Episode 335: Chris, Melissa, and Maggie Bugaj: "Out of My Mind" Reflections

In this episode of Talking with Tech, Chris, Melissa, and Maggie Bugaj reflect on the  Disney+ movie Out of My Mind! This film centers around a young AAC user with cerebral palsy, and has sparked a lot of conversations about AAC online.  The Bugaj family talks about how we can take the popularity of this movie to continue and share the message of inclusive education and support for AAC!

1. Presuming Potential and Inclusive Education: The episode emphasizes the importance of assuming all students, including those with disabilities, have potential. Teachers, families, and educators are encouraged to provide opportunities for students with disabilities to thrive in general education settings, advocating for systemic change rather than blaming individual limitations.

2. The Role of Relationships and Communication Tools: Highlighting the significance of AAC, the Bugaj family discusses how multiple forms of AAC can enable effective communication. The relationships built between students, teachers, and parents are crucial for understanding individual needs and fostering inclusive environments.

3. Shifting Attitudes in Education: The movie serves as a call to action for educators to reflect on their practices and biases. It challenges educators to embrace training and resources to support inclusive education, an important concept as general education increasingly incorporates special education responsibilities. The movie illustrates that change begins with educators understanding and altering the environment, rather than trying to change the individual.

Links:

Watch Out of My Mind on Disney+

Supplemental Materials, Including Lesson Plans

Transcript of the Episode

Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.

00:00:08 Chris Bugaj
Welcome to the Talking With Tech podcast. My name is Chris Bugaj, and today I'm not joined by Rachel Madel. Instead, I'm joined by Melissa Bugaj and Maggie Bugaj. Yeah, thanks, guys, for joining me today. It would be great if Auntie Rachel could be here, but unfortunately she couldn't be. So we wanted to record because as a family, the three of us sat down and watched “Out of my Mind”. And I know Rachel has. I'm not sure if she's had a chance to watch it yet, but she's got some stuff going on. We just knew because of the holidays, we weren't gonna be able to coordinate a time to record. And I didn't wanna wait because we watched it together and we're all kind of have our own takes on it and our own perspectives on it. I thought, let's do it. Let's do it. So, listeners, there might be a time when Rachel and I continue to this discussion where her and I reflect on the movies. But right here, just because we just watched it like two days ago, like Friday night when it came out, and we are. We let it sit for a day. Simmer, think about it, right? It's been all over my social media feeds, and right after the, the. The movie, I went over to Google Keep, and I just, like, wrote down 17 different reflections. And I thought maybe we could go through those. But I'd also like to hear your reflections on these things. Here's full disclaimers here. Okay, everybody, these spoilers will ensue. So this is your moment to say, oh, maybe I should watch that movie before I listen to this podcast. Right? Hit the pause button. Now, if you have not seen the movie, it's “Out of my Mind”. It came out on Disney plus, and I think it's fair to say we all really enjoyed it. All right, so from this point further, there might be spoilers.

00:02:01 Melissa Bugaj
And Sharon Draper wrote the book. So this was adapted from that book.

00:02:06 Chris Bugaj
Yes. Yes. Okay, let's talk about the book for a second. All right. Also, full disclosure, I've never read the book, but you, Melissa, used to teach the book, and you read it when.

00:02:16 Maggie Bugaj
You were in second grade and then presented on it when I was in the sixth grade.

00:02:20 Chris Bugaj
So let's start there with the book a little bit. What. What's your history there, Melissa?

00:02:24 Melissa Bugaj
So when I worked at Louden Valley High School, which is near where we live, they had an English 11 course. And that year the library was giving in that book out for free. And so we took it in our English 11 course and ran with it. And there was so much rich discussion, so much enlightenment from the kids. It was really great to get perspectives and see some aha moments. In those moments. It taught me a ton of how I interacted after that. And I've been in this for 25 years.

00:03:11 Chris Bugaj
In special education.

00:03:12 Melissa Bugaj
Yes.

00:03:12 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, yeah. In fact, you invited me to come in and do some guest presentations. I remember doing one with the kids there where I gave them a piece of paper and I said, all right, you're going out to dinner. Write down, I don't know, 25 words that you'd want to use while you're at dinner. And they were writing stuff like kung pao chicken or, you know, General Chow's chicken or whatever. And then we did a little role play, and they realized, ooh, you can't say much with just those words.

00:03:41 Melissa Bugaj
So they were using. Then they got it that they had to use the core words and that those were fringe words. And you got to explain that whole thing. I remember that very clearly.

00:03:49 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, yeah. It was a big aha moment for them. You could see it in their eyes, like, oh, right. You know, what you think is the thing is not necessarily the thing.

00:03:56 Maggie Bugaj
So.

00:03:56 Chris Bugaj
So what's your experience?

00:03:58 Maggie Bugaj
So I was given the book in second grade when my mom was teaching it from a free book from the library, and I ended up reading it within a week. It sucked me in. And I was reading it every day after school, and it became one of my favorites really fast. I grew up in education and around education, surrounded by it by my parents, and I really enjoyed it and looked for more books like it to continue to educate myself. And then it popped back up around sixth grade when it was that reading level. It was in a sixth grade reading level. So I reread it and did some deeper learning into it and the themes and the plots and how it can.

00:04:46 Chris Bugaj
Carry out through our lives now, real, real life applications. Right.

