when she accepted my invitation to speak with me on the Think UDL podcast. I have known of her, listened to her speak, and read so much about her over the last 20 years, that I was very excited during this interview! When I told my friend and colleague Jill Van Horne from our university’s counseling program that I was offered an interview with Temple Grandin in 4 hours time, Jill was equally excited and so I invited Jill to join me for today’s conversation. Jill leads our really fantastic equine therapy program at Appalachian State. I asked Jill to join me because she thinks differently than I do and especially because she knows a lot more about animals than I do, and even more especially because she is also a big fan of Temple Grandin. You’ll hear Jill pop in the conversation and ask her own questions in this episode as well. In this episode, Professor Temple Grandin talks about the different ways people think, how to teach a variety of learners, what advice she gives college professors, what advice she gives college students, and why she thinks we don’t need algebra (for some things at least) among other things! Thank you for listening and a special thank you to the folks at the UDLHE Network for their financial support of the Think UDL podcast! Dr. Grandin, it is a great honor to have you on the podcast and I will start us off with the question I ask all of my guests, and that is, “What makes you a different kind of learner?”
Resources
To find out more about Temple Grandin and her speaking engagements and books, go to TempleGrandin.com which is her official website.
And here is a great article on the The Benefits of Cognitive Diversity at Work the compliments our discussion on this episode
ThanksBen.com: The definitive guide to disability inclusion in the workplace
Transcript
Lillian Nave 00:00
Welcome to think UDL, the Universal Design for Learning podcast where we hear from the people who are designing and implementing strategies with learner variability in mind. I’m your host, Lillian Nave. And I’m interested in not just what you’re teaching, learning, guiding and facilitating, but how you design and implement it and why it even matters. Welcome to Episode 86 of the think UDL podcast different kinds of intelligence with Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin is an author, professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, and a sought after speaker on autism and neurodiversity all over the world. She has been named one of the top 10 college professors in the country by CEO World magazine. She is the subject of her own eponymous movie biopic in 2010, and a recognized thought leader on different kinds of intelligence. I was surprised and greatly honored when she accepted my invitation to speak with me on the think UDL podcast. I have known of her listen to her speak and read so much about her over the last 20 years that I was very excited during this interview. When I told my friend and colleague Joe Van Horne from our university’s counseling program, that I was offered an interview with Temple Grandin in about four hours time, Jill was equally excited. And so I invited Jill to join me for this conversation. Jill leads are really fantastic equine therapy program at Appalachian State. And I asked Jill to join me because she thinks differently than I do. And especially because she knows a lot more about animals than I do. And even more especially because she’s also a big fan of Temple Grandin. You’ll hear Jill pop in the conversation and ask her own questions in this episode as well. In this episode, Professor Temple Grandin talks about the different ways people think, how to teach a variety of learners. What advice she gives college professors, what advice she gives college students, and why she thinks we don’t need algebra for some things, at least, among other things. Thank you so much for listening. And a special thank you to the folks at the UDLHE, that’s Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education Network for their financial support of the think UDL podcast. Dr. Grandin, it is a great honor to have you on the podcast. And I will start us off with a question I asked all of my guests, and that is what makes you a different kind of learner.
Temple Grandin 03:05
Well, I think completely in pictures. And I described that on the good number of years ago in my book, Thinking in pictures. And when I was in my 20s, I thought everybody thought in pictures. I didn’t know that other people think differently. Well, I’ve been learning more and more about how people think. And there’s people like me who have optic visualizers, to think in pictures. And then there’s the visual spatial more mathematical pattern thinkers. And then of course, there’s the people that think in words. And I’m getting more and more interested in how at work on these skills can be used in a complementary manner. And being a visual thinker helped me with animals, because if you want to understand an animal, just think in words, you know, it’s thoughts are going to be pictures, smells, touch sensations, things that that hears, and also very sensitive to tone of voice. People don’t realize it when you yell at cattle, they know you’re mad at them.
Lillian Nave 04:04
I didn’t realize that. No, that’s news to me. So I know that’s really shaped how you have thought about learning and thought about teaching. So I wanted to follow up on that idea and ask you what are some of the ways that you teach your class in order to account for different kinds of learners?
Temple Grandin 04:04
Well, different kinds of learners are good at different kinds of things. So I have a livestock handling class cattle Behavior class basically. And I do regular lectures, lots of slides, lots of visuals, but one of the projects I have my students do is make a scale drawing and they have to design a cattle handling facility. I have a lot of students that come in from a non ag background they play you may not want to design a cattle handling assault, but learning how to do a scale drawing it’s important. It might be a good idea to measure the couch before you buy it. Disable fitting the elevator. Yes, you can also on Draw a drawing of what it would look like in your living room. So knowing how to do a scale ruler, a scale drawing is important. I just did it in my class last year, who had never used a ruler to measure anything. Wow, got too many students today, growing up totally removed from the world of the practical. I think that’s bad, because I think it interferes with problem solving. And then another assignment they have my class is to pick out a subject and animal behavior. And it could be any kind of animal and sort of ask a question, and then go into the databases like Google Scholar, PubMed, science, direct Web of Science, and get me to journal articles on the database. Because I want the students to learn how to use the databases, right, right. And they can’t pick out something vague like dog behavior, and might say, there’s a breed of the dog matter in behaviors such as retrieving, for example, they’d have to look up eight journal articles that okay, now give me a little summary on and that’s an important skill to learn. So if they’re not interested neg, they’re going to learn some things that will be useful skill. So I think it’s important,
Lillian Nave 06:12
right? Every college student needs to know how to find good sources, and how to do college level resource no matter what their subject matter,
Temple Grandin 06:19
what I’m finding is 1/3 of the students that sign it’s really easy. Well, a third, it’s a real good assignment, then some students haven’t even ever used any of the scientific databases before.
Lillian Nave 06:30
Yes, yeah. I found that with my students as well, I have a very similar subject. It’s a different topic, but they get to choose what is your topic, I do intercultural communication and intercultural dialogue. So I have students learning about their own culture, and learning about other cultures. And so I asked them to come up with a question about a culture, maybe the one question I give, as an example is about women learning or girls learning in Afghanistan, so a different culture. And then we go into the databases at Appalachian State University, and look at what strides have been made in the last 20 years, about educating girls in Afghanistan, especially online, when we’re looking at rural areas, and in different ethnic groups. And the difference between some conservative sects that may not allow for women to be educated. And so some students may have an interest in different areas around the world, or in different cultures, maybe rural versus urban ideas of fun or a gathering or things like that. Well, then
Temple Grandin 07:47
the data, look it up on certain databases, class, does have to be an animal behavior. But I’ve had some students want to do insects. And I said, that’s fine. As long as it’s animal behavior. Yeah. Vault and because it is an Animal Behavior class.
