Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion!

Designing for the Margins: Why Neurodivergent Thinkers Need More Than Awareness

Joy Elizabeth Buckner is an educational consultant who's spent 13 years abroad working across 25+ countries to support neurodivergent learners. With dyslexia, Irlen Syndrome, and ADHD, she brings lived experience to her mission of building belonging for neurodivergent thinkers.

We explore why educational systems are designed for the "middle," what happens when we build for the margins, and Joy's framework for moving beyond awareness to action: empowered, equipped, voiced, connected.

Key Topics: Teaching to the middle, blind spots around neurodivergence, "penguining" and ADHD brilliance, why neurodivergent people need proof they matter, the cost of masking

Timestamps: [00:12:00] From categories to lived experience [00:15:30] Why we're still teaching the same way [00:20:30] Joy's four-pillar framework [00:28:30] Systems that fail neurodivergent children [00:34:30] Neurodivergent people need extra proof [00:37:00] "Penguining" and neurodivergent brilliance

Resources: "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts, The Joy of Neurodiversity Podcast, "Covering" by Kenji Yoshino

20-30% of people are neurodivergent. When we design for the margins, everyone benefits.

🔥 Standout Quotes:

"If you were in my brain and you knew how hard I was trying in class, in school, in life—I was trying so hard just to try to feel normal. That's the thing that I hear again and again. We were lazy, we were defiant, we didn't try hard enough." [00:33:45]

"Other people can tell you that you matter. Other people can tell you that you belong. Other people can tell you that you're valued. We need proof. Neurodivergent people need extra proof." [00:34:30]

About Our Guest:

Joy Buckner is an educational consultant, speaker, and host of "The Joy of Neurodiversity" podcast. She works with parents, teachers, and ministries of education to build belonging and show dignity to the brilliance of neurodivergent thinkers. Based in Dubai, she's worked across 25+ countries reshaping how we understand and support diverse minds.

Let's Connect:

https://inclusionwins.com/

https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/

➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion!

This is my last episode for 2025.

If I could go back five years, what would I have changed? This solo episode is my honest accounting of where the diversity, equity, and inclusion field went wrong.

The past five years transformed DEI. What started as meaningful change became performance art. Organizations treated inclusion as optics management: do just enough to deflect criticism. But it rarely touched fundamental structures.

Now we're living with the consequences. The resistance has erupted. We may have contributed to the very resistance we were trying to overcome.

🔥 Standout Quotes:

"Instead of enrolling people in a conversation about what organizations structurally needed to change, there was a tremendous amount of energy talking about the structural problem of systemic racism." [00:05:00]

"When we see statistical disparities and immediately conclude their evidence of discrimination, without examining all these other factors, we're committing this fallacy. Disparities don't equal discrimination." [00:11:00]

Resources Mentioned:

Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell

In This Episode:

[00:05:00] When optics replaced purpose

[00:07:00] Active vs. passive opposition

[00:11:00] The three fallacies affecting DEI work

[00:16:00] The Richard Bilkszto tragedy

[00:22:00] What inclusion work should actually be

[00:24:00] Building durable skills

[00:27:00] Why this moment holds promise

#Inclusion #DEI #Leadership #OrganizationalDevelopment #Diversity

Let's Connect:

https://inclusionwins.com/

https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/

➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion!

When Empathy Becomes Optional: A Conversation with Maaria Mozaffar

When did empathy become something we can turn on and off? When did we start deciding which children deserve protection and which ones don't? These are the uncomfortable questions Maaria Mozaffar forces us to confront.

🔥 Standout Quotes:

"If you are watching that and you think it's just about legalities, should've known better, then I wanna know where your humanity is." [00:16:00]

"I don't believe humans have the right to consider other humans less human... I will keep an eye on every interaction and not pass the buck." [00:34:00]

"Watch your baby be crushed under buildings. We'll see if you're gonna look for someone to blame or you're gonna put on your backpack and say, let's lift this up." [00:35:00]

About Our Guest:

Maaria Mozaffar is an attorney, mediator, legislative drafter, and author of More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World.

For over 15 years, she's been writing human-first policies that center dignity and interconnectedness. In this conversation, she argues that we've turned off our empathy and made it optional instead of essential—and that we have the power to turn it back on.

Resources Mentioned:

The Fox and the Hound (animated film): A story about friendship, identity, and choosing humanity over what we’re conditioned to believe.

More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World by Maaria Mozaffar: A book about moving away from distractions and creating a life of substance and impact.

In This Episode:

- The three camps: happiness, helplessness, and hiding (and why none are serving us)

- How ethnocentrism is driving immigration policy

- Why we've made empathy optional and how to make it essential again

- Why global education is essential for breaking through propaganda

- How we've chosen to see some people as less deserving of dignity

- The power of one voice and one micro decision

- What it means to stop being an NPC in your own life

Let's Connect:

https://inclusionwins.com/

https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/

➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)