00:04:52 Maggie Bugaj
I brought in one of my dad's iPads, one of the AAC iPads, when I ended up presenting on it in the sixth grade. And a bunch of kids used it and we tapped it, and they had never seen it before. They'd never known what it was. So, yeah, my teacher still talks about it to this day.

00:05:09 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. All right, so shall we dig into some of the features in the movies, Some of the stuff that I noticed? Stuff that you noticed. Feel free to draw out comparisons to the book since you're both so familiar with it. Here's the first thing that I Absolutely loved about this movie. Top. It's. I think it's going to be something most people don't know. Aren't going to see, but I see it because I'm a dad, and that is growing up Maggie and Tucker. Right. You remember how, Melissa, how many times I tell you we'd come back from a movie or we'd watch a movie as a family, and it was the same plot point over and over, is that the dad doesn't understand the kid. And that's the plot of the movie, is that they have to prove themselves that dad is wrong. And it was just all always this antagonistic plot point between the kids and the dad, specifically the dad not believing in the kids. Examples. Here we go. How to Train youn Dragon. It's a big one. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Right, Coco? I could go on. This is not that. But in this movie, from the beginning to the end, the dad is the one who believes. The dad is the one that is like, we're going to do things differently. He is a catalyst for change, believing in his kid, you know, and the potential in his kid. And it was just from that aspect as a father. Loved it. Right. Like, love is like, oh, so finally get to see where a dad is the cheerleader, you know, instead of the heavy, you know?

00:06:43 Melissa Bugaj
Well, and I really, like, there was one point in the movie that I could connect to having been in the situation where something happened in the movie and he overreacted and was not listening to his daughter. And when he got in the car, he turned around and said, I'm so sorry.

00:07:03 Chris Bugaj
Yeah.

00:07:03 Melissa Bugaj
And it just reminded me of you and Maggie, you know, because there's times that you're rushing or you don't hear each other and you each snap at each other, you know, or we snap at each other.

00:07:15 Chris Bugaj
And it's just that one time.

00:07:16 Melissa Bugaj
That one time. Right, Maggie? But I loved how the dad turned around. I was like, I'm so sorry.

00:07:20 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Yeah. You recognize. And then you. It's only that one time, right? Like in. In the movie.

00:07:27 Melissa Bugaj
Yeah.

00:07:27 Chris Bugaj
You know? Yeah. I loved how that was modeled as well, you know, and it wasn't.

00:07:32 Maggie Bugaj
The mom wasn't a villain. She was just overprotective. So it wasn't the fact that there was a bad guy. It was the system. But the dad was a strong role.

00:07:44 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Again, having not read the book, I was a little shocked at how the mom was reacting at the beginning. And it was only maybe the first 15 minutes of the movie. She was sort of saying, no, we're not. We're not going to put her in a general education classroom. And I couldn't understand it at first. I was like, what? Like, where?

00:08:03 Melissa Bugaj
I got it right away.

00:08:04 Chris Bugaj
You got it right away. Which was. She was being protective. Not that she didn't believe in her child, but that she was protecting her from bullies or from the potential of being bullied, of who's going to talk.

00:08:16 Melissa Bugaj
To her, who's going to push her wheelchair, who's going to. These are real fears. And us being. We're at 26 years in education now, these are these. We've. We've been there for these fears. We've talked through these fears with parents. We've lived through these fears and trying to empathize with them. Of how can we help you here? How can we make you feel more, you know, appreciated, heard, understood, Safe.

00:08:49 Chris Bugaj
Safe.

00:08:52 Melissa Bugaj
And I'll be honest with you, I feel that, you know, with Maggie.

00:08:56 Chris Bugaj
Right.

00:08:57 Melissa Bugaj
So it's same. What if she goes to school and there's something going on or somebody says something mean to her? But it's a whole different element when your kid cannot communicate.

00:09:09 Chris Bugaj
Right, right. Not communicate through words anymore.

00:09:11 Melissa Bugaj
Yes, exactly.

00:09:12 Chris Bugaj
Yes. So throughout the movie, I think a major plot point was that the vast majority of the educators in the school cared about the main character, but Melanie. Right. But the. They didn't necessarily believe in her potential. Right. The system was sort of set up that she was going into a special education classroom. There was going to be no opportunities to go into general ed if it wasn't for one strong advocate. I think her name was Catherine, who was a doctor and saying, we're gonna try this. Right. And throughout that entire plot of the movie, I kept recognizing or every scenario where there was interactions with the teachers, I really resonated with those because I've been in every one of those conversations. I've been in the conversation where a kid with a disability has been thought of as cheating or because there was a. An assistant there, questions were raised, which is one of the reasons we fight so hard for autonom is so that some of those questions can be erased. You know, the. The sort of condescending tone around an IEP and what it's about and how things work. Right. And so, you know, I'm happy to say, you know, I've been in the, like you 26 years. Right. Many more conversations that are not like that. And over the years, it has certainly changed, but I did recognize all of those. Right.

00:10:46 Melissa Bugaj
Maggie, I just wanted to get your take on that so with teachers not presuming potential, I just feel like as a student, you've had moments that you've had to be. You've had to kind of be the upstander for those students that you've noticed. So, for example. I'm going to give an example. In fourth grade, you noticed that one of your friends could not get on the bleachers for, say, the chorus concert. And so you had to be the upstander because her communication was not verbal, it was visual, and it wasn't being seen.