Lillian Nave 08:04
Yes. Yeah. So you have to give them some parameters. But you, you you have a specific skill that you want them to, to master, which is finding reliable sources using peer reviewed scholarly databases.
Temple Grandin 08:19
Yeah, and the other thing is a problem in a lot of hands on fields is there’s a lot of knowledge out there that never crosses the divide into academia. And in my career, I’ve worked really hard trying to cross that divide between the practical out in the field and, and, and the academic, yes, that isn’t a lot of knowledge that’s out there, they’re often just lost, which will is a real shame.
Lillian Nave 08:45
I agree. We’ve got something in that in North Carolina, where it’s called scholarship of engagement, where folks like this instructors or professors, can partner with outside groups, and bring, bring some of that knowledge into the everyday world. And we’re asking other folks to come in, we need guest lectures, we need people to share their expertise, and maybe they don’t have a graduate degree, but they have incredible knowledge in business or in, in these actual practical fields. And I agree, we’ve got to do a lot more of that for our students.
Temple Grandin 09:22
The other thing is a lot of arguments sometimes is some scientists say well, the only thing that says science is a controlled experiment. I used to fight with my advisor about that I was getting my PhD. And they said, Well, does the Hubble Space Telescope have a control? Because astronomy is observation? I said, Well, maybe it’s a controls one. It was a spy satellite in his previous life. He pointed at the ground maybe that’s the control for Hubble Space Telescope. But some of our most expensive science is observational.
Lillian Nave 09:54
Yes, yeah. And right and we need to value that as well. I see. I mean, we He often assign more value to this, the replicatable. Right what you’re talking about. But there’s so much more I love the way you think I love how you’re bringing this into our conversation
Temple Grandin 10:11
Well, well, in terms of replicating experiments, I review a lot of journal articles, and things matter, like, like, for example, is a famous cancer experiment that was wrecked, because the different labs used a different little device for mixing the cells. And it totally, totally changed the results. So you have to write your methods what mixing device to do magnetic stirrer, another kind of thing, it looks like a Ferris wheel for test tubes. It matters how you mix it in papers when you didn’t, I just got a paper the other day, and they didn’t tell me the weight. And the sexes of the cattle in the study. Or, or another study, you don’t tell you what they fed them or how they house this matters. And there’s a lot of replication problems right now in biomedical research. And a lot of that gets in in to the methods not being described, and device that you start with or how you house or feed your animals. does matter. Yeah. And what’s happening. I’m seeing is people going crazy on using the latest fancy statistical test? Yeah, they don’t tell me how they house the animals.
Lillian Nave 11:17
Gotcha. So what keen observational skills you’re showing us? And how important that is? They’re both important.
Temple Grandin 11:24
You know, the math is important, too. I mean, the thing is, we definitely all many things, we need all the different kinds of minds.
Lillian Nave 11:31
Yes, absolutely. So when you were talking about your the ways you teach your class, you said you’ve got them writing and pictures. They’re doing some practical? Well, I don’t I have on a scale drawing, do a scale drawing,
Temple Grandin 11:46
a scale drawing. And they can’t just trace it out of the book because I give them a new homework each time and up with things like roads and well houses and things like just right in the middle of the facility for them design around. And then the journal article thing, I think it’s a really good exercise. Yes. On I had a student come up to me after that class and said we had a family health emergency. Thank you so much. I’m knowing about the PubMed database. Oh, look up medical information.
Lillian Nave 12:17
Yeah, it’s very useful and useful skills first. So
Temple Grandin 12:20
it’s a very useful skill because suck Google Scholar, PubMed, science, direct web of sciences, subscriptions. You can people watch I talk show people Google Scholar all the time. And they go, Oh, no strike, you’re gonna go wow. Yeah, it right into the same stuff that scientists read.
Lillian Nave 12:39
Yeah, it’s great. So So you’re telling me about these multiple kinds of ways that you’re teaching or having students interact with the material. And
Temple Grandin 12:51
we we do have a live lab and I’m sorry, I interrupt i, this is one of my problems. We got a very slow processor speed. And I have a hard time figuring out when to interrupt,
Lillian Nave 13:01
not a problem, you’re doing exactly the right thing. Tell me more about the live lab and the other things.
Temple Grandin 13:08
class has a live lab where they get to watch cattle going through a chute and explain why you use something like a squeeze chute. So big animals do not have to hold them still and they get their vaccinations. And we’re getting more and more students that are really eager for doing hands on things. That they’re coming into college and like I had to go ahead and use the ruler. Yeah. They’re actually really eager to do these hands on things and really excited about it. Yes. And of course, during COVID trying to do the labs online was terrible. Yeah, lectures, I think, you know, good online classes have tons and tons of work. Yes, in order to do the discussion boards. And you really, really, really do them have labs online with just terrible and what we did at our university. And they, that first spring semester, everything was closed. The second semester, everything was closed. And then we started getting the labs online. Yeah. Allow, excuse me, getting the labs Real Life Labs. Okay. And keeping the classes online for a while.
Lillian Nave 14:09
Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. Next up,
Temple Grandin 14:11
there was the labs. labs on why not good,
Lillian Nave 14:16
really, really difficult. Yeah. I have a daughter who is in was in college throughout that time of COVID. And she was in biology. And it was a very difficult way to learn biology with having a lot what they ended up doing was being able to come in for smaller labs, us, you know, smaller groups of people, but fewer labs in general and trying to do some of the experience online.
Temple Grandin 14:46
Well, we did the same thing. I just as soon as possible. I mean, like, take a cattle repro class. I mean, you’ve got to do those webs. Real.
Lillian Nave 14:55
Yeah. So when you’re teaching your class, it sounds like you have lots of different Rent, methods ways for your students to interact with the material. You’re asking them to do lots of different things. So it sounds like if one student isn’t very good with the scale drawing, but it’s great with the with the research component, then they’re going to be okay. You don’t
Temple Grandin 15:17
pass low pass the class. Is there a few students that absolutely cannot draw? Yeah, a few students who have visual processing problems, will find out that they’re often dyslexic. And their drawings, they’ll just draw, like, let’s say, I said, not drawn s like this. This draws scribble. And when they read, they’ll see the print jiggling on the page. Problems with LED lights flickering. Yes. And there’s a way to detect which led lights flicker, I just found out. You film the light the room in slow motion.
Lillian Nave 15:54
Oh, that’s great.
