#173. Embracing Neurodiversity in Voice Pedagogy with Dr. Shannon Coates Part 1

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Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:00

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Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  02:46

It’s Marissa Lee here, and I’m so excited to be sharing today’s interview round episode with you. In these episodes, our brilliant lineup of guests will include healthcare practitioners, voice educators, and other professionals who will share their stories, knowledge and experiences within their specialized fields to empower you to live your best life. Whether you’re a member of the voice, community, or beyond your voice is your unique gift. It’s time now to share your gift with others develop a positive mindset and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, it’s time for you to live your best life. It’s time now for a voice and beyond. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  03:57

This week on a voice and beyond, we are diving into the very important topic of neuro diversity. We are thrilled to welcome back Dr. Shannon Coates for a compelling two part interview on neuro diversity affirming voice pedagogy. Dr. Shannon has been a strong advocate for fostering inclusivity developing support strategies and enhancing our understanding of individual needs within the singing voice community. Her efforts aimed to normalize and eliminate the stigma surrounding neuro divergence. Dr. Shannon, and esteemed educator and international presenter on voice pedagogy is also the creator of the vocal instrument 101 online course and voice paired on degree She has been a prominent voice in advocating for Neuro diversity within vocal pedagogy. In this interview, Dr. Shannon will be discussing the various types of neuro divergence, the associated behavior patterns and the current diagnostic processes. Dr. Shannon will help us understand how neuro divergence can manifest in our teaching studio, and how we can adopt more effective teaching strategies for neurodivergent learners. She provides valuable insights into recognizing our own biases, and addressing their impact on our teaching. Particularly, Dr. Shannon emphasizes creating a welcoming space where all students feel seen and valued, regardless of their support needs, life experiences, or identities. This is a powerful and most thought provoking interview with Dr. Shannon coats that every singing voice teacher and beyond should listen to join us for this essential conversation that promises to enlighten and inspire. Remember, this is part one of our two part discussion with Dr. Shannon, and part two will be released in the episode to follow. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  06:54

Welcome back to a voice and beyond. We have Dr. Shannon Coates. How are you Shannon?

Dr Shannon Coates  07:02

I’m very well thank you, Dr. Marissa, we couldn’t be far more return the doctors

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  07:10

from one job to another. Look, I am so grateful to have you here today. And we’re going to talk about a really important topic. And it’s a topic that affects all of us in one way or another. And we’re going to talk about how it impacts us in the singing teaching studio. So, Shannon, you’re an educator, you’re an international presenter on vocal pedagogy. You’re the creator of the vocal instrument 101 online course and boys paired on degree and we see you pop up a lot on social and I love watching.

Dr Shannon Coates  07:56

You just so cool in there. No, thank you.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  07:59

You just have such a way about you. I just love it. But before we get started, I think it’s really important that we put a disclaimer out there. Because this is a great responsibility that you’re taking on talking about this topic on neuro divergence CS. So the disclaimer is that you’re not a medical doctor, or a health care practitioner. And we are going to talk about concepts around neuro divergence. And you’re going to respond to the questions that I’ll be asking you based on your own lived experiences with neuro divergence, your training and work in this area, as well as the work and the words of those from the neurodivergent community. Now, our focus and our intention with this interview because once again, I feel like we have to be very clear with with where we’re heading with all of this is to build an advocate for inclusivity support strategies to help develop an understanding of individual student needs and to normalize and to take away the stigma attached to neuro divergence. Yeah, so that is the disclaimer and our intention here with this interview. So beautiful. I know that you have done a lot of work in this area. I know you have been a spokesperson in this area. You have waved the flag in this area. So another before we start, a lot of before we start before when it comes to neuro divergences, how should we refer to them do We refer to them as issues, disorders, problems, what is the language that we should be using? Yeah,