00:11:29 Maggie Bugaj
Yeah, I think it happens a lot, and we don't see it as much in schools, especially in high school and middle school, when kids are quote, unquote, acting out. It might just be their way of communicating of like, this kid was fighting not to get on the bleachers. She was trying to scream and run away, but she just couldn't get on the bleachers. She just wanted to stand on the floor. And that was a different way of communicating and saying, I don't want to get on these bleachers. I want to stand on the floor.

00:11:59 Chris Bugaj
Because you knew this student for many, many years. You kind of knew or no, she.

00:12:04 Melissa Bugaj
Was a very good friend. You guys were together all the time.

00:12:09 Maggie Bugaj
But as a music teacher who's not with these kids every day, I did see the. I can now see the perspective of this kid is trying to scream and run away from these bleachers, and we're about to have a concert with all these kids. What do I do? Oh, I tell her to go off. Like, I tell her to leave. So it's a difference of kind of that going back to acting out in the moment of snapping at each other almost to say something. It's also like understanding and thinking about your actions and watching the movie, you can think about, well, the teacher, Mr. Demmings, said a lot of things that I've heard teachers say before. But when you watch it back, you watch back his actions, you're just yelling at the TV for him to stop. You're grabbing the couch, screaming, asking for him to stop saying what he's saying. But then you realize that some teachers do say this and it isn't a reality.

00:13:07 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, it's lack of knowledge. Right? It's really lack of knowledge, lack of understanding. But still, there's this mindset that, well, hey, let me put it this way. I would love for every educator to watch this movie and then at the end, reflect. Which educator do you want to be like? Right. Do you want to be like the principal do you want to be like Mr. Demings? Do you want to be like Catherine? Do you want to be like the psychologist that they took her to to get approved for the communication device? Right. That was also painful because I can remember doing things like that back when I first started. There was a candidacy model, and it's exists in many places where you have to jump through some sort of prerequisite hoop in order to be even considered for aac, which is less than it's ever been, but it's still very prevalent.

00:13:58 Maggie Bugaj
I sat through those tests, not for aac, but for other accommodations. And I sat through those tests and was told that I wasn't using all my resources. And no, you can do more. When really I was doing what was my limit. But I was just thinking differently than what they were thinking.

00:14:18 Melissa Bugaj
And I think, too, it really is, teachers want to do their best. No one comes into this going, oh, I'm not going to listen to this kid. It really is just educating, and the great teachers really gain that knowledge and then go, oh, my gosh, that was so helpful. I'm going to do that next time. I think, too. Another thing that really made me want to grab the couch, like Maggie said, was during their conversations of what they were saying, Mr. Deming, the principal in the IEP meetings is, she's such a nice girl. She really is doing the best she can. And that is not constructive feedback. That is not presuming potential or telling what that child knows. And it really is showing that you don't really know what that child can do. So maybe we need to raise that up.

00:15:09 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great line. It's a great line in the movie.

00:15:12 Melissa Bugaj
When he's like, this is really nice.

00:15:13 Chris Bugaj
So am I. Yeah, she's meeting our expectations. Maybe you should raise your expectations.

00:15:18 Melissa Bugaj
Exactly.

00:15:19 Maggie Bugaj
I definitely think looking back for teachers watching it and reflecting on who you want to be and who you identify with.

00:15:28 Chris Bugaj
Now, speaking of great lines, there was a great line in the. When Catherine gets pulled out into the hallway with the principal. With the principal. And that line is, disabilities don't hold people back. Schools do. Or something like that. Right.

00:15:45 Melissa Bugaj
That was the line.

00:15:47 Maggie Bugaj
It was really powerful.

00:15:48 Chris Bugaj
It was. Yeah, that was another one where I was screaming at the TV like, darn right. It's the environment. Let's fix the environment. Let's fix the system. Kids aren't broken. The system is. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just. This is a side note maybe, but I remember when you were teaching the book and you were telling me that the Communication device that she gets. And it's the same, I think communication device in movie is called the Mediterracker and it's a fictional device that doesn't actually exist. And that's true too in the movie. There's not that that device doesn't exist as far as I know. Right. It's made up. Something that I was sort of shocked to see was that the picture symbols used before she has the communication device, those are real symbols. Right. Those are PCs symbols. And I was sort of shocked at that because I sort of expected if you're going to be agnostic and create a fictional device that, you know, hardware, then be fictional in the symbols too in the symbol set because you wouldn't want to show preference over one over the other or others that are out there. There's a bunch of different symbol sets and some symbol sets help you teach what the words mean where others might be a little bit more difficult. So that was something that was just shocking to me. I didn't expect to see that. That said, I really loved how they sort of the director made the choice to model words on those, like just the screen cuts and it's just a close up of the symbols that are running through her mind. Yes. And I thought that was brilliant because it sort of shows modeling language using aac.

00:17:26 Melissa Bugaj
Exactly.

