From Classroom
to Cortex

My dedication to understanding human behavior didn't start in a lab—it began in my childhood backyard, where I naturally fostered inclusive play with my neighbor, Leah, who had Down Syndrome. She was curious, funny, and full of life, and she taught me something I would not fully understand for years: connection does not require sameness.

There was no curriculum, no protocol, and no supervisor. Only a shared space and the willingness to show up. That willingness—rooted in empathy rather than obligation—became the quiet foundation for everything that followed.

What I understand now, through years of applied neuroscience and behavioral research, is that what I was practicing intuitively had a name: inclusive design through intrinsic motivation. The seed of this work was not planted in a classroom. It was planted in that backyard, with Leah.

“The seed of dedication was not a decision. It was a relationship.”

Arriving as a college volunteer at The Rise School of Denver—4901 East Eastman Avenue—I encountered a model I hadn't seen in any textbook. Founded in 2003, Rise was built on a deliberate structural principle: for every child with a developmental disability, three typically developing peers. Inclusion was not a philosophy posted on a wall. It was an engineered ratio.

I quickly adapted my communication style to match the varying expressive and receptive language profiles in each classroom. Under the guidance of Director Megan Gallagher—one of the school's original architects—I learned the LEAP model, the daily rhythms of Zoo Phonics, and the difference between proximity and genuine connection.

On my first afternoon, a student named Ryan—who had not initiated social contact with a peer in several months—juked me during a game of tag so sharply I nearly fell. We both laughed. That laugh told me more about readiness than any assessment tool I had encountered.

“'Make it social' was not a slogan. It was a working system—and it worked.”

Rise operates with a unique transdisciplinary team model—not a relay race where specialists hand a child from one expert to the next, but a jazz band, where each practitioner plays their part simultaneously, with full awareness of what everyone else is doing. Instead of holding tightly to professional boundaries, team members practice role release: the OT coaches phonics, the teacher reinforces motor goals, the speech therapist embeds language into PE.

Observing this model, I grew curious about its neurological substrate. I began researching mirror neurons and their role in observational learning, and collaborated with the occupational therapist to design a novel intervention for a student named Samuel. Samuel had been working on a grasping task for weeks with no generalization across environments—until we introduced iPad video-modeling: a short loop of the target hand movement, played immediately before the physical task.

One morning, I handed Samuel a red Folgers coffee container instead of the clinical grabber. He opened it on the first try. He looked up. I looked up. The transfer had occurred. That was the Superbowl. Not the container—the generalization.

“Role release requires trust. Trust in the team. Trust in the child.”

Working in high-stakes developmental environments means navigating disagreements where the stakes are a child's developmental trajectory. At Rise, structured conflict resolution wasn't an HR policy—it was a built-in clinical practice called the Rumble.

The Rumble is a collaborative framework designed to address entrenched assumptions before they calcify into bad decisions. It operates in three phases: Know(establish shared data), Wonder (challenge assumptions with curiosity rather than defensiveness), and Decide (commit to a data-backed plan with clear ownership). All six of Rise's core organizational traits—bravery, trust, accountability, gratitude, resilience, and empathy—are operationalized through this process.

Participating in Rumbles shaped how I think about institutional problem-solving. Disagreement, when structured, is a forcing function for clarity. The teams that used this process most fluently made better decisions faster, with less residual conflict.

“A good Rumble doesn't avoid conflict. It weaponizes curiosity against assumption.”

Special Olympics Colorado doesn't just provide sport. It provides a stage. In 2013, I joined the coaching staff of a swim team alongside Coach Randy Hass, who would go on to win the 2016 Coach of the Year award for his work in inclusive athletics.

Effective leadership in this arena required something deeper than technique—it required accurate diagnosis. Drawing on behavioral psychology, I recognized early that Yohanni, Rachel, and Robin weren't lacking physical ability. They were experiencing genuine fear responses: avoidance, hypervigilance, and somatic shutdown near the water. They were blocked by fear, not incapacity.

The intervention wasn't a pep talk. It was systematic psychological scaffolding. We progressed through carefully sequenced approximations—wall contact, kickboard assist, short-distance crossings—until each athlete built not just competence, but confidence. I got in the water for every single session. Proximity matters when the goal is trust.

“Removing fear and building confidence are not the same task. I learned to do both.”

True dedication extends beyond scheduled hours. The relationships formed within this work don't terminate at the edge of a gym or pool deck—they become part of how you understand community, dignity, and what it means to actually show up for someone.

Rachel swam to a state finish. The arc of that accomplishment—from gripping my shoulders in the shallow end to touching the finish wall—was one of the most precise demonstrations of behavioral change I have ever witnessed up close. I was there for both ends of that arc.

Yohanni's family invited me to share traditional Ethiopian meals around their table. Peter Naffah—swimmer, leader, the 2018 Male Athlete of the Year—became a close friend. We went to a Denver Nuggets game together. He was center court with a grin bigger than the arena. When the Special Olympics Colorado community lost Peter in 2018, the loss was not institutional. It was personal.

“A medal. A cup of Ethiopian coffee. A basketball court. Sometimes that's everything.”

Taking on the role of a live-in caretaker for Ben required a level of executive management that no single job title could capture. I was responsible for scheduling, medical coordination, behavioral support, and daily transitions—all within an environment where errors had real consequences and there was no off-switch.

This was also the year I competed as a Unified Partner in the Special Olympics Colorado golf championship alongside Ben. He made six shots—six clean, deliberate, fiercely contested shots. We won the state championship. I drove home thinking about transfer: how a skill practiced in one context migrates to another. It was the same question Samuel had first posed through a red Folgers container five years earlier.

While managing full-time caretaking responsibilities, I prepared for and sat the Psychology GRE, scoring in the 96th percentile. Two years later I was at San Diego State University, analyzing fMRI connectivity networks in adolescents with ASD—asking that same question through a neuroimaging instrument. The classroom and the cortex had finally converged.

“The classroom became the cortex. The work never changed.”