Temple Grandin 15:55
there’s certain ways that students do very scribbly drawings. And I can tell I’ve got a visual processing problem. I’ll pull them aside. And Nick, well, how you doing in school? Yeah. I said, you need to get this checked out. And why don’t you try putting your homework on maybe 10 paper or play with the fonts and the backgrounds on the computer? Light blue backgrounds, like gray backgrounds? On some people really like the the the older type of Kindle apparatus? Because it’s kind of
Lillian Nave 16:24
gray background? Yes, yeah, the paper white, I think,
Temple Grandin 16:27
like that, and they usually might have some visual processing problems. I’ve actually picked up some bad drawings where I help the student from flunking out of school because I could tell by looking at the messed up drawings that they had a visual processing problem.
Lillian Nave 16:43
Yeah. And I as a universal design for learning specialists. We look at those, sometimes accommodations that students need, and knowing students might maybe even have to wear ballcap in the class too.
Temple Grandin 16:58
And that’s helpful. But the single biggest problem, environmental and classroom is going to be lighting, you’ve got LED lights that are on the wrong dimmer switch are the real cheap ones, they will flicker and there’s certain students that won’t be able to tolerate that they might have an autism label, a sensory processing labeled A dyslexia label. Now I want to make it very clear. This is a subgroup. It’s a subgroup. Yeah. But I had a student that had this problem and the old fluorescent lights now they’re getting phased out. Yeah. Oh, the room was flashing on and off like a strobe light.
Lillian Nave 17:31
Yeah, right. And we need to be aware of that we have more and more students. I know you say it’s a subgroup. But there are more and more who are coming into higher education, and our degree seeking students.
Temple Grandin 17:42
Thing is, so I’ve done a lot of work with construction. And my kind of mind, let’s talk about jobs for the different kinds of minds. Yes, I am what’s called a top check. visualizer. And in my book, The Autistic brain, I goes into some of the science to show that these different kinds of thinking actually exist. And an object visualizer thinks in pictures the way the HBO movie, Temple Grandin shows how I think in pictures, and Object visualizers. Here are the jobs that they’re cut out for careers, photography, art, animal behavior, and mechanics. Those things tend to go together. And I worked with real brilliant shops, people who could just build anything. Yeah, I mean, they have not graduated from high school, but they owned a big welding and metal fabrication business. And they might have 20 patents. Yeah, that’s the object. visualizer can’t do algebra. So one of the problems I’m seeing is a difficult who’s graduating high school who can’t do algebra either. Problems with doing abstract math, be tutored and tutored, intuited to get through statistics, and thank goodness, I didn’t have to take algebra, then your visual spatial, that’s your mathematical person, music, math, computer science, chemistry, physics. Those are the kinds of things that they’re really good at, because they are a pattern thinker. visual spatial, the scientific names are object visualizer, for me, visual spatial, for the pattern thinker. Unfortunately, a lot of research papers have mixed through two together. And they’re two very different things. And then of course, you have your verbal thinker, and many, many, many educators, they are verbal thinkers, and they tend to over generalize on I get asked questions all the time, both in animal behavior and in autism. I had just got a phone call today this will how to help my kid regulate his emotions. Well, is he three years old was a teenager. Yeah. I mean, they’re not telling me the most basic information. Yeah.
Lillian Nave 19:47
Right. So these, the pattern thinker, the verbal thinker, everybody has their their place where they feel most comfortable learning Right. And you’re giving your students various areas where they can shine, right?
Temple Grandin 20:05
Well, yeah, they can do really well, one part of the class to show up for the class amount usually and usually get a B as in beautiful. And on, make an attempt at the drawing. Yeah. And I’ve had students that were super good at the drawing. And they were horrible, just on a real simple little. I don’t do the multiple choice type of exams. But yeah, the exam where they I give them a hypothetical question, like, let’s say at the teacher cattle handling class at a local ranch. What are the five most important things you teach them? Yes, no, maybe bad writing somebody? And what worries me today in education, especially my kind of thinker, object Visualizer is we’re getting screened out of some programs. Yeah. I mean, if you have to take algebra and calculus to fix cars, that’s absolutely ridiculous. And you need the object. visualizers Yeah. You know, I’m still looking around. You got somebody’s fixing an elevator or an escalator? They’re all gray hair. Yeah. People that I’m working with, I used to work with, they’re all retiring. They’re not getting replaced. Yeah. And we need any concern that we’re getting skill loss. Yeah. Because in Germany and Holland, well, they don’t stick their nose up at the high end skilled trades. And that’s why they’re making things like the state of the art electronic chip making machine. Yeah, yeah. That’s like real serious.
Lillian Nave 21:32
Yeah. Yeah. So having these choices, I mean, you’re talking about giving choices to your students and having choices in, in how you progress further. And also, when you talk about, we don’t need algebra for certain fields. I think it’s matching what the goal is, these are all Universal Design for Learning principles, by the way, matching what the goal is to what the assignment is, or what the assessment is. So right, one of the
Temple Grandin 22:01
problems you got in the school system like those in California, graduate high school as a kid today, because you can’t graduate high school without algebra, where a lot of kids that are more in my generation, they might substitute business math, kind of math that you need to run a business right on. And the other thing I think is really bad in the highest in the schools, like elementary and the high schools was taken out all the hands on classes, right. I’d have a music theater, cooking, sewing, woodworking, welding, car mechanics, drafting. Okay, let’s throw in a 3d printing class. Yeah. They taking that stuff out? I think it’s the worst thing that they’ve done. Yeah. Because the hands on learner now is just
Lillian Nave 22:47
washed. And I’ve seen I have started to see different schools popping up, by the way here in North Carolina, and in our county. There has started about 10 years ago, some new schools, high schools, where students can go, and they can get vocational training, and also a high school degree. And so my son has taken welding and 3d printing and the first day of class, they were making paper airplanes. And it’s been the best thing. Well, I’d
Temple Grandin 23:19
say, wonderful. Yes, I did a book, calling all mines on your calling online. And it’s my childhood projects, little airplane projects, little on parachutes. And when I did a book signing for that book four years ago, 20 to 30% of the kids in a suburb of Denver, had never made a paper airplane. Whoa, I am not kidding. It’s terrible. Well, they made them that night, we had plenty of printer paper available for making paper airplanes. And they really loved doing it.
Lillian Nave 23:53
Absolutely. Yes, that was my son came home the first day of school of have high school. And he told me they made paper airplanes, and it made him so happy. And I was ecstatic because he had found a place because he is a hands on learner and he wants to be a pilot. And he wants to, you know, use his use his hands and work in a field like that. Anyway, so
Temple Grandin 24:20
I think one of the major airlines has dropped the the college requirement for pilot and the line pilot.