00:17:28 Chris Bugaj
Speaking of other great moments in the movie and little background things that I noticed, the final sort of scene in the movie, sort of the climax, if you will, is when she comes into the classroom at the end and she gives a speech where she has to sort of everyone has to demonstrate their wait time and she has to tell them, no, you're going to wait. Which I thought was great. Mr. Dimmings. Right, right. But in that scene behind her on the wall, right by the door, there's a sign that says think before you speak. And I just thought that was such a subtle nod. You know, being movie buffs, right. We recognize that there's staging involved, like on scenes and things are there for a purpose, you know, and if it's meant to be like, see, this is a home that's messy, or see, this is whatever, whatever it is, that sort of background thing, I just sort of love that that was placed there. If you're the person that whispered that into the director's ear and said, hey, we should have a sign there, brilliant. I just loved it because that's exactly it is that people should take a minute to wait and think before they speak.

00:18:45 Melissa Bugaj
Well, and I'll often say that people will, you Know when we're doing IEPs as a special educator in this field, when they say, give wait time, I always say, how much? And I always want to ask the kid, because what is their wait time? Is it 10 seconds? Is it 15 seconds? Is it 30? Because there is a vast difference between five and 10 seconds. And you wouldn't even realize it. And I always time it. I'm always like, okay, let's do. We're going to put 10 seconds. Let's put 10 seconds. How about we just put wait time and then when the child is ready, once they've processed, they can come out with the answer. Because there's lots of different answers, there's lots of different processing time for different content. You might be faster in math, you might be slower in social studies to gain that, oh, wait, I'm in the United States, I have to go to the Midwest. I have too many steps.

00:19:39 Maggie Bugaj
You know, something I really liked about the movie on this kind of track is it showed in movies. It's often hurried along and joked about that, you know, you don't want any silent time and no dead like air. But there was such a powerful couple. I think it was like not even 30 seconds, but of her, Melanie curating the speech on her device and after saying you have to wait and then curating the speech, not having it preset, not having it pre programmed, but she was curating it as it was coming into her mind, and then it was able to communicate the message out, but everyone else had to wait and listen, which is so, so real. In real life, it's conversation.

00:20:29 Melissa Bugaj
It's conversation etiquette. Right. We wait till you're done speaking and then.

00:20:33 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, exactly, exactly. The people who needed to wait were Mr. Demings and the classroom and the watchers. Right. We also had to wait. And I just love that it sort of modeled that wait time. Totally. Like you said, it's just polite thing to do is wait for someone to formulate whatever message they're trying to formulate. Um, going back to the AAC for a second, there was a particular scene in the bathtub when she was taking a bath where she was like, oh, mom just loves doing this stuff. But the AAC there shows that, that it's laminated and it's paper based. We use this example a lot, Rachel and I do, in presentations about how, yeah, you need aac, high tech AAC or robust AAC with lots of words, but it's not going to work in every single environment. The bath is a great example. I love that. That scene was in there just to illustrate, like, so many different environments and how AAC needed to be in different forms in different places.

00:21:31 Melissa Bugaj
Even with eating, you know, things were spilling, and she was doing her best, but things were spilling. And so you could have it in that situation as well. So it's just easily wiped off.

00:21:45 Maggie Bugaj
I also enjoyed Melanie spelling. Spelling things with her neighbor and showing the thought process of the parents of. Yes, Melanie spells things out often, but they still have to think of what did she just spell and process it before. Whereas when she had her device, she was just able to press the word and it would come out. And she didn't have to spell unfair. She could just press the button and it would say unfair. But it made the parents process what Melanie was trying to say.

00:22:18 Chris Bugaj
Well, let's talk about that scene for a second. So it's unclear if unfair is a word that is programmed into her device, or if she did flip over to the keyboard and start spelling it out, or if she went over to the keyboard, starts spelling it out, and it uses word prediction to say it for her. Right. But there's that scene where they are programming it, trying to figure out what phrases to put in there. And the dad's joking around, right? Like, oh, my. What was it something about, yeah, your dad's the best.

00:22:46 Maggie Bugaj
Yeah, best dad ever. You're gonna need that. And the mom ended up putting cuss words on there. And the dad was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Maybe we shouldn't give her that. And the mom immediately was like, well, we can't decide what she's gonna say.

00:23:02 Chris Bugaj
This is her voice.

00:23:03 Maggie Bugaj
Yeah, this is her voice, not ours.

00:23:05 Chris Bugaj
Yes. So brilliant in how they wove in all aspects of AAC like that. Those are points that we've had to answer questions like that over and over and over. Like, Rachel and I, when we do presentations, is that sort. This kid wants to put swear words on there. Yeah, go ahead, do it right.

00:23:23 Melissa Bugaj
Or slang.

00:23:24 Chris Bugaj
Or slang. Right?

00:23:25 Melissa Bugaj
Yeah. I loved specifically when they opened the box and the mom immediately was like, getting the directions out and like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop. And Melanie is trying to grab onto it and tear it out. Cause she's so excited. And the mom is looking at the directions and opening it up. And then she goes. Takes the directions and throws them and goes, all right, are we just going to learn? So they just figured it out together. It was beautiful.

00:23:50 Chris Bugaj
And then the scene right after that, because as that scene's happening again from the dad's perspective, I'm like, she's getting her first device that they've fought for so hard for so long. And he's not there. He's missing. And he's missing it. And it's like I noticed he was noticeably absent. And then I realized afterwards, because the immediate scene afterwards is him coming home and her coming around the corner and saying her first words to him. And he breaks down. I'm gonna lose it. Right. Thinking about it, because it was the most powerful. That was one of the most powerful scenes in the movie because I so resonated with him and her and the excitement and what they chose. Like I wanted to say this specific phrase and it was back then, and you're going to get it right. Not just, hi, dad, you know, just again, so well, well done. Speaking of scenes that I absolutely loved, here was my number one favorite favorite scene in the movie. She's in the contest. And during the contest, everyone's watching it on tv. Right. And one of the questions is about the largest predator or something like that.

