Thomas is starting classes at Camosun College this fall. The recently commenced SelfDesign learner is enrolled in the Victoria-area college’s political sciences classes, offered as part of the post-secondary school’s Arts and Science Studies Program.
“I’m passionate about politics, and I’d like to understand how politics and our political systems work in more depth,” he says.
“I want the world to be better than it is, and I think studying political science will help me better understand how all the social and political systems work so as to be able to work with them to make change.”
Thomas says that, because he is on the autism spectrum – a condition he says he struggles with daily – it’s unlikely he’ll take a frontline role in politics. He would, however, be interested in volunteering in politics, helping candidates promote themselves, or working behind the scenes to make a difference.
“The autism provokes me, and that can be a bit of a problem.” The 18-year-old says he has issues with anxiety and anger that are, in his case, amplified by autism. “It’s the frustration with how it affects me. And there are the social problems – I have problems with just being social.”
In fact, when Thomas was in middle school in the public school system, it wasn’t certain he’d be given the opportunity to finish school.
“The middle school I went to mistook my autism for bad behaviour,” he says. “They kicked me out for some time, and then only allowed me to come back for half days. And even then, I was coming home crying every single day. They even thought I would never graduate.”
That’s when his family took Thomas out of the public school system and enrolled him with SelfDesign Learning Community. There, he benefitted from our personalized approach to learning and the individualized support we provide to learners to help them successfully navigate their learning and meet their learning goals.
We provide services for all of our learners who need additional support to maximize their learning opportunities. Our B.C. certified educators work with learners, families and SelfDesign’s Family Services team to identify and support each learner’s individual needs. This includes providing access to specific services to support learners, like Thomas, who have been professionally diagnosed with low incidence needs or who may or may not have been diagnosed with high incidence needs. Learners with special needs have access to specialists who can provide a wide array of support and therapy services.
In addition, we work to ensure that every learning opportunity we provide gives each learner choice and flexibility in how they access the material, engage with it and show what they know, based on their own specific needs, learning styles, abilities, and interests.
As SelfDesign Chief Learning Officer Nikki Kenyon says, we tailor support to the unique needs of each learner in the context of their family, community and environment.
“We figure out what that entire system needs in order to thrive,” she says. “We’re really able to assess a need and provide resources to meet it in support of reaching educational goals. This model of putting the learner at the centre and figuring out how we can best support their growth is how we approach every learner – complex needs or not.”
In addition to working with behavioural and occupational therapists, Thomas met regularly with a counsellor and worked with a math tutor. And anytime he ran into difficulties, he could just ask for help.
One of the things he says he liked most about SelfDesign is that “it’s up to you to get the work done as you can. Nobody was saying, ‘Okay you have to get this done in, like, five minutes,” which would make me just panic because I wouldn’t be able to do it in that short of a time.”
The flexibility and choice built right into the grade 10 to 12 program also helped. He was able to choose themes that allowed him to explore social studies and politics, two big interests of his, and to decide how to do the work within the themes. He also liked the opportunity to integrate his hobbies and passions – rock music and drumming – into his learning.
For his final grade 12 personal project, he chose to explore a topic dear to his heart – the evolution of heavy metal as a musical genre.
“It started with the blues,” says Thomas, who spends as many as three hours playing the drums most days and would love to be able to sit down to talk music with rock legends John Lennon and Paul McCartney, of the Beatles, and Axel Rose, of Guns ‘n’ Roses. “Then it went through Surf Rock, the British Invasion – you know, when British bands became very popular – then through psychedelia and hard rock, and then it finally went to the birth of heavy metal.”
With the support and the flexibility to choose what and how to access, engage and show his learning, Thomas met his own high school learning goal: graduating with a Dogwood Diploma (B.C. Certificate of Graduation).
“As a person designated with a disability, autism, it has been truly appreciated how I have been treated because of my disability,” Thomas said at SelfDesign’s 2021 Commencement Ceremony. “Thank you, everyone.”
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Read more about SelfDesign’s Class of 2021
Learn about our grade 10 to 12 program
Learn more about how we support our learners in their learning