Lillian Nave 24:26
They are several more are doing so yes. I’ve been following that.
Temple Grandin 24:31
hoped and well, this is a kind of stuff I follow, too. I read a lot of business magazines, because hopefully I’ll be 75 this summer. And people said, What are you doing with yourself now? You’re 10 years past retirement. I’m still getting out in the field and doing some cattle stuff. But I think my main thing I need to be doing now is helping the kids who think differently, getting into careers are going to love but also where they can do something that makes a positive difference.
Lillian Nave 24:55
Yes. Right. Everybody wants to be able to contribute, I think think, well, I
Temple Grandin 25:00
was the value to an airline today because I was going to do a diversity conference with them. And I said, the people like me who can’t do algebra, they’re going to be the best mechanics in the fleet. Yeah. Especially for, let’s say, a gnarly problem with the hydraulics or the wiring. They’ll be able to, in their mind to see the entire wiring harness.
Lillian Nave 25:20
Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. And we need those brilliant minds with
Temple Grandin 25:24
a different kind of thinking. Yes, then then the mathematical and what’s happening in degreed engineering. That’s all gone mathematics. Interesting, who builds a big food processing plant? I spent 25 years where, where I spent a lot of time on very large construction projects. I was out on a job every day for a few weeks. And it’s interesting how the engineering work is divided up for a large poultry plant, large beef plant, no other food processing plants, and my kind of mind does what I call clever engineering. Mechanically clever equipment. Okay, okay. Like if you look inside the paper feed feed of your copier. That would be an example of clever engineering. Yeah. And I knew people that barely graduated high school had 20 patents. Yeah. And what the clever engineering is done by the guy in the shop, that often doesn’t get enough credit. Then he had somebody labeled draftsman, whose labor who’s laying out entire factories. Yeah, laying out entire factories, designing equipment, and then patenting it. Yeah, okay. What is the degreed engineer do boilers, refrigeration, we don’t tie it. We don’t touch that stuff. We don’t understand that stuff. You see, that’s for the mathematicians, water and power requirements. Roof floating wind loading, making sure the building doesn’t collapse. Yeah. Everything’s made out of pre stressed concrete, where you can drill the holes to hang your equipment off. We’re told we’re the clever engineering departments told what they can make a hole in a pre stressed beam, usually the pre drilled. Yeah, but the thing is interesting. Is, is I have seen this division of labor of engineering. Okay. And the clever engineering department on oftentimes barely a high school graduate. Wow. And they have 20 patents. Yeah, this is something that educators just don’t get it. They don’t know anything about industry. And this is the reason why holons Making the chipmaking machine and right now if you want to buy, let’s say brand new poultry processing plant, you’re gonna get all the machinery from Holland. Yeah, a lot. 100 shipping containers full of machinery. Yes, shipping containers are anywhere 15 to 20,000 bucks a truckload right now.
Lillian Nave 27:40
Yeah. So that’s, that’s why I love talking to you. You value these very different kinds of minds. So a lot of our audience here for the podcast is about other college instructors. And you’ve been voted one of the top 10 college professors in the country by CEO CEO World Magazine. I know you have a lot to share on offer. And so I wanted to ask you, my third question for you is about the advice you can give to other college and university instructors on how to teach a diversity of students, especially those neurodiverse students a
Temple Grandin 28:13
big mistake that a lot of students make, and I think some of the neuro diverse students are more likely to do this is you do start to do badly in a class. They do not ask for help soon enough. Now, when I was in college, and I failed my first math quizzes, I went to the professor, I was in a little tiny College, He tutored me in his office. And then when I was in graduate school, I had to be tutored, I failed my first statistics test, I hired a graduate student to tutor me. They don’t ask for help quickly enough. Yeah, they wait until they’re three quarters of the way through the semester, they failed a midterm. And now they’ve got to ask for help. And not be afraid to ask for help.
Lillian Nave 28:57
Right? And that’s for all students. neurodiverse neurotypical This is
Temple Grandin 29:01
a big mistake they make I failed my first math quiz I did something about right away. We call wasn’t called advocating was called Get math tutoring before you want the course. Yes.
Jill Van Horne 29:17
Question for you on that. Because I’m curious. Like as a as a college professor, I aspire to be a fraction of what you are Dr. Grandin. But I, but my question is there Yes. I totally agree that there’s the onus on the student to ask for help. And then I also think as you know, Lillian is talking about how we need to create as, as faculty, we need to create an environment in which our students are going to thrive. And so I’m curious about, you know, how much how much do we recognize, you know, in LM in public schools, because I come from a K 12 background as a school counselor in public schools, we’re often asking teachers to you know, look For the ones that are struggling look for it, you know, you want to kind of keep an eye on them. And I’m wondering, I can do that I teach master’s students. So I have a much smaller number. But how do we do that? If we have large classes?
Temple Grandin 30:11
It’s really real, real difficult. And I think we need when students come in, we need to counsel them on. You get into trouble, please ask for help. Before you trash all your classes. And I think that some students might need to take a lighter load. Another I would during COVID. I, when we were locked down. I had one student that done well, they had family issues that were eating up all of her weekends. Yeah. And she had two heavy duty lab classes. She was in my class, and she calls me up. And we talked for 20 minutes. And then finally she opened up and told me, Well, maybe I need to drop one of the lab classes. And then she said, Well, she would do all this stuff on the weekend. I said, I don’t think you can handle two heavy duty lab classes. I think one of them was statistics, and the other was organic chemistry. So yeah. And and I think you need to drop one of those labs. I didn’t say which one to drop. But I think you need to drop one of those. You just have got too much on your plate. Yeah. So you’re coaching, you’re helping to coach. But it took me. I talked to her for up to over 20 minutes before. You know, I found out that she was spending two and a half days a week working with some family issues. Yeah, there was no way she could get all that schoolwork done.
