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Hello, improvisers, this is episode number 17 of the Neurodiversity and Improv Podcast.
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Welcome, I am Jenda Hahn, and I'm a Neurodivergent Improvisor, and I'm about to just dump all over you about the intersection of improv and neurodivergence.
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Now, these episodes are intended to help improviser of all neurotypes, because all of us are in teams, and we're in classes with each other, and that means we're all performing improv together.
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So it helps to know about some of these communication differences that exist between us, so we can all improvise together better.
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But before we get started, real quick, I'm only speaking for myself and my own lived experience in these episodes.
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Everyone's experiences are different, and it's based on both their neurotype and the unique support needs that they have, and the unique way that they were socialized and raised and where they're from.
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My ideas in these episodes and those of any guests or anything that I might read from another person, they might not be right for you.
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And that's perfectly fine.
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They are not right for everyone.
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The words that I use and the things that I do are just my own preferences based on my own unique experiences and what might work for me.
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So I'm not telling you what to do.
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So if I say anything that just doesn't make sense or doesn't work, just throw it away or adjust it or start a conversation maybe with other improvisers or your coaches or teachers.
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Please don't diagnose yourself or any other people using this podcast.
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Talk to someone who's a lot smarter than me for diagnosis or for therapy or for some advice.
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And finally, these points are just explanations.
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They're not excuses.
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Neurodivergent humans can't change the way that we're wired.
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No Neurotypes can, but we can try to understand how we're wired better and work with that.
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And we can understand how other people are wired better and communicate with them the best that we can.
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And finally, if you find this podcast useful, I would love it if you would just share it with your Improvisor friends.
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You can rate or review it on Apple Podcasts if you like.
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That would be great too.
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And if you're able to support any of this work at neurodiversityimprov.com, that's really appreciated.
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Any of those things will help me keep this thing going.
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And with that out of the way, let's move on to the episode number 17.
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All right.
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So for this episode, we're going to be talking about what teachers can do to help improve some of these communication issues around questions and notes.
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So I've been going on about this particular topic for the past two episodes.
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Episodes 15 and 16 are also about notes in improv sessions.
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Episode 15 is going to define why this is an issue in the first place.
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Why can't we just ask a question to get clarification in the notes after a scene?
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We can, but what are some of the issues that can arise from that?
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What are people experiencing when they don't understand a note?
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Episode 16 gets into what students experience and some tips for what students can do in the notes section if they don't understand something or need a little bit more time to process.
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And like I did in those episodes, I'll be using the words scene or set, just like I did there, interchangeably.
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I'll be using the words teacher, coach, and director interchangeably.
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This is just talking about any time in the notes or feedback section or advice that you're given.
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All of those things are relevant to this conversation.
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So as I discussed in those episodes, these challenges exist because of the differences in communication.
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And this is because there's so many different neuro types.
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It's scientifically established that there are very big differences in communication and understanding things between, for example, autistic and allistic people, which refers to non-autistic people.
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This is being studied, it's being proven, it's oftentimes discussed in the context of a double empathy problem.
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And of course, that's not the only thing that exists.
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There are many different cases where there can be a gap in understanding during the notes.
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For example, you just get a note and you haven't learned that particular thing in improv yet.
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So there's many different cases where this is relevant.
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And of course, take it all with a big grain of salt.
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I'm just one person in the community.
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And there's so many different ways of doing improv and giving feedback.
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In some cultures, this might not even be relevant if everybody is sort of communicating in the same way.
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It might not be relevant if you're on a team or with a coach that you've worked with for a long time.
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You might not experience these things.
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But if you are in a group with a lot of diversity or with a new team, these things you might hit.
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So what are some of these issues?
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So in the previous episode, I went over some of the communication issues that can occur between students and teachers in an improv class.
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I'm going to move quickly through this list because it was in the last episode, Episode 16.
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So please head back to that one if you missed it and you want a little bit more information on these.
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So a lack of directness.
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If anything is left to subtext or say you're trying to be a little bit more gentle with a note if you're teaching or a little bit more high level about a suggestion, then some students might have a difficult time trying to fill in some of those gaps as easily as other students can.
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There can be issues around verbal abilities in scenes.
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It can help to be understanding that some students may have different verbal abilities in a scene than they have when they're outside of the scene.
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Or there also might be issues around perception just outside of a scene that make verbals a little bit more difficult for the student to use during this time in class.