Dr Shannon Coates  10:08

it’s such a good question. And the and I must say, also a real conversation within the neurodivergent community, especially within the Autistic community, and also within the community of folks who have multiple neuro divergences. And the, I’m not gonna say the overwhelming consensus, I’m going to say the folks who are doing the education around the topic of neurodiversity affirming culture, neurodiversity movement, and the folks who are doing that kind of work, who are neurodivergent, I am neurodivergent, I’m an ADHD person. That’s a form of neuro divergence that folks are doing that education, we are advocating for an understanding that these differences in the brain are literally just that they are differences in the brain differences in ways of processing, differences in ways of gathering information and in ways of then bringing information out. So because they are differences, and because these are things that are not measured, you know, we we think of the norm or I’m putting that big quotes there, that the what we have thought of as the norm, has become the medical norm, as well. So that has become the quote, healthy or the normal. And overwhelmingly, that tends to be the folks you know, who are neurotypical, that’s the other side of divergent, so neurotypical who are able bodied, who are white, who are sis, who I mean, all of those, quote, norms, at some point were medicalized as well as being the normal thing. And so for a very long time, and still to this day, in the DSM, for example, we have names such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, syndrome, all of those things, that all of those terms that come from the medical field that are using are saying this, compared to what we say is normal. And what we say is, quote, ordered. These are all disordered. And so the neurodiversity movement, the neurodiversity affirming movement, the folks in the neurodivergent community, the conversation is around. This is not disorder, but different. So this is perhaps a typical, there’s lots of conversation around what the actual language is that we want to use, yes, but perhaps a typical divergent, all of those sorts of things. So then, we often then hear people say, you know, describe themselves as being, for example, I describe myself as being an ADHD or, or an autistic person, or, you know, lots of different words that describe the thing without saying it’s disordered or without referring to the fact that it’s a disorder. Yeah. So when we talk about the language, and the way we describe, as soon as I hear people saying, this is, you know, these problems, these challenges, these disorders, these all of those kinds of languages or disabilities, especially if they’re outside of the community, that speaks to me of a medical model, and have a comparison from what I think is normal, big quotes, again, to what is abnormal or unhealthy, so healthy to unhealthy or ordered to disordered and that is not the model that has been useful for the vast majority of the neurodivergent community. And that is a whole part of the movement of the neurodiversity movement and neurodiversity affirming movement is to change that conceptualization and as he said in the intro, to normalize, remove stigma, big part of the disability part, put that in quotes as well around for example, you know, being ADHD, being autistic etc, is not necessarily that it is a disability or an inherent disability, it is a disability because society is not set up to support these ways of being in the world. And so then it becomes a disability because it is cultural. It is because society is not set up. These things become to bring it to this boy studio, these things become a disability or a challenge in the voice studio. Because the voice studio is not set up the teachers we are not set up. We do not understand neurodiversity affirming voice pedagogy, for example, and we are not set up to To support and affirm those things, those ways of being in the world, and therefore they are going to a disability.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  15:10

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Dr Shannon Coates  17:33

Well, it depends on who you ask, of course, neurodivergent activists, folks who are at the forefront, who are part of the community and who are at the forefront of education around this topic in the broader world, talk about many of the things that we might consider that is atypical to what we would consider the norm as being neurodivergent or falling under excuse me, that neurodivergent umbrella. So we talked about ADHD and autism, which are the two sort of ones that everybody kind of knows about, but lots of different learning differences. Dyslexia, for example, can be considered is considered a neuro divergence, because it is a processing difference. There’s a you know, the way that we’re processing things is a typical, if you will, and lots of things will Tourette, OCD, lots of those other brain differences may be considered part and then there’s also discussion around acquired, if you will, neuro divergences so some of them are considered innate. In other words, this is the way my brain was when I was born. And that’s part of the reason probably that a lot of these a lot of these neuro divergences tend to end up in families we tend to there’s a big joke in the in the community around you know, as your kid is getting a diagnosis, your partner and you are looking at each other side either in in the office going Mmm, that sounds very familiar. Yes,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  18:59

I wonder where that came from?