Lillian Nave 31:32
One of the things I’ve read, you’ve talked about before are setting high but reasonable expectations. How do you do that in your? Well, one thing
Temple Grandin 31:41
I tell them, I do take attendance. And what I did with the online classes, and we pre recorded the lectures, and then they got little quizzes on him and they had to go on the discussion board. And then one saving up the lectures and binge watching up. And then we did the use the life part of the of the Zoom calls for discussion. You kind of want it dumped there. And okay, now we’re back to live classes. I said walk on, I may fly. I may fly in from New York. My classes on Tuesday, Monday night. Do the class turn around and fly to Miami? Yeah. Well, I think that’s fun. Yeah. I take a beating in there. Seriously, I will be there unless something really goes wrong. Yeah. You know, a storm at the airport or something. I can’t do anything about that. But yeah, I gotta be here. Yeah. And some students said, Well, could I just test out? Well, I think in a math class, there’s also some math classes, you could probably do that with what my class the discussion I have in classes, an important part of it. Okay, the type of class, Lillian that you’re teaching, I think it’s the class discussion is going to be really important. It isn’t like a math class where you could just test out
Lillian Nave 32:55
That’s right. And I had to increasingly explain that to my students. And I finally figured out after teaching it for, for four semesters, I realized that what we are doing in our live classroom, we only meet once a week, because we are online. So a lot of that discussion takes place asynchronously on discussion boards. And I said, You know what, this is our lab. When we get together, we are asking each other’s opinions. We’re finding out a lot about what our stances on a certain situation or culture or how we perceive of something, and we have to be there altogether. We have to learn from each other at the same time. So it became a lab.
Temple Grandin 33:36
Well, the other thing I learned, I learned, you know, we had 10 days get to classes online, I’ll never forget the faculty meeting, got home on I got home from New Jersey, and drove right straight to school. We had a faculty meeting. And they said we’re closing the university is going into spring break of 10 days to get your classes online. Yeah. Oh, boy, there was a stampede to Best Buy and everywhere else to buy equipment. Yes, unfortunately, my wonderful computer guy found out the best buy at hidden in the back room, not a mic as fancy as yours. But Mike almost as fancy as yours. Yes. And, you know, got the stuff on. And the thing that I learned on the discussion board and I first started doing it, is students would kind of parrot back stuff from the lectures. Yes. And so in one of my classes I talked about how animals are memory is visual. So what I’m animals will associate something that was saved me was something that are frayed up, there was a horse was terrified of black cowboy hats, because he was abused by somebody wearing a black cowboy hat, a white hat would be fine. So then I asked students to tell me about situations where maybe their dog or their horse, you know, was afraid of something. And that started to get really interesting. Yeah, one student wrote, well, I took my horses feed trough and I stood it up on end and my horse was afraid of it. Hmm. I’d like to see it then look like a different object. Yeah. And and then when I talked about animal stress, as some of the basic principles are asked students to, you know, talk about some of their own experiences, and then that discussion board got a lot more interesting, but it was a ton of work. During the lockdown. I just have you on one class, I think I spent anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half every day, just on the discussion board.
Lillian Nave 35:24
Yes, absolutely. It’s so much work. I had the same experience to switch all online. And you have to design preemptively and the the questions you were talking about, like asking your students to bring in their personal experience that relates to your topic. That’s what I did. What why a black hat, you know, what is okay?
Temple Grandin 35:47
Well, I’m somebody else’s, that horrible video where you put a cucumber behind a cat? Yes. And I said, do not do this. Yeah, the really cool thing to do to a cat. Yeah, but the thing about a novel object is, the cat turns around that cucumber suddenly appears to the cat is 10 feet long. Yeah, it’s not very big, and sudden, novelty, scary. But a novel, The novel object can be interesting to an animal, if they can voluntarily approach an experiment, you can try. You can put a cucumber in the middle of your living room floor. Yeah. And I bet your your cat’s gonna come up to it. Do that. But the other thing, watch the videos on do not do that. Cover behind the cat and scaring the crap out of it. Just don’t do it. There’s plenty of videos on it’s a mean thing to do to the cat. Yeah. But it’s an example of sudden novelty. Yeah. And, and then students started talking about where the horse had a problem at a horse show, right? I talked about how to determine whether animals are lame. And then one students have realized that when I won my cattle lay down with one leg sticking out front legs sticking out. Sometimes they’re lame. Yeah. But that discussion got a lot more interesting, where in the beginning, they were kind of just parroting Yes, lecture.
Lillian Nave 37:08
Right. So that’s another way that I found that it also cuts down on cheating, right? If you create a forum where you’re asking them to pair at the lecture, then you’re going to get the same answer and over and over again. But like you said, if you ask them to bring in their own personal experience, or let’s say relation,
Temple Grandin 37:25
well, that’s what I did. And then the things where the animals are free to something, the lectures got a lot more interest. I mean, the discussions got a lot more interesting. And then I would try to, you know, answer the different students questions. And it takes a lot of time. Now, some of the online classes were awful there was, I talked to an engineering student lived in my apartment complex. And he said that professor just took Ken slides and read them. Oh, yeah. Well, that’s just terrible.
Lillian Nave 37:58
Yeah. Yeah, there’s, there’s a wide variety of effective online teaching, and it takes a lot of work to make an effective online course.
Jill Van Horne 38:09
I think what I keep hearing is like, Bloom’s Taxonomy, right? So the bottom, the bottom level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, the educator and me can’t help but go here, bottom level is to remember right, it’s very, very basic. And then the one once you’ve mastered it, you get to create and what I hear you saying is, I trust you to jump right in and create and as Lillian saying, like, this is the way to get to get students invested. This is how we get them involved, less rushed. And because this is how we get them to, to produce in things that give them self efficacy and esteem building and all the things that have been missed from, you know, some of these more rote experiences.
Temple Grandin 38:52
Well, they’ll kind of cautious I never did multiple choice, or fill in the blanks. I never did those, you know, the kinds of things I would do, I said, I talk about basic principles, like all good things, cattle afraid of shadow shadows. sharp shadows are way worse than and then blurry shadows. My student did a paper on that my master’s student you know, now if you have an Animal and Dairy that walks overshadow everyday, that cows not gonna be afraid of it, okay, we’re in a new place than some scary looking shadow. They don’t want to walk over it talked about things that we’re afraid of. I talked about their natural, instinctual behavior, ways to reduce stress and animals. And then and then I got them to talk about their own horses, their own dog. And things got a whole lot more interesting.
Lillian Nave 39:41
Yeah. Yeah, I love it when our students can bring in their own stories and and they’re applying and analyzing, learning and applying it to their lives. Yeah,
Temple Grandin 39:53
so I tried to do on the other thing i i tried to help students on on career stuff and I’d suggest them doing career relevant internships in the summer. Our department now requires that Oh, good on, and then you know, try to do something that’s career relevant. Because I think it’s important to try on careers. People asked me, Well, how’d you end up in the cattle industry? When you came from back East? I got exposed to it as a teenager. It’s that simple. And what happens with a lot of career stuff? It starts with exposure, oftentimes with a very, very interesting professor and gets them frame. It’s exposure first than mentoring.