00:25:00 Maggie Bugaj
The largest prehistoric predator ever to walk or be on earth.

00:25:08 Chris Bugaj
Yes. And as they are going through the answers, there's a student back in the special education classroom as they're watching the building.

00:25:16 Maggie Bugaj
The special education building.

00:25:18 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Right. Trailer Learning cottage. I put in quotes Learning cottage. And that student says Megalodon. And it was like, yes.

00:25:27 Melissa Bugaj
Oh, again, the assistant said. What'd you say?

00:25:30 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, right, Exactly. Again, would have missed it. Right. But the fact that they put that in the movie again sort of shows. Yeah, she's getting a chance. But what about all the other kids that aren't getting a chance to show off what they know who are missing out on opportun. I feel like our work, Melissa, has been. Our whole life has been. How can we provide equity in the opportunities that are being provided? You know, that's what the whole Robots for Everyone is about. And it's so much more. But just the fact, again, that they chose to do that. Right. And they. I found this was also pretty poignant about the other kids is that her friends at the beginning, there's a student with down syndrome. And that student with down syndrome is never pictured in the general ed class, right? Never. So, so often you're looking for what's in the movie and then I'm also looking for what they intentionally did not put in the movie because they're not getting that opportunity. Right. And now, again, this was years ago, but like the. When. When does the movie take place? 2002. 2002. So maybe things have improved there. And there's More opportunities, but still. Right, that's. That was really poignant.

00:26:51 Maggie Bugaj
Why the students that are chosen to go into general ed and why the students that have to stay back when you could just have.

00:26:58 Melissa Bugaj
Well, even when Melody was rolled in, it was. I just thought, we have visitors. She didn't have a desk.

00:27:04 Maggie Bugaj
We have a visitor.

00:27:05 Melissa Bugaj
She didn't have a desk. None of them had a desk that walked in and it was, oh, here's our visitors. Well, I don't have a desk or a chair for them. I don't have a place where. If we knew now that we were having a student that had a wheelchair coming into the classroom, it would be contacting that pt, getting an appropriate desk, getting. Making sure that that student had what they needed to go to the bathroom and access it and a lift. And I mean, so to just have them come in, they'd have a name tag, they'd be part of the class that, you know.

00:27:35 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, yeah.

00:27:36 Melissa Bugaj
Literally.

00:27:36 Maggie Bugaj
This year, I helped rearrange my 6th grade English teacher's classroom for her when she had a student that wasn't gonna fit their wheels on their wheelchair wasn't gonna fit in between those awful rows that we have. So we'd rearrange the desks. We made it a circle position with the student had low hearing so they could read everyone's lips when they were in a circle. And they ended up achieving way higher in the class because my group went around and we reorganized and we rearranged the classrooms to be more accommodating for everyone and inclusive. And inclusive. And it was fun. Everyone had fun.

00:28:15 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. You changed the environment, right? Yeah, it started by changing the environment. Many, I would say many elementary schools have sort of shifted to a flexible seating. You can go to different schools and find that. But it's secondary, like middle and high school. It's still pretty rare. It's mostly those rows. Right. But again, if you have different flexible seating, it makes it easier that everybody's sitting in different. Yeah, standing or sitting or on high chairs or low chairs or there's all sorts of options for everybody makes it much easier than the rose.

00:28:48 Maggie Bugaj
Something I did want to point out AS well is Mr. Demmings in that scene when he says, oh, here comes these visitors. Afterwards, he says a line along the lines of something like, I didn't know they were going to be a disruption, and calls the students disruptions, which is just such a character moment for Mr. Demmings that is so different from the book.

00:29:12 Melissa Bugaj
Yes.

00:29:12 Maggie Bugaj
Because in the book he's so supportive and he's just this little character that Melanie loves. Yes, she loves Mr. Demings, but in the movie he became a little bit antagonist almost. And that really just showed off his character right off the bat of visitors number one and number two, I didn't know these students were going to be a disruption.

00:29:34 Chris Bugaj
And who's actually did the disruption? It's Claire. Yes, Claire is the disruption. Right. She's allowed to shout out and be. Make things.

00:29:42 Melissa Bugaj
And so did the boy. The boy in there, Claire. Yep.

00:29:45 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. So I understand why they make those changes. So you could see that in yourselves as like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't be like. Again. So you can look at the. That question I asked earlier is, who do you want to identify with? Right. You don't want to be the Mr. Demings. Right. Maybe at the end, maybe he's shown some growth. Right. But the fact that he never even scored her. Her test for the Whiz kids.

00:30:08 Maggie Bugaj
Gosh, it was such an insane. The fact that. Well, because in that scene we were. I was thinking personally of like, oh, he just didn't count it because of the assistant. And I never even thought it. I never even thought it over of the fact that he didn't even look at it. He didn't even grade it. He didn't even think that Melody would even get anywhere near what everyone else did.