19:01

Well, it’s

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:02

interesting, because when I was listening to this Mel Robbins interview with Dr. Chris Palmer, and many of the listeners here may follow Mel Robbins. She’s an amazing speaker and thought leader. She was diagnosed with ADHD dyslexia, and dysgraphia dysgraphia.

Dr Shannon Coates  19:23

Yeah. Which often goes with dyslexia is in her

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:28

late 40s. She was sitting there with her son, and her son was being diagnosed because he was always told that he was like the naughty kid. He was the one that the information wouldn’t stick. He was the one that couldn’t sit still. So he was labeled the naughty child. So a doctor suggested that he undergoes testing for ADHD. And while she was there, she was thinking, Wow, a lot of this sounds like me and I heard of other people that this has happened to as well. So you’re talking about this genetic thing. But to take this yet another step further, because what I didn’t realize was that anxiety and mood disorders also fall under the umbrella of neuro divergent and

Dr Shannon Coates  20:19

acquired neuro divergence. Yes,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:23

yeah. In our family. There is a history of depression. There is also a history of anxiety and a lot of that as well. So I’ve seen that and it’s not only my mother, myself, my kids have suffered with that from time to time, but also cousins.

Dr Shannon Coates  20:44

Yep. Yeah. I mean, it’s complicated, right? Can you ever say that that thing is innate? Only? And that thing is only acquired? I’m not sure that you could ever say that? Yes. You know, I’m not sure. It’s far more complex than that, of course. And there’s always the element of trauma, there’s always the element of our experiences, there’s always always the element of wealth, nurture, and what kind of nurture and how we grew up and how those things were dealt with, if you will have we were supported as kids, there are always all of those aspects. And yes, trauma responses can look very similar, especially to autistic responses. So the behavioral responses can look very similar from you know, someone who was responding out of trauma, or unhealed trauma on dealt with trauma, and someone who’s responding because of the way they process. So those are two, a two different reasons to respond. And also, lots and lots of neurodivergent folks are also dealing with trauma because of being raised in in a society, you

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  21:56

know, like being on this treadmill, and you just can’t get off, because one exacerbates the other.

Dr Shannon Coates  22:02

Yes. exasperates or complements sometimes? Yes. I mean, the point remains that there is so one of the things that comes up quite a bit is and we were talking about this actually earlier, is this idea that well, everybody’s a little bit neurodivergent these days, aren’t they? You know, I know, like everybody I know, has something that’s happening, right? So like, is this a thing where everybody’s just a little bit? And that is something that is? I mean, there’s both the the sort of overall, well, everybody’s a little bit neurodivergent, which is a little bit flippant, and a little bit, like, I’m just observing all of these things now. And then the other question of, like, why is there so such a high level of diagnosis now, but the the idea that everybody’s a little bit neurodivergent? Let me say this The, for myself, for example, the traits that I know, that are part of my ADHD, and part of the way that I function in the world in terms of moving through this ADHD, and moving with ADHD in this world. Everyone, at some point forgets their keys, everyone, at some point, you know, goes off topic in a conversation, everyone at some point procrastinates everyone at some point, does it, you know, like, there are all of those things, yes. But when it is pervasive in your behavior, and when it is actually impacting the quality of your life, that is a different thing. So that is yes, there are traits, there are things that happen with an ADHD brain that everyone will experience at some point in their lives, you’re overwhelmed you, you know, leave your you know, you forget to pick up your kid from school, great, whatever, like there’s there are things pervasive, consistent, I cannot get on top of this. I cannot, you know, change this in my life, no matter how hard I try. That’s a completely different thing from like, and also, you know, when we look around, we say, look, everybody’s a little OCD. No, no, we are not OCD is a completely different thing. From you know, even generalized anxiety, right. And everyone’s a little autistic, you know, we all get a little autistic Well, no, no, you don’t? You don’t, right. It is not. It is not. Everyone’s a little you know, there are absolutely diagnostic traits. There are traits and characteristics and behaviors that we can look at and say, Oh, yes, that is pervasive that is happening. This is a thing that is happening. As opposed to everyone’s a little bit. Yeah, the other side of that coin is like what is the what is why do we have such an increase? Or it seems to be anyway such an Increase in diagnosis, medication, etc. And, you know, we talked about a little bit about that earlier as well. But the, there are lots of ideas around why certainly there are the folks out there who say, Well, everyone is just self diagnosing because of stupid tic toc. And, you know, this is really harmful, because everybody, you know, everybody shouldn’t be self diagnosing. There shouldn’t be, you know, no one should be getting medication if they don’t need it, and et cetera, et cetera. So there is that side of things where, where there are folks who view this as harmful, as something that should not be happening, this increase in diagnosis and this increase in and perhaps increase in medication, and medicating however, the wonderful thing about these about the fact that online platforms have given neurodivergent people a voice is that we have community, we have we no longer have people in there, you know, like myself thinking, Well, I’m just a lazy, undisciplined person who procrastinates or I’m dumb