Lillian Nave 40:32
Yes. That’s great. Well, that that actually brings me to my my last question, but I think we have some more animal questions after that. But my my last question that I wanted to ask is about workplaces, right? So we want our students to be able to work and contribute to society and earn a living. And so what advice do you have for workplaces for creating inclusive environments for all students for neurodiverse? Students and neurotypical? Well,
Temple Grandin 40:57
I think all students need to learn to work. Yeah, we’re not teaching students how to work. And it’s a big problem with students with autism label. I’m seeing students with autism label where they’re so over protected. These are fully verbal, smart students who have never gone shopping by themselves. Yeah. Like, you’ve got to be kidding. And life skills are different than academic skills. Yeah, I mean, I know paper routes are gone. But when I was a kid, we had a disastrous Kool Aid standoff where we ran out of sugar. And you learn, you learn important things from that. We had dragged a little wire bookcase outside. Yeah, I was also found out how much sugar was in cute Kool Aid. Well, yeah, it’s absolutely disgusting.
Lillian Nave 41:42
Yes. So and I know you work with a lot of companies, you advocate and work with airlines with, with
Temple Grandin 41:53
a lot of corporate stuff. I’ve done sales things with the s&p as a few financial companies, computer companies. What I’m finding now is the companies have actually reached out the most are the more tech oriented things like financial s&p, I did a virtual top of s&p on on the different kinds of minds in 1000 people on that on that Zoom call. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And, and so that’s going to be aimed more at the pattern thing first, okay. At the pattern thinkers, they’re looking for people that can do complicated mathematics on on stock market fluctuations and things like that. Insurance companies have reached out banks. Yeah. On. They were I’ve done some more consumer product type of companies wasn’t so impressed. There were some things I think it was lip service, that those companies need to understand is they have factories. And this is where you are going to need what I call the plover engineering department. Yeah, make to make the factory that makes their product. Yeah. And, and there’s plenty of jobs out there, especially for the more mathematical heads. And that’s the way all of the traditional engineering classes are. But there’s also a field you can go into called industrial design. Yes. You see, that’s more of the art of of making things and you need both need both kinds of thinkers working on projects.
Lillian Nave 43:23
Yes, absolutely. And I’ve been talking to my other guests have been about career technical education, workplace and workforce readiness, and creating environments that value these different kinds of thinkers. Right,
Temple Grandin 43:37
we believe that and that’s why I’m coming out with a new book called visual thinking, Oh, great. Done. We’re just working right now I’ve got to getting ready to go on a trip to Europe. And that’s my wonderful, wonderful co writers working on all my reference mistakes. You see, well, the way we did this book is I do the rough draft. And she organizes it. That’s an example of the visual thinker working with the word thinker. Yes. No bit dyslexic and foreign names on the reference list. Is not my strong point.
Lillian Nave 44:09
Right, right.
Temple Grandin 44:11
On third up, before I go, but then engineering concepts. It’s been interesting to see Betsy develop more of an appreciation for the sorts of things she went on vacation, and she went visited Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers flew that plane. And we wrote about them in the book. I mean, where were the Wright brothers be in today’s school system? Michelangelo Albion day school system? Yeah. Any playing video games on a disability? Yeah, you see, that’s the this is the thing. That’s the problem. Because people I’ve worked with that owned large shops. Oh, they were that bad kid in high school. Yeah. But the welding class store and making stuff and selling it I know while they got big shops and 20 patents
Lillian Nave 44:54
right and and they are contributing so much. And I must say that I am I feel like I’ve made some life choices that were that I maybe regret, or I’ve just made a different choice when the person who comes that I need to fix my toilet and my plumbing and my HVAC, and my air and heat and all of that. And he tells me about his fantastic vacations that he goes on, because he’s a very successful, you know, engineer. And I think, wow, I That’s
Temple Grandin 45:28
enough credit. Yeah, I just looked at a paper the other day, and they a guy in a shop that had built the equipment on, they put him in acknowledgment, he should have been an offer.
Lillian Nave 45:39
Oh, yeah. Yeah, we need to be highlighting. And that’s why I wanted to talk to you.
Temple Grandin 45:44
It’s they they’re doing really are different kinds of thinking. And in the visual thinking book, which you can pre order, by the way on Amazon right now.
Lillian Nave 45:53
We’ll link to it. Yeah.
Temple Grandin 45:56
called Visual Thinking by temporal, Brandon, Betsy learner. And I’m worried that our educational system in some places screening us out, because we’re getting gigantic shortages and electricians. You see, let’s look at engineering stuff. visual thinkers see risk? Mathematicians calculate. You see, it’s a different way of looking at these things. And you need both kinds of minds. Let’s take something like Fukushima. When I found out why that was flooded. I’m going you gotta be kidding. You didn’t have watertight doors. Wow. You know, watertight doors. That nuclear reactor and only thing I need to know is if the electrically operated emergency cooling pump doesn’t run when I need it.
Lillian Nave 46:38
I mean, terrible, terrible, right.
Temple Grandin 46:40
I don’t work when it’s drought.
Lillian Nave 46:42
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s why we all need to working together, right and valuing each
Temple Grandin 46:48
other. We need the new you need the different thinking. And there’s been realizing it’s a different approach to problem solving. Yes. That’s, that’s the thing. And you need to have both
Lillian Nave 47:03
we do. And honestly, that’s why I invited my my colleague, Jill Van Horn too to this because she has a whole program that works with Equine Assisted Therapy.
Temple Grandin 47:14
Right now that there’s a staple in the bottom, my watercop I’m seeing goes down. It could cut inside. I want to get outta here right now. Go right ahead. And that’s good. I’d say if I break down that staple, no, That’d be terrible in the wall. And I guess the Stapledon going the wall and went into my cup. And I just realized I was drinking wine. There was a steak. Oh, no. Oh. And then I’m thinking now if I ate that, staple, it cut my inside. Yeah, we don’t want that. And that could be very, very serious. Yeah. You see, that’s an example of seeing risk. Yes.
Jill Van Horne 47:57
Well, and I can solve that problem because I have a clear glass.
Temple Grandin 48:03
I looked into this cup, and I go, Oh, no, it’s a staple. And it was where I was stapling something to the edge of the shelf. Very hard boiled in a staple, clip away. But I don’t even know what went into the coffee cup. Worried about it going to the printer.