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Some students might also have a need for a longer processing time after the scene or after your notes, and able to even form a follow-up question.
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Say that follow-up question might be what they need clarified or expanded upon to understand.
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They have to figure out what that even is before they ask.
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Similarly, some students might be bottom-up thinkers.
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If you don't know what that is, episodes 3 and 4 will give you an explanation for what bottom-up thinking in relationship with Improv is.
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But in a nutshell, bottom-up thinkers mean that they need more time to process details before they get the big picture or the gist.
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That big picture or gist that they're looking for could be about the scene or about your notes about the scene.
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And finally, students might just have a long history of misinterpretation because certain communication methods are the social norm and they have a different communication method.
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So being misunderstood is very common for them.
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And they are used to struggling to understand.
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And this can lead to anxiety, asking questions for the fear of being rude or their question being seen as unintelligent because, oh, it's so obvious to other people that share the same communication style as the coach or teacher and so on.
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So even if a student does understand the note, they might be processing to try to see, do I really understand the note?
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Because a lot of times I don't.
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I mean, you got to remember, they're also learning improv at the same time.
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So even as they do get it, sometimes they might be questioning themselves.
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So for these reasons, students might need to ask for clarification of the notes.
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In these cases, it's not to question what you said, but just to be able to clear up some of the disconnects from interpreting the scene or interpreting your notes so they can make a better connection between the scene and your notes or understand just the note itself.
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This list surely isn't complete and it's also not meant to shame teachers.
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It's a very tough role.
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I've done a little bit of it and it's tough.
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So all of this is just to start a bit of a conversation in the community around how we can bridge some of these gaps in our own communities with whatever issues exist in them, if it's even an issue for you in the first place.
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Of course, I would love to hear feedback, input, what you experience, what you see in your own communities, and you can always send that along to me.
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And I have a survey attached in the show notes where you can add your own elements to this particular list.
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And I'll share them in a later piece on the website.
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So what are some of the solutions for this communication breakdown?
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We're going to assume that the questions are being made in good faith.
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There's a disconnect there.
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Of course, not all questions are.
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Of course not.
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Some are defensive.
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Some are questioning the note.
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And we have to remember that sometimes students might not even know that they're being defensive.
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They might not know that they're questioning the note either.
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I cover a little bit about this in the previous episode, Episode 16.
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But for the sake of this series, this is where when a question is being presented because the student genuinely doesn't understand the note that they just got.
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But there's a lot of things you can do when you're in the teaching role for your students.
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Have a really good hunch if someone is questioning the note before you shut it down.
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Try not to get too defensive too often or have that good reason if you need to pause the question before it completes.
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You might think of several different ways of explaining a concept.
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If you sense that that's what's needed, find more universal means of explanations or more universal ways of phrasing things that might be a little bit more direct, perhaps, or normalize asking questions in a way that works best for the class and reduces students perhaps noting each other inadvertently or whatever.
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It's absolutely true that some things will simply be lost in translation, and that's okay.
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It will always happen, but there might be some steps that you can take to reduce these losses if the losses seem to be piling up for you for some reason.
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And we'll go into a little bit more detail on some of those key areas now.
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So let's start off with processing time.
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So one of the general issues I brought up in that list earlier is the need for students needing a bit of extra time to process what their question is after your notes.
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This might be again due to audio processing or the need to sort of translate emotions or figure out social cues for subtext that happened during the scene or just figure out the bigger picture of what that scene was about.
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This can be particularly hard if they're thinking a lot about all the rules of improv and you know there is subtext on top of that.
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So that can be a very intense time of course, as you know, for a lot of students to figure all that out and then they have notes on top of that.
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So for example, if that student has an auditory processing delay with long paragraphs or long lists presented verbally, they might need a little bit more time to think through that.
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You could even encourage a student or just your whole class if you're say in a Zoom environment to turn on captions and if you're not in that environment, as most of you aren't, you might just want to give a little bit more time or offer maybe another time to ask those questions.
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For example, they might want to ask the questions in text by email after the class.
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And on this note of processing delays and so forth, it's important to note that this isn't necessarily a disorder or deficit of the player who is experiencing these things.
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Many neurodivergent individuals do not have a learning disability.
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Some do, but this is a difference in communication and learning, and neither of these modes is better.
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They're just different, or there could be a learning challenge.