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  26:18

yet because I can’t retain information or read this, this on this page, but it’s just not computing. I’ve read it 20 times, why am I not understanding it? Yes.

Dr Shannon Coates  26:30

Or I’m, I must be done because I can’t read, you know, and then you look and see, oh, my favorite actor is dyslexic. And I am too, Oh, okay. They made it. Maybe I can, too. You know, like, there’s more you spend your entire life thinking you’re never going to be able to make friends. And the whole world is just a very horrible place with people who do not who are not honest and cannot be honest with you and can’t accept you as you are. And you have to just try your hardest to fit in somehow. Yes. And then you meet an online community of autistic people who communicate in the same way that you do and who are very happy to communicate in that way with you and accept you and you go, Oh, there’s the community I was looking for. Yes. So I think there’s a combination here of certainly far more information, of course, available, so that we are now able to say, Oh, that’s a thing. I didn’t know that was a thing. community where people are saying, hey, you know, this ADHD med was really useful for me, just to help me find myself and get in focus and be able to stay on track. There’s lots of stats out there about especially folks who we perceive to be female and or who were socialized female, having, I can’t remember the exact numbers now, unfortunately, but it’s somewhere in the range of you know, by the time an adult woman gets an ADHD diagnosis, for example, they will have seen, you know, six or seven medical professionals Wow. Or they will have been on. I can’t remember how many it is, but it’s maybe three to five different antidepressants or medications for mental illness. Yes. And then they get an ADHD diagnosis. And they’re like, oh, look, if I was just taking Vyvanse all along, then absolutely fine. Now, so yes, so there is this increase in like, certainly this increase in the recognition, the diagnosis and all that, but I, I’m not worried.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  28:44

Well, here, here in Australia, that this dance word that prior to COVID, there will 1.4 million prescriptions given to 186,000 people. So that was in 2018. And in 2022, there were 3.2 million prescriptions given to 414,000 people. Now that was here in Australia alone. And in the singing boy studio, I feel that there’s been a great number of students who have returned from COVID who are suffering with anxiety, depression. A lot of these students are being medicated or seeing a psychologist or a counselor. Some students have even tried to self harm. There have been students, multiple students diagnosed with ADHD. So you talk about that situation or cause or that life event or that trauma. And I feel that maybe COVID has created a greater problem or maybe the problem that was always there, that underlying problem was always there and maybe COVID. And that isolation or the trauma or the fear, or the, the whatever we were going through, has brought it to the fore. Who we don’t know. Do we know?

Dr Shannon Coates  30:16

Yes. Who knows who yes. Yeah. And I mean, time may tell who knows what the stats are?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  30:24

Yeah. So why do you do this work? Because I know that not only you have ADHD, but also your children. neurodivergent. So do you want to share a little bit about your your children and their journey? Sure. And you was their mom? Yes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  30:54

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Dr Shannon Coates  33:07

I mean, the the reason that I stepped into this kind of educational role in within with this with this issue in particular, it started because I was looking at so many of the you know, the accommodations, I’ll say accommodations, but some of the accommodations have so many of the supports that my children were able to get in school and in the educational system, and many things that I hadn’t thought about before, as well as much of the therapy that they had. They’ve had neurodiversity affirming therapists, since they were since since diagnosis, actually. So so

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  33:48

how did they come to be diagnosed?