Lillian Nave 48:23
So I’m going to invite my friend Jill, who know much more about animals and I thought I need an expert to I’m on my side. Who and we’re both huge fans of yours. Professor granted. So I know she has a few comments or question and because she’ll get at things that I can’t even get at so I’m gonna hand it over to Jill as well. Okay,
Jill Van Horne 48:45
thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I’ll be honest, I remember, dare I say about 19 years ago, my, my nephew received a diagnosis of Asperger’s at the time. And I was just pitching some of your things to my sister in law left and right. And and so you’ve got it. You’ve got a huge fan club everywhere. I know. But I wanted to know, what are the things as a counselor, I can’t help but you know, counselors, we look for themes, right? And so what I’m hearing and all that you’re saying is, you are committed to creating an open and safe environment for diversified learners. On one
Temple Grandin 49:25
on one I also bought a one of the things that construction has done to me, I would sell the project design it, supervised construction started up. I want to see when a student gets done with school, get into a career that they’re going to like where they can do something as a positive difference. And an electrician or someone working on air conditioning and make a positive difference as a mathematician, they could positive difference programmer writers things that they write. But I want to get them launched into career.
Jill Van Horne 49:56
So you’re very committed to them as a individuals there’s a lot of stuff
Temple Grandin 50:01
right now about identity and, and my identities basically career. University professor scientist. Yeah.
Jill Van Horne 50:12
Yeah. So I think my question is how do we how do we perpetuate whether it’s through, you know, your scale drawings are recognizing diversified learning through visual spatial pattern thinkers, verbal thinkers. And again, as Lillian said, I do Equine Assisted soy, soy therapy. And so I’ve got a very different approach than talk therapy. How do we get this word out into education? Like I know, you know, how do we make it out
Temple Grandin 50:39
of a hearing all the time as a teacher say, we got to teach to the test. I’ve had teachers complain, good teachers complain to me about that all the time. Yeah. And what they call drill and drill and kill. They call it that’s not my saying, I’ve had teachers told me that. And there’s just certain things they gotta learn for that test. And I’m seeing things where a kid flunked algebra three times and wasn’t able to take auto mechanics. Yeah, I’m not saying auto mechanics is for everybody. It’s not. But the point I’m making, by getting all these different kinds of hands on classes, students have more opportunity to find out if they’re going to like something like auto mechanics. Like right now I’ve got a good friend, all their, their son was he’s detailing cars not right now. And you know what, he absolutely loves it.
Jill Van Horne 51:32
But let me ask you, why is it okay? And this is kind of a, you know, hypothetical or tongue in cheek even. But why is it okay for us to say, auto mechanic is not for everybody, but it’s not okay for us to say algebra is not for everybody, right? alphabet is
Temple Grandin 51:47
not everybody either, never forced to algebra. And the only way I managed to get through college is thank goodness, the class wasn’t algebra. It was statistics, probability and matrices. With tutoring, I got through it. I never have passed an algebra class. It’s two. And then someone says, Well, a veterinarian has to have algebra for dosing. I got way too many formulas you’re memorizing, yeah. That I can learn to do you learn this formula for this. You just learn them. That’s not being abstract. But right now if veterinarian for example, let’s take calculus. I don’t know I hate that a Nyan that uses calculus in a veterinary practice. Yeah. Now that dosing is non negotiable, but that what algebra there’s there can be cookbook memorized?
Lillian Nave 52:33
Yeah, so matching that goal with the assessment. Right? We’re
Temple Grandin 52:38
screening out, we’re screening out some of the people to be the best veterinarian. In talking to the airline today. I said your best mechanic is barely made graduating high school. But when you got the plane where you does weird things, and he can visualize the entire hydraulic system. Yeah, they have a whole airplane. The mathematician can’t do that. Yeah. You know, there’s different approaches to problem solving. And a person that’s a visual thinker that goes into mechanics, they just see how stuff works.
Lillian Nave 53:11
One of the things that both of you have taught me that I don’t think this way, is about how animals and humans help each other or communicate or we can learn from each other. And Angela’s taught me about how horses can be helped with with special yellow.
Temple Grandin 53:30
We have a very, very big equine writing program here. And it opened the door still during COVID. It was filled in about two weeks. Yeah. And I’ve had parents send my kid to different words on a horse. You know, these can be really, really good things when I was in high school, bullied and teased, my life revolved around horses, getting horses ready for show. I also was put to work running the school’s horse barn, I cleaned nine stalls every day. And I learned how to work. Yeah, I didn’t do much studying during that time. But I did a lot of learning how to work. And I’m realizing just how important that is. And then you have abstract concepts. How do I understand a concept like responsibility? Okay, there’s one thing you never do with the brain is with the feet box open? Because you can have dead horses. Yeah. And I was very, very careful to make sure that lid was closed and the little hasp thing was turned. Yeah, that you don’t have to me and our responsibility was making sure after I fed the horses, that that box was closed and the passports turned. Yeah. You see that tonight? That’s an example of being really responsible.
Jill Van Horne 54:46
We have a group of children that come to the barn that I work at, and a lot of them come with a mental health diagnosis. And they come in a group and they’re from a local school. And, you know, I was was working with someone and I said, you know, I don’t necessarily know their diagnosis because when they’re here, they I don’t I don’t see oppositional behaviors because you have this 1000 pound animal. And you’ve got to find a way to make these things work. Well, long story short, I had someone say to me, because I said, you know, I don’t, I don’t necessarily know the diagnoses. And the person that said to me, You know what, I bet they forget for that one hour that they’re with you that they have a diagnosis, and I bet that feels really good to them. And I thought, Oh, my goodness, that’s it perfect. Well, the
Temple Grandin 55:30
problem is, these diagnoses are not precise, you know, like a tuberculosis test or COVID test. Yeah, yeah. Which is a precise kind of thing. They. And I’ve had, I’ve talked to skilled trades, people that when they were teenagers and stuff, they were kind of angry. And then when they got proud of their trade, and I got in a lot of trouble for fighting when I was a teenager, and I ended up switching into crying after horseback riding was taken away for two weeks. I don’t really know how I did that. But then a big motivation for me in my 20s. When I did those projects that was shown in the movie is I wanted to prove to people a stupid view, I’m not stupid.
Jill Van Horne 56:12
Well, I was gonna say, even today, we had a we had a group and they said, Can we just stay here all day? Because like I said, they come for an hour. And they said, Can we just stay here all day? Because otherwise, we’re actually going to have to learn stuff. And I said, Well, wait, do you think you didn’t learn anything? Today? You learned that the horse has the largest? I have any mammal? Yeah, you didn’t know that. before you got here. You learned the four spots where horses cannot see, you know, and we kind of went through and we said, well, that’s science. And that’s math. And that’s right, you know? And, and as we were going through just all the responsibilities and like you were saying, one of our big things is you don’t touch a gate and you don’t leave the gate open, that’s for sure.