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So it's important to discuss what the actual individual needs are if they aren't being met.
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So as I mentioned, one of the solutions might be offering the ability to send an email after the student has had a chance to process and really think through things and form that question.
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In these cases, maybe the class or the theater sets up a way to welcome and normalize questions coming in later.
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This is actually encouraged by the school and the coach before this issue even comes up.
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And that doesn't single out any students or make them feel like a burden or they're asking for something extra.
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If this option isn't provided, students might consider asking in advance about the preferred or possible process for these kinds of questions.
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Teachers might also have a preference due to their own scheduling or history or their own needs and so on.
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So to help the teacher know what scene or part of the scene that will be asked about later, students might indicate that they could potentially have a question about this particular scene after the class.
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The student and the teacher could have a conversation about an ideal process to accommodate these needs.
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So setting this up as standard in advance of the class could help everyone.
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Some of us love that level of structure outlined in advance.
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It's like it's relief and the students who don't need it or might be overwhelmed can ignore all of that entirely.
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It just helps normalize this as an option and it doesn't set up the student right off the bat as being a burden or asking for something additional.
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And students and teachers alike realize that you might not even know that you need the additional processing time until you encounter some of these things.
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You might not recognize the need because you haven't experienced the amount of information the student hasn't.
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This is new to them.
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All this information that's pouring in and all these lights and sounds and everything is new.
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And thinking about improv is new and thinking about performance in an audience and laughter is new and how things flow after a scene is over.
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You just don't understand what all the variables and data is or how long you might need to process these things.
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This can even happen when you're teaching because you're seeing things from outside the scene, which is entirely different and new for you.
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And this is all okay to experience.
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And it's all okay to kind of figure it out along the way.
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So teachers, when your students experience or you sense their experience in sort of these new things, you can support and normalize all of this by highlighting that the disconnect can exist sometimes and that these things can be hard, and then they can be easy, and then they can be hard again.
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Oh, no, you know, when that happens in Improv, things seem easy and then something happens and everything seems hard again.
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All those things that you once found easy two months ago are now suddenly hard.
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What happened?
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I don't know.
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But teachers giving the insight of that to your students can help them.
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Some of these insights into the process of learning Improv can help students who struggle with this type of processing delay.
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And some of us just really live in our heads.
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Like, we don't want to, but we do no matter what we do.
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Or we particularly just love thinking about how our brain processes these things.
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So, you know, somebody might end up doing like a cognitive Improv podcast or something.
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But encouraging your students to think about these things can be helpful as well.
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Think about how you think.
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And that can help during the Improv question part of class.
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Okay, so we're going to sit right in the Improv part of class where we're given notes.
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What to do?
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So, being direct.
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You might want to soften a hard note, or have some other reasons not to be super direct.
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But when possible, being direct will help some students understand better.
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And adding that why, even if the subtext could be there, it can help those who have difficulty interpreting it.
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So, not making assumptions that the students have interpreted exactly what happened in the scene can also help.
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Because if the scene had subtext, we might be reading it differently.
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So, being direct about what you, the teacher, the coach, saw in that scene, what you thought it was about and what you think it needs, and just be really direct and concise about what the subtext was, what you're seeing, that can help the neurodivergent student understand what your interpretation of the scene was, which is also possibly a lot of the audience's interpretation of the scene, that can help them understand the rest of your notes.
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Or you can ask them what they thought it was about, and then just talk about maybe some of those differences and refine your notes as needed.
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This could help you sort of adjust your suggestions in real time, and you can understand where the disconnects might exist for that student, and that's going to help you help them more in future scenes.
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This approach might also be a relief to your neurodivergent student, to be asked what they thought the scene was about, especially.
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And just remind them there's no wrong answer.
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Your interpretation is neurodivergent, yours is neurodivergent, whatever.
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There's no wrong answer.
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But offering these options might help your students also feel more comfortable asking and having some of those conversations.
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And this might lead to a better understanding by everyone on the team in the class about what's going on.
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If you do feel that you need to stop a question during the class, you might think that that question is somebody who's going to question the note or throw a scene partner under the bus or whatever.
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There's a good reason that you are stopping that question in its tracks.
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Perhaps just state that it's for time considerations, even if you think it might not be that it might be questioning the note.
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In this case, though, the question might have been in good faith.
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There's a chance that it might have been.
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And this then just covers that base, so it doesn't make your student feel uncomfortable, it doesn't shut them down.