Dr Shannon Coates  33:51

So my younger child when he was in junior kindergarten, my oldest child is two years older. So when he was in junior kindergarten, the teacher said, It’s very strange. He knows his alphabet. But there’s, there’s something going on there. And I wonder if possible, I wonder if you might just see what’s going on there.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  34:17

So what age are we talking? About four or five? Five? Yeah.

Dr Shannon Coates  34:23

So the summer between senior kindergarten and grade one, we had a psycho educational assessment done. That’s what they’re called here, which is outside of the school with a private therapists. And when we had that done, it was so revelatory. And so, you know, it was such good information that we were like, Let’s get our daughters done as well. And so they both had those done. And at that time, Asperger was still part of the DSM, it is no longer so Asperger’s is no longer a diagnosis. So everything falls under Autism NOW. And so at that time, so they were like five and seven, maybe. And the therapist said, there are some markers for Asperger’s here. And again, this is going back like, nearly 20 years. So it was going really well. So there are some are 15 years there are markers for Asperger’s here. But here are some of the other learning difficulties that are the learning challenges dyslexia, for example. They’re processing things, you know, dis calcula, which is, which is numbers, it’s like dysgraphia, dyslexia, but numbers, a bunch of different processing thing. So that was very good information. And we would never have had our daughter tested, if it hadn’t been for how good the information was with our son. And they were never tested because they were behavioral issues. So they would have absolutely fall through the cracks. Right? If, if that kindergarten teacher hadn’t said something? Well,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  35:54

how lucky Yeah, so he wasn’t the naughty child that couldn’t sit still in the corner? Absolutely not.

Dr Shannon Coates  36:02

The only way that he could figure out which letter he was supposed to be using, was if he went through the entire alphabet song. So if you said which letter is this, and you held up an E, he would go. It’s an E, he couldn’t, he could not. And if you asked him to write an E, he had to go through in his head, the alphabet song in order to figure out he knew his name. Because we I had made a song for him not thinking that this would be a way for him to like, but he knew how to spell his name, because I had made up a whole song for his name. And just because it was fun, oh, my God. And so he knew how to spell his name. And so the kindergarten teacher noticed that he is processing something differently here. He is not able to just like, name a letter, he’s not able to just like there’s something there’s there’s some processing going on here that is different. And also he’s not picking up the writing. She noticed that as well, that he really wasn’t picking up writing in a way that, you know, that she thought was appropriate for his age. So yes, yeah. I mean, we we had a full cycle educational assessment done. Then again, it was probably two years later, maybe three years later. At that time, then they had a full diagnosis of autism and ADHD for both of them dyslexia, for both of them and lots of different processing challenges.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  37:35

A lot of those do go hand in hand. Absolutely. It’s not that it’s one diagnosis exclusively. That’s quite often there’s multiple

Dr Shannon Coates  37:45

years, we often see clustering, they call it a string of neuro divergences. So yeah, which very interestingly, it is actually quite recent that a dual diagnosis of ADHD and autism was actually possible. So they have they have those diagnoses. And as I was going through those, you know, as we were going through all of these supports and therapies and different kinds of ways of supporting them, especially in the educational system, I started to see some of the things that I thought, why am I not teaching this way? Like, why am I not doing this in my voice studio?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  38:29

What’s an example of that? So an

Dr Shannon Coates  38:33

example would be behavioral or recognizing behaviors, for example. So the one of the things that a therapist might say, That was shocking for us was well, you are asking them to do something that they actually do not know how to do, and you are expecting something that is beyond what they are able to process right now. Well, and then you are giving them consequences for not doing it. And so then they, in return, are lying to you. They don’t want to but they’re lying to you because they’re trying so hard to do the thing that you want them to do.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  39:16

