Overview
The Future of Normal is a broad-reaching documentary film and national engagement campaign that explores the tensions between our country’s long-standing reverence for conformity and the need to recognize and embrace our neurodiversity—the rich spectrum of cognitive differences that makes us human.
Our social systems are designed for conformity. Divergence, particularly cognitive divergence, is considered a defect that needs to be fixed or eradicated. It starts in our schools, where standardized tests measuring a narrow definition of intelligence, and where kids who think differently are exported to special programs designed to retrain them. In the workplace, hiring criteria are stacked against the neurodivergent, and linear tasks and procedures leave little room for alternate methods of thinking for fear of hurting the “bottom line.” Many who can’t navigate the inflexible worlds of school and work end up in the criminal justice system, an experience that causes more harm than rehabilitation, especially for those with cognitive and learning differences.
Across the country progressive schools, workplaces and communities are embracing the unique gifts of those who have been marginalized due to differences in the way they learn and think. There are Fortune 500 companies hiring neurodivergent employees with skills that improve profits; prisons providing students with an education that accommodates their learning needs; and scientists, entrepreneurs, educators and artists publicly recognizing their distinctive thinking style as a positive, even game-changing, asset.
The Future of Normal combines observational storytelling, insights of leading experts, compelling motion graphics and animation to explore the complex and nuanced terrain around neurodiversity. At the heart of the film are stories of neurologically diverse adults and children, who are facing key moments of transition in their lives, such as changing schools, starting a new job, or coming out of incarceration. We’ll see some manage to thrive, while others fall through the cracks or struggle to stay afloat in systems that are rigged against them—either by impact or design.
Impact
The Future of Normal film and online campaign will provide a platform for individuals with divergent ways of thinking, along with for-profit and non-profit organizations, advocates, thought leaders and policy makers.
The knowledge from the film will be aggregated and shared along with the latest news and current events, with the goal of making space for national conversations about neurodiversity. Partnerships with leading stakeholder organizations will coordinate strategies for action, co-produced content and expanded reach, engagement and impact.
Our goals are to raise awareness about the human spectrum of cognitive diversity and to ignite conversations that explore how inclusive practices can benefit individuals and systems, and help us solve the complex problems of our time. We will accomplish that by bringing attention to the need to re-think “normal” in a world of difference.
Acknowledgements
The Future of Normal is a production by Kindling Group. The film is directed by Danny Alpert, produced by Gail Evenari and Executive Produced by Jane Feinberg.
Generous funding for this project came from The Tremaine Foundation.
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Daniel Alpert
Laura Fallsgraff
Mara Sheban
Ingrid Roettgen
Adam Joel
Adam Wisneski
Ines Sommer