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It might save them a little bit of embarrassment or a lot of rumination, and it doesn't really hurt anyone.
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At least I can't think of a reason that it would hurt anyone.
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So maybe just say, time consideration, let's table that question for later.
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Anything that you can do to make the students more comfortable to ask the questions in the first place just can help this part of class.
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Set up the class in a way that welcomes questions, that you demonstrate patience whenever possible, that you open the floor for questions in alternate ways if time allows.
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This just makes getting your notes to the student more possible, getting notes that they understand more possible.
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It helps reduce misunderstandings due to these neurotype issues, or verbal issues, or processing issues, and so on.
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Some of these things are very hard to see, so you might not even know that there's an issue that needs addressing.
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For example, I have a lot more comfortable being perceived when in character than when I'm not in character.
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I have a negative history with questions and speaking up in group settings, and I'm not sure that a lot of my teachers would even guess that.
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So I'm pretty sure this isn't too obvious in a class environment.
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For a lot of your students, so anything that you can do to just make questions more welcome might mean that these communication channels and these misunderstandings are, well, the misunderstandings are reduced and the communication channels are improved.
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So that.
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And you might be able to set up some other resources for your students.
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Perhaps you're at a school or you're in a tight community where you could set up some kind of mentoring program or buddy program or encourage your students to go out and chat about improv together and try to learn as a group.
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You might do these partnerships of more experienced and less experienced in a more intentional way.
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But any way that you can help students find the resources that they need, maybe it's books, maybe it's websites, maybe it's podcasts, and show them that there's this world, this helpful community of improv that's out there.
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Help them find those resources because they're not all that obvious when, especially if you're just starting out.
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And let's get just really high level for a moment here in regards to communication needs.
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Encourage your students to try other things in improv, different teachers and different classes and styles, different comedy types entirely, and so on.
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There's so many neuro types and so many different forms of comedy, and sometimes improv isn't the right thing for a certain brain, or it might not be the main thing that someone should be doing.
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So encouraging, branching out and trying new things is always good, especially when you have a very diverse class.
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Students, of course, try in a wide range of just instructors, even in the same style of improv, increases their chances of finding something or someone that speaks to them and that they have a better understanding because of that.
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If you can, find other ways of explaining things.
00:23:16.147 --> 00:23:25.267
So if you are in an in-person class and teaching things verbally, see if there's a way that you might be able to get text explanations to your students.
00:23:25.267 --> 00:23:32.107
Perhaps you email them a PDF in advance with every exercise that you do written in text.
00:23:32.107 --> 00:23:41.127
These different formats can help your students who might learn in different ways or might process information in a different format.
00:23:41.307 --> 00:24:24.087
And high level, you can tell your class that if something didn't make sense, maybe somebody was too shy to ask the question, that if a scene didn't work for them or the notes didn't work for them, encourage them to process it after class for a set, you know, not ruminate forever, but have them think about it for a while and come back at you for questions, invite them to have a conversation later with you or perhaps with somebody else and remind them that even if they don't figure it out, even if it does remain, you know, a bad scene or whatever in their mind, that these things can also be learning experiences and there can be a positive learning experience even from these negative experiences.
00:24:24.087 --> 00:24:26.667
This is a challenge for both sides.
00:24:26.667 --> 00:24:42.127
Communication is a challenge for everyone, but if we just try some of these things out, try new things, if something's not working, pivot, try something else, we can only get better over time, as long as we're trying and giving an honest effort.
00:24:42.127 --> 00:24:49.587
The more we try, the more that we get your valuable notes to the students in a way that they can understand and grow from.
00:24:49.587 --> 00:24:54.327
Remember, they came to you, they came to your class to learn from you.
00:24:54.327 --> 00:25:01.427
The more that we can get what you're saying, understood by your students, the more that everybody wins in the end.
00:25:01.467 --> 00:25:08.147
One thing that I would love to see is some kind of predefined process for asking questions.
00:25:08.147 --> 00:25:24.447
This process might include something like, the student identifies the scene and asks something like, would it be okay if I emailed you a question about the game of the scene, of the scene after class, or can we pin this one for an offline discussion later on?
00:25:24.447 --> 00:25:36.147
This helps the teacher, you understand what scene is going to be discussed after, and puts the responsibility on the student to do that following up if they need to.