So they’ll covering up, they’re covering

Dr Shannon Coates  39:18

up Absolutely. So then I start to say, okay, in the studio, when I am expecting someone to do something, but I haven’t given them options to put them to figure it out. And then I am penalizing them. What am I expecting is going to happen? Of course they’re going to be perhaps defiant. Of course, they’re going to be, you know, the Joker in the studio to like, you know, get out of it by like, just being the clown and we laugh together and I Oh, it’s fine. Of course. So like, yeah, of course there’s gonna be fun I’m kind of we do this with parents as well, when we have sort of punitive cancellation policies, you know, where like, there’s lots of

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:07

yes, no, I totally get it. No, yes, I totally get

Dr Shannon Coates  40:11

it first people will then say, no, no, my kid is really sick and can’t come in today, when in fact, they just forgot and scheduled something else. And it’s and now, I mean, of course, they’re gonna lie to you about it,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:28

or they are so scared to come in for fear of failure. Because yes, we are setting them up for failure. So we’re essentially if we’re teaching from a place of this is right, this is wrong. That’s, that’s good. That’s bad. That’s bad, that student is not going to want to come in, because they’re going to even mean they’re already in that hyper vigilant state. Yes, it’s going to make that problem even bigger for them. 100%. And they’re not going to, they’re not going to want to come in and if they do, I know there’s behaviors to that a student will talk and talk and talk and talk to get out of singing. Of course, of course, they’re doing everything they can to avoid actually singing. Yeah, for fear of judgment.

Dr Shannon Coates  41:24

Yes. And is it because they’re a bad person or their deviant person or their attack? No, of course, it is not. However, that hits us hard, right? Like, we take that personally, sometimes we’re like, well, they’re just, you know, these students like we take that personally, often, rather than looking at the behavior as just a communication of something being wrong. Like, it’s just, that’s all it is. So something else we expect, you know, we expect kids, teenagers, kids, who have been at school all day. And this is especially prevalent for adolescent folks who are going through hormonal changes, but also an autistic kid, for example, who has been masking all day long at school, and who has been working very hard all day long, to stay focused to keep listening to especially they had some auditory processing differences, which is very common, again, that is a very common, that’s also children developing I mean, auditory processing is a thing that we develop as we get older, like there’s a normal developmental part to that. But also, that can be a neurodivergent trait as well is to have some auditory processing differences. And so they’ve been working their whole day, perhaps they’ve perhaps the lights have been buzzing very strongly, perhaps it’s hot outside, perhaps their toe hurts, whatever, maybe they feel slightly sick to their stomach, they’ve been working their whole day to stay good to be a good student. And then they come to their voice lesson at four o’clock after school. And we expect them to stand we expect them to look a straight in the eye, we expect them to answer that we expect them to listen, we expect them to to display all these behavioral traits that we consider respectful, or that we need them to do in order to show us that they are learning. This is this is completely, completely not useful.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  43:25

And and when you think that with singing, we’re activating every part of the brain. So they’ve already been in a situation where they’ve had to use the brain in a way that probably doesn’t come naturally for them. And then we’re asking them to come to the singing lesson and fire up everything. fire on all cylinders. Yeah, that’s a lot. That is a lot. Yeah,

Dr Shannon Coates  43:55

it’s a lot. And that’s, I mean, that’s the main thing, right? I think, when we think about okay, but how will I know how to treat a neurodivergent? Student like how will I know if there’s something going on there that I should be, you know, that I should be supporting? Or I should be affirming or, or changing in order to be able to support them? And the main thing is this whenever you feel triggered by a behavior, you need to get curious about that. So if you’ve got a singer who comes in and you feel is not taking their lesson seriously, because all they want to do is sit on the couch and not stand. Take a second to think about that. Do you think they’re not taking the lesson seriously, or do you think maybe maybe, they have stood all day, maybe they have maybe their body is not able to function right now. Maybe they can do some lip trills while lying on your couch? Do they really need to stand up? In order to show you that they’re paying attention, and they’re learning No, yes,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  45:03