00:30:36 Chris Bugaj
There's a phrase that we use that I didn't see used in the movie. The movie constantly talks about special education, and when they mention special education, it's like. Like it's a place. Like you go to special education, but special education is not a place, it's an idea. It's a service. It's not a destination. Right. So you can be in special education and be completely in general education. Right. In the general education classroom and completely serve there. So I thought that was interesting in that they never brought it up, that they mention it as a place. Right. But maybe that's something that has grown since 2002.

00:31:20 Maggie Bugaj
Definitely. I have TAs in almost all of my classes. I've been in classes where I've observed and they have TAs just to walk around and help and see what other students need at different times. So I think it's definitely. And all of those teachers. Assistants were special education teachers that were just incorporated into general education classrooms to, again, accommodate for everyone's needs. And.

00:31:52 Melissa Bugaj
And oftentimes you don't know, right? I mean, you don't know who's involved. I. I used to be the special education teacher in so many classes in high school and by the end of the year, the kids, I'd be taking out more general ed kids for a small group than my, you know, than the dia, you know, the diagnosed students, should we say that have a diagnosed disability. These students had no idea. It was no idea who was in the classroom.

00:32:21 Maggie Bugaj
That happens all the time. Every class that I go in small group testing, whenever I get the chance I'll go. And a good portion of the class goes with it's a resource to be used and it's a resource that we have, so why not use it when we have it?

00:32:38 Melissa Bugaj
And that's good teaching.

00:32:39 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, exactly. It's not just the assessment, but the instruction can be small group. And now that you know so many people benefit from it and learn better in that sort of small group, let's design it that way. Let's just do a great thing. I often mention this in some of the presentations I do that are not AAC related is when you're trying to design inclusive instruction, it's think about, okay, well how much of my instruction is whole group versus how much is small group. And do what you can to maximize the small group. Because the more small group you have, the more inclusive it can be because the more flexible you can be.

00:33:15 Melissa Bugaj
Well, and I think that's such a huge thing in elementary, which I love so much is when we started with these playlists years ago after Covid, it became a thing where you did small group instruction. And so you would pull your small group to reinforce what you learned or extend on what you learned or just do something fun with them to connect. There's so much to do there.

00:33:48 Chris Bugaj
Something else I really loved about this movie was again going back to the multiple forms of AAC that were represented. The symbols, the paper based symbols, the laminated, the spelling boards. Right. But another one that might be overlooked, but I wanted to specifically point out because I love that they included it was her pointing to objects that represented words like hey, I know who discovered, yeah, the leaf. Right. When she points to the leaf. And I just thought, yes, because again, multimodal communication, you can't just be pointing, you can't all get all your points across. You can't just, well, I guess you could just be spelling, but that's going to take so long all the time. But you knowing what's the right tool to use in the moment. Right. She had her letterboard there. She could have spelled out leaf. She saw that he wasn't going to come over and read so she had to pick something else.

00:34:40 Maggie Bugaj
Right, Dr. Catherine. Right.

00:34:43 Melissa Bugaj
Yep.

00:34:45 Maggie Bugaj
She understood that Melanie was saying something different and not just pointing at a wall where Mr. Demings had this sort of annoyance about him of, oh, well, Melanie's pointing somewhere like, I'm not gonna look on the wall where Melanie's pointing. I'm just gonna look at Melanie and stare. Whereas the doctor immediately started looking around of like, what is Melannie pointing out? What is Melannie thinking? And how can I think, like Melanie to figure out what is happening?

00:35:12 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, exactly.

00:35:13 Melissa Bugaj
In real life, how often does that happen? How often am I going, oh, my gosh, what is the word? I forget what I was about to say. I didn't know what I was going to. What is that word? And you're constantly tripping over yourself. That's completely normal. That's communication.

00:35:29 Maggie Bugaj
A good example of today's. I couldn't remember, I can't remember it now, but I set a couple of the movies and dad immediately got it of Rudolph and Snowman and Heat Miser and I can't remember the director's names, but you can.

00:35:45 Chris Bugaj
So, yeah, yeah, whatever it takes to.

00:35:47 Melissa Bugaj
You said the movies with the clay and the old animation and dad said, oh, Santa Claus is coming to town and Bass.

00:35:55 Maggie Bugaj
Yeah.

00:35:56 Melissa Bugaj
Yes.

00:35:56 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rankin Bass.

00:35:58 Maggie Bugaj
Rankin Bass, yeah. No, we have those moments all the time and it's completely normal to understand, but thinking how another person thinks is so much harder and so much difficult. So much more difficult. When you have an annoyance and a closed minded attitude about you of like, let me just stare at this child.

00:36:18 Melissa Bugaj
Yeah, well. And not the relationship, right. There's relationships you have to develop with all your students in order to know them really well, you know, and what.