00:25:36.147 --> 00:25:42.987
They might figure it out later and not need to ask, but it helps everyone sort of identify what might be coming later.
00:25:42.987 --> 00:25:48.767
And doing so, this could be set up at the beginning of the class or before the series starts.
00:25:48.767 --> 00:25:57.707
You could even practice it to kind of set that precedent and make students feel comfortable and welcome to use this option at any time while you're teaching them.
00:25:58.047 --> 00:26:37.127
So whatever makes sense for you and the theater, this can be outlined before the session formally, like in a welcome PDF or a welcome email, during the registration or on the website perhaps, to set up whatever works, set up whatever limitations or boundaries might need to be in place for the school or the teacher, you know, set up what's a reasonable ask or how often these questions are appropriate for the class, but openly encourage this process and define it, it sort of relaxes a lot of students to know what's acceptable, to know what's socially okay in the class environment.
00:26:37.127 --> 00:26:43.507
And don't be afraid to change some of these things up if it doesn't work, even if it's established in writing.
00:26:43.507 --> 00:26:51.827
Say maybe this is something we're trying out and we might need to change it or change what's needed for your community to whatever works best.
00:26:51.827 --> 00:27:04.247
And my hope is just that it might make things a little bit more manageable, a little bit overall positive learning experience for both parties, so people aren't struggling as much and your notes get heard.
00:27:04.247 --> 00:27:09.887
So try some things out and if some of those things don't work, just try something else.
00:27:09.887 --> 00:27:14.967
If something just isn't fun or comfortable, move on, pivot.
00:27:14.967 --> 00:27:20.747
There are so many options for learning and so many options for practicing this art form.
00:27:20.747 --> 00:27:24.147
You can find your own path and that's okay.
00:27:24.427 --> 00:27:31.087
Even if you're changing forms or somebody doesn't make sense to you, it's okay to move on.
00:27:31.087 --> 00:27:35.687
You don't have to stick with the same thing or the same people.
00:27:35.687 --> 00:27:46.887
Finding your own way and the style and the way of communicating that works for you is part of the fun, even though it might not feel that way all the time.
00:27:46.887 --> 00:27:47.187
All right.
00:27:47.187 --> 00:27:50.067
So that's all we have for episode number 17.
00:27:51.167 --> 00:27:56.527
So as a reminder, these podcast episodes are going to be every second week.
00:27:56.527 --> 00:28:06.127
You can find articles and earlier episodes at the neurodiversityimprov.com website, and you can subscribe there to the newsletter for notifications.
00:28:06.127 --> 00:28:12.707
So every time that there's a new episode out or a new essay, you'll get an email from the website.
00:28:12.707 --> 00:28:22.847
You can also choose to get extra bonus content if you want to become a paid supporter, or just to support the writing and the production of these episodes.
00:28:22.847 --> 00:28:29.347
It helps me know that you want more of these kind of resources to help with your practice.
00:28:29.347 --> 00:28:33.167
And I really appreciate any assistance that you send in.
00:28:33.167 --> 00:28:40.187
And of course, if you like this podcast and find it useful, please just tell your improviser friends that it exists.
00:28:40.187 --> 00:28:45.567
Word of mouth is very helpful for me and very appreciated to help get the word out there.
00:28:45.927 --> 00:28:49.687
I'll put all the surveys to go along with these episodes.
00:28:49.687 --> 00:28:52.387
They're all up there on neurodiversityimprov.com.
00:28:53.987 --> 00:29:01.827
There's a link at the top that says surveys, and you can find links on that page to where you can send them in to me.
00:29:01.827 --> 00:29:04.247
I created and write this podcast.
00:29:04.247 --> 00:29:14.447
It's also edited by StereoForest, and I release a lot of shows and podcasts on that website, mostly improvised comedy show type things.
00:29:14.887 --> 00:29:17.447
Check it out at stereoforest.com.
00:29:17.447 --> 00:29:25.807
And again, this podcast's website is neurodiversityimprov.com that includes articles about this subject.
00:29:25.807 --> 00:29:38.587
And if you want jams and classes and online shows and stuff, you can go to flatimprov.com, which is another site that I run, and all of these links, you'll find them in the show notes, of course.
00:29:38.587 --> 00:29:46.727
So thank you so much for joining me this week for episode number 17, and I'll see you again in another couple of weeks.
00:29:46.727 --> 00:29:47.147
Goodbye.