yes, they

Dr Shannon Coates  45:05

absolutely do not. Yes,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  45:07

that we have to be accommodating. I know with many of my students when I feel that they’re not on for, for whatever reason, I just get them to lie on the ground, and close their eyes and to breathe and to do some, like accent breath work where they’re using voiced and unvoiced fricatives in a rhythmic pattern. And do that for five minutes. In an IRA say, let’s not judge the sound. Let’s just focus on the breath. There is no judgment here. There is no right or wrong. Let’s just focus on the movement of the abdominals. Let’s just focus on the breath. Let’s just pretend were in bed. And then it’s those final moments before you’re drifting off to sleep. Yeah. And, and students come out of that. And they, they’d say, Well, I feel amazing. And then if they’re fatiguing, I have an ottoman in my private studio. And I have chairs in my studio at the con at the Conservatorium. And I say, You know what, we can sit? Yeah, and I and I find, though, sometimes, when a student is really activated, or just having them sit, just seems to calm everything down, you know, everything that you’re doing what you do, when you stand, we just need to make sure we do when we’re sitting, we just want the chest cavity to be open, just relax our shoulders, you know, do whatever you want. Yeah. So I’ve become far more accommodating. By listening to the students in that moment, on a given day. And also, not putting limitations or expectations. I’ve taken that away. rates. So I’ve done the work on myself as a teacher. Yep, to get to that point.

Dr Shannon Coates  47:11

I think the next steps even further, in what you’re saying, as well is, first of all, to normalize. So whenever we find ourselves, offering what we might think of as an accommodation, or, you know, I see you’re fatigued, let’s take a seat, does it feel like now would be a great time to just kind of lie down and do a little bit of grounding and maybe some breathing or something like that? Would you like to walk? Would you like to pace while you’re singing? Yes. Would you like what kind of movements would you like? Like, yes, all of those kinds of questions. As soon as those things are coming up as an accommodation for a student in the situation. I think the next step is to start to take notes and normalize those things as options. So now, it’s not me who has to notice when you aren’t feeling when when you need something. It’s me saying, hey, guess what, in this studio, everyone sits whenever they feel like they want to, everyone lives down. If and when they feel like they want to, everyone grabs a fidget toy if and when they feel like they want to, everyone can move the light switch the dimmer up and down if and when they feel like they want to, anybody can do whatever they need to do, because I am now going to normalize the fact that everyone has options. And also you don’t just take the option because I happen to notice that you needed it. But you get to start to understand what you need to be able to sing and to be able to do your best work in this time. Yeah. And then you get to ask for it. So then those things become not even accommodations anymore. They become now I’m affirming No, your choice, normalizing your choice and normalizing you having agency over your own body and noticing what’s happening in your own body. Right? Yes, you at the agency? Yes, of course at the beginning. That may be something where we’re saying i Is it would it be useful for you to like sit on the chair for the rest of the lesson, would that be useful? And so now I might even send an email out to the entire studio and say, Hey, I just want to make sure that everybody knows that I had this chair in my studio for a reason. Wow, this isn’t something that you have to like, I just It just occurred to me that maybe not everyone knows that this chair is here for a reason. It’s not just a decoration. It’s because I want you to be able to take advantage of it and sit if and when you need to. I trust you to know your body.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  49:47

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of voice and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it as now is an important time for you to invest in your own self care, personal growth. growth and education. Use every day as an opportunity to learn and to grow, so you can show up feeling empowered and ready to live your best life. If you know someone who will also be inspired by this episode, please be sure to copy and paste the link and share it with them. Or share it on social media and use the hashtag a voice and beyond. I promise you, I am committed to bringing you more inspiration and conversations just like this one every week. And if you’d like to help me, please rate and review this podcast and cheer me on by clicking the subscribe button on Apple podcast right now. I would also love to know what it is that you most enjoyed about this episode and what was your biggest takeaway? Pleased take care and I look forward to your company next time on the next episode of a voice and beyond.