00:36:28 Chris Bugaj
Was really illustrated there, I think brilliantly, is that Mr. Demings did not. That character did not presume potential where Catherine did immediately. So what, what, what Again, I say this all the time. Which foot do you want to lead the dance with? Right. Is that, well, when I go into this and I see a person that I'm going to be interacting with, do I want to assume or what assumptions do I want to make and are they the least dangerous assumption? So something I, you know, when I do my presentations, you know, I have to, as a bio right at the beginning and introduce myself. I often say that my job title is the assistive technology specialist, but I think of myself as an inclusive design facilitator. And in those years of that evolution from assistive technology to inclusive design, one of the things that I've sort of allowed myself to fantasize about is what if. What if in this, in a hypothetical world, right. In the multiverse, maybe there's a. There's a. There's an environment like this where there is no special education classroom, meaning it never even existed. You know, there. No one ever thought that kids of certain abilities should go to a different place for the majority of the day or for any of the day. Right. And I've let myself sort of dream what that would be like and then backwards design from that. And let me be clear, that doesn't currently exist in a way that you would. That you would just say, go as. Throw a student in special. Throw a student with a disability in general education without support or without making some adjustments. And right now there's many general education classrooms that would not be conducive because the environment is not designed. Like, Maggie, you were talking about where the seating is and how it's arranged, or the educators. Mr. Dimmings, to an extent, he. I believe him when he said, I've received no training. Right. That doesn't stop you from presuming potential. But I've received no training on how to differentiate instruction. I get that. Like, that's a. That's a.

00:38:41 Melissa Bugaj
Sometimes.

00:38:41 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, exactly. Because you don't want to hurt anybody either. Right. You get the impression that he wants to do. He just doesn't know, at least by the end. Right. So I've often thought about that, like, what would it look like if that was some future, you know, where. Where general education was, was responsible for all of special education. We say that right now. Right. Every kid is a general ed student first. Right. And the reason I sort of am bringing that up here in this context is because there is a much higher turnover rate in special education teachers than general education teachers. We've known this, and I don't see any evidence that it's getting better anytime soon. So I think General Ed, if you're listening to this, you gotta watch this movie because. And if you're a special ed teacher or a speech language pathologist or a parent, this is the time to grab.

00:39:36 Melissa Bugaj
Or administrator.

00:39:37 Chris Bugaj
Or administrator. This is the time to grab those buddies and say, let's watch this movie together. Come on over. We're going to have beverages and popcorn and we're going to watch this movie together. Because General Ed, you're going to be picking up more and more of the responsibilities. You can't be Mr. Demings. Right. You can't lean on the excuse. I don't know. We're warning you now, right. That this is coming, and we want you to be prepared for it. We're here to help you.

00:40:00 Maggie Bugaj
Something I've grown up with, which I have a privilege of, is two educators in my home. But now with the Internet and phones, there are so many resources of literally, the world is in your hands. So playing the. Well, I didn't know. I have no idea about any of this. I have no idea what down syndrome is. I have no idea what this is. Well, you have resources, and if you're an educator, you have places that you can educate yourself on. And if you are going to be educating other people, then you should be educated to an extent.

00:40:37 Melissa Bugaj
And here's another thing that I want to say. I have some. Well, I have a lot of incredible parents that have taught me over the years. And I will pull from one of those parents that always says, ask me. It makes me feel so good when you ask me, because it's showing interest in my kid. If you want to know about my kid. I know everything there is to know about my kid. And because I've done all the research on, you know, this disability and this syndrome and this and this illness that she has. And I want to tell you, I want to talk about it with you because I want to see what you're seeing in school. Because oftentimes we see a lot of different things in school than you see at home. And sometimes the parents get played a little more, sometimes we get played a little more by the kid. Those kids are smart. They know. But once you join forces together and they know that you have similar language together and they start hearing it, you'll notice a difference in, oh, this is my team. My team goes all the way around my day.

00:41:44 Maggie Bugaj
And looping back, asking questions is great. Again, to an extent, the students, the parents, they are not your sole educator. They are not. I haven't done any research. I have no idea what I'm going into. Let me just ask a million questions with absolutely no background knowledge, no care in the world, and just ask random questions. Because we've been in those meetings and I've been through that. Of. Let me just ask these random questions because I didn't give the time to just sit down and look up real quick what actually is happening.

00:42:23 Chris Bugaj
To summarize all of that, it's again, I think growing up in a public education like I did, there was a general fear that as a student that if you didn't know information, like, you didn't do well on the test, that there was some sort of shame in that, right. Rather than embracing the fact that you're going to make mistakes and that's how you learn, right? And what has that with so many adults my age and similar going through that sort of system? There's this fear of showing that you don't know something, right? Where that shouldn't be. It should be the other way. Like, hey, I don't know. So either let me go do my own research or let me ask, or let me be an expert at learning, right? My own learning. But instead we sort of have this little shame, like, I. I should know. I somehow I should know, right?

00:43:14 Melissa Bugaj
Well, and I will say, you know, I have a lot of elementary kids that will come in, in the beginning of the year and them and their parents will give like a little talk. And I just want to shout out to Maggie because she put that in her iep and I will say, you know, it is her document. We're there to support you. But it's, you know, Maggie, Maggie really owns that. And you went and gave that whole presentation the beginning of the year, and I think that's made a huge difference. What do you think?

00:43:46 Maggie Bugaj
I think educating the educators that you're gonna spend the most of your time with was definitely a smart idea. It did improve a lot and gave my teachers a starting point of, yes, this is what is happening with her. But now what can I research and what questions can I ask further on to, like, branch off of, like, yeah, I said this, this, and this, but I still have a question about this. Once I went back and I did my own research so that it was really helpful and it was really great.

00:44:21 Chris Bugaj
Tying it back to the movie, the ending speech that Melanie gives in the classroom. Imagine that same speech at the beginning of the next school year for the staff that are going to be supporting her, right? So that. So that they know, right? They know up front. Oh, I have to wait time. Got it. Right. Okay. Oh, okay. She's spelling, right? Oh, okay. It's going to take her a little bit longer to formulate words that can do that, right?