Temple Grandin 56:48
Don’t leave it open, you leave a gate the way you found it. You always shut gates, that that’s another thing. That’s a rule of the ranch, you always shut the gates and and they are getting these kids out doing things. And people ask me all the time, what would I do to fix schools, and I’d be putting all these classes back in. And, and this is a visual thinking kind of intelligence. It’s more like how an animal would think it’s a different kind of intelligence. Yeah, that thinking in language. And I was just talking to somebody about skill traces the just today, actually. And they said they got, you know, I talked to them, and they were watching up person, I think it was over in Europe. Fichte put down a stones in a in a walkway, they were looking at how precisely he was cutting the stones. And they had more appreciation for the intelligence of that. They hadn’t really thought about it before. And the thing that was a shocker for me it was when I was in my late 30s, I discovered that other people think certain other people think totally in words. And there’s a lot of people that are mixtures of this visual spatial, and this object visualizer they’re actually opposites. A lot of people are mixtures, but you’re not going to find a super mathematician, and a super object visualizer in the same person.
Lillian Nave 58:09
And we have all of those students now in in higher ed and and we need to reach all of those. And I so appreciate how you’ve been giving choices, how you are giving hands on experiences. And also I would just love for our professors out there, our listeners to say it’s okay, it’s okay to do these new things, different things, the things that maybe have been looked down on?
Temple Grandin 58:33
Well, I think it’s okay that I’m very concerned with my kind of mind with all his math requirements. I’ll algebra requirements. I had no problem with the way my work but tech, the way it was taught up to sixth grade in the 50s. I had no problems with that. Yeah, I realize some of the things we’re trying to do with Common Core and our deeper understanding of numbers. But I’m the way I understood fractions was you cut an apple up? Yeah. Right. I mean, cut up four pieces. That’s for us.
Lillian Nave 59:05
Right? Very physical, right. Non abstract. You can see it. Yeah, yeah. And we
Jill Van Horne 59:10
need to multisensory we that comes up all the time, multisensory. You’re using all of your senses, you’re smelling it, you’re tasting, you’re touching it, you’re doing it, you’re cutting it. You’re feeling it. Yeah.
Lillian Nave 59:24
That’s great. I just, I hope that people are inspired, as they always are when they listen to you Professor Grandin, too, to add these things to their curriculum to offer choices and to think about how different learners are and engage them.
Temple Grandin 59:39
Well, when I was in fourth grade, we had an assignment that I just loved. And we were learning about, you know, prehistoric people. And we had to make caveman tools. And we weren’t allowed to use any any artificial stuff. So I was trying to attach a stone to a stick to make a sphere. My friend and I Lisa spent all day outside trying to make this. And I never forgot it. And then one of the kids kind of cheated. He got something like, blah, Heidi bought at the store and oh, no, that
Lillian Nave 1:00:13
I do that
Temple Grandin 1:00:14
a piece of vine to attach to a split stick the mega sphere. And it worked very well. The boy had fun doing it.
Lillian Nave 1:00:24
Yeah. And that’s the kind of learning we can bring in. And I think for so long. We’ve said no, that’s not appropriate. And we need to be doing lots of different ways. We’ve
Temple Grandin 1:00:34
got students growing up today who have never used a tool. Never in their life. Use the tool. I’m saying kids with an autism label, doing very elaborate things with Legos, very elaborate stuff. But nobody thought to introduce tools and a young adult now. Yeah, I’ve got problems with that he ought to be at a very, very high end skilled trade. I’m not talking about laying floor tiles. Yeah, I’m or, you know, asphalt, Shingle Roofing or something like that. But there needs to be a lot more respect for the, you know, the real high end, high end skilled trades. Okay. Right there. That’s pretty cool. My chemistry and engineering that right, there is a very fancy airline cargo container. And inside it is the chip making machine that we don’t make. Yeah, how long? Yeah, we need to be doing, make it a really plastic box, they put it in a look at that. And I go, that’s not your regular scuzzy air cargo container. They traveled first class.
Lillian Nave 1:01:38
Yeah. Wow. Well, I just want to thank you so much for this conversation, I’ve really think we brought, you brought to me a lot of ideas to think about, and also think about how our learners are different. So thank you so much.
Temple Grandin 1:01:54
I just want to finish up with one thing I get to ask our big corporations asked me all the time, when I talk about the difference, what’s the single most important thing you can tell us? The first step is you have to realize that different kinds of thinking exist. Yeah, that is the first step is recognizing that they exist, then you can start seeing how they can complement each other. Like Betsy and I are working on this book. And she organizes all my stuff. Yeah. And this is where you need to have the different kinds of minds.
Lillian Nave 1:02:25
Yes. Right. And we need to value them and understand them, and work together. So and I’m
Temple Grandin 1:02:31
so happy that she chose to go look at the Wright Brothers where they flew the first plane because we talked about the Wright brothers in the book, and, and she’s getting a greater appreciation. She said a person came over the house to fix the fireplace and something else in the house. You just started watching how how he did it. He’s developed a greater appreciation for the visual thinker.
Lillian Nave 1:02:57
Yes. Right. And as I have I with my son who loves mechanics, and paper airplanes, and welding, and all things mechanical, I have learned to really appreciate that me as an abstract thinker. I have really learned to love and understand how other people think. And it’s changed my world. And I so
Temple Grandin 1:03:18
here’s the first step is realizing how different thinkers think. And when I talked to corporations said you need these people. Yeah, you need someone like me to fix airplanes. And you’re going to need a mathematical types to work on the computer systems. Yeah. You see, you need to have both.
Lillian Nave 1:03:34
Yeah, absolutely. So Well, thank you. I’m taking Yeah, a long part of your time. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jill Van Horn for joining me today. And thank you, Dr. Temple Grandin for joining me on the think UDL podcast.
Temple Grandin 1:03:51
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Lillian Nave 1:04:04
You can follow the think EDL podcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to find out when new episodes will be released, and also see transcripts and additional materials at the think udl.org website. The think UDL podcast is made possible by College STAR the star stands for supporting transition, access and retention in post secondary settings, and the website provides free resources and instructional aids based on UDL principles. If you’d like to know more, go to the college star.org website. Additional support for the podcast is made possible by Appalachian State University where if you call it App-a-Lay-shun, I’ll throw an apple-at-cha. The music on the podcast was performed by the Odyssey quartet comprised of Rex Shepherd, David Pate, Bill Folwell and Jose Cochez. Our sound engineer is Tanner Jones and I am your host, Lillian Nave. Thank you for joining us on The think UDL podcast.