00:44:43 Maggie Bugaj
Even. Even eating. Even eating, yes. Let's have a sit down. Let's eat a little longer than the rest of us. This.

00:44:50 Melissa Bugaj
Let's have her desk in here. Where is she going to sit? Let's bring her in and say, where would you like to sit? Where is going to be most comfortable for you? What's going to be most accessible for you? What do you need? These are all huge things.

00:45:01 Chris Bugaj
I want to point out that the movie also comes with a supplemental Materials that help you teach it. So in the same way that you taught the book, there's a ways to use the movie and there's teaching guides that they have.

00:45:13 Melissa Bugaj
They've built it out quite a bit. Bit since I taught it.

00:45:16 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, there's amazing. There's an upper elementary poster that you can have a middle school teaching kit. There's the Whiz Kids Kids challenge that you can take. And there's letters home for families and stuff. So we'll make sure that that's linked in the show notes of this episode. If you're like, what do you mean? I didn't know there was supplemental resources. You can just go to our website and find those and check them out for yourself, see if it'd be something you'd be interested in using. Let me bring it back to any sort of final thoughts, other scenes in the movie, other things that resonated with you. I'll go first. I'll just say I feel like this should be a movie that is shouted from the rooftops, spread far and wide. It should be something you share with every kid. We know, families that are friends with, that have already watched it, whether they have a child with a disability, whether they use AAC or not, you know, and that's so exciting to me that we're actually spreading something to be much more mainstream. And it's. And it's. Yes, it's a fictionalized story. It's not a documentary. But maybe that gets people even more curious about, okay, what can I do to be a much better support to families and people who use aac?

00:46:33 Melissa Bugaj
I want to say, too, that one of the quotes from the book that was probably one of my favorites was, I know the name of her condition doctor. That's the mom. The mom is talking to the doctor and says, I know the name of her condition doctor. But a person is so much more than the name of the diagnosis on the chart. And I just want to remind. And I constantly am doing this in our school and our teachers are doing this and our parents are doing this and our kids are doing this. They are more than the paperwork that's in front of you. They're more than those scores that are coming out that we all have to pay attention to. They're more than that one moment of test at the end of the year. That's, you know, state testing. You really have to delve deep and get to know that kid. Because on paper, you don't know.

00:47:23 Maggie Bugaj
Yeah. Something a little bit about that. Everything is a spectrum. Everything is arranged Everyone has their own story. What I think my final thoughts is definitely push it out. There was. There's a trend on social media about it right now of you share your story and then you share Melanie's story and you push it out. But again, this is a movie that is very educational, but it's also a movie about a teenage girl. Literally, anyone can watch it. It was so relatable for me. That's. I was thinking those exact same things she was thinking when I was 12. Like, I was thinking those things of, I want to hang out with these people. Oh, my gosh, her shoes are so cool. I wish I could dress like that. I wish I could do this. But it's literally just a teenage girl.

00:48:08 Melissa Bugaj
Yeah, like with the tights, right? Yeah, I want to wear those tights.

00:48:11 Maggie Bugaj
You know, those tights. But they're such a hassle to put on. But I want to wear them. So it's just, again, it's a reminder of it's just a teenage girl's mind. It's just a teenage girl movie. I think that's why I loved the book so much as a second grader of, oh my gosh, this is a teenage girl. And like, this is what I will be. So it's such an alluring story and it's so educational, which is so fun. But it's also a home, family loving story.

00:48:43 Melissa Bugaj
And I do want to say, too, just my final, final thought is that we work with incredible people out there. We work with incredible parents and students and teachers that blow our minds every single day. And we know that you're out. You know, you are doing your best and you love your kids and you want to get to know them. So I think what we're trying to say is get to know them just a little bit more. And here are some ways you can do it. But thank you for all you do.

00:49:17 Chris Bugaj
Well said, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us on this. Reflections of “Out of my Mind”. This might be. We might be doing this again with Rachel. And I know this was just the first watch, right? We're going to watch it many, many, many more times. That's something that happens in the Bugaj household, is that when we're doing work, we put on movies in the background that we watch our favorites over and over and over again. So I think this is going to fall into that cycle and we're going to. We're going to see things that, you know, a second and a third time that we didn't catch the first time. If there's things that you saw that you heard that resonated with you. We'd love for you to go leave it over at, you know, our Facebook page, the Talking with Tech Facebook page. Or just reach out via email or talkingwithtechmail.com or I if you know, Maggie.

00:50:05 Melissa Bugaj
Had mentioned to bring it back to her in the beginning when she read this book. She came to me and said, what other books are there that I can read? If you guys know any books that are like, you have got to read this book. This is fantastic. It was the Dog that Comes at Night. So it is. If you have books recommendations for us, well, take them. You know, put them in the comments. We'd love to hear about them.

00:50:33 Maggie Bugaj
Another book recommendation, if you liked this book. I reread this again in the third grade. It's upper elementary, but the tiers that taught me it definitely spirals off and it's very educational. So.

00:50:46 Chris Bugaj
Okay.

00:50:47 Melissa Bugaj
Awesome.

00:50:47 Chris Bugaj
Awesome recommendation. Sounds like people have some homework. All right, thanks everybody.

00:50:52 Melissa Bugaj
Thanks for having us.