October 18, 2026
When Two Things Are True
WHAT
On Wednesday, some of the most remarkable teachers at Mack were our students.
At the Museum of Dyslexia, organized by Cailen Maloney, our Orchard Center team, and students, visitors moved through a series of interactive learning experiences. At one station, a seventh grader explained how different parts of the brain contribute to reading. At another, we attempted to trace shapes while looking in a mirror, experiencing how a “brain-flip” task can require extraordinary concentration and persistence.
At each station, we collected beads that contributed to a representation of Scarborough’s Reading Rope, a model illustrating the many interconnected skills involved in skilled reading.
I was blown away.
Not simply by what the students knew, but by how confidently and purposefully they shared their knowledge. And how much they see their learning differences as their superpowers.
These students were not merely learning about dyslexia. They were teaching the rest of us.
And I left thinking about a question that has stayed with me:
How often do we underestimate what a child knows because of the ways that child struggles to show what they know?
SO WHAT
The day before the museum, our Mackulty spent time learning with Emily Kircher-Morris, an educator, counselor, author, and leading voice in the fields of gifted education and neurodiversity.
Emily has written extensively about a population of learners that is still widely misunderstood: twice-exceptional, often abbreviated as 2e.
What does that mean?
A twice-exceptional learner possesses exceptional abilities or giftedness alongside a disability or learning difference, such as dyslexia, ADHD, or autism.
A child may demonstrate remarkable mathematical reasoning while struggling to read fluently.
Another might have an extraordinary imagination and sophisticated vocabulary yet find written expression painstakingly difficult.
A student might think several steps ahead of classmates while needing considerable support with organization, attention, or emotional regulation.
These are not contradictions.
They are different dimensions of the same developing human being.
And that distinction matters enormously.
Research has shown that exceptional strengths can sometimes conceal significant learning challenges. In a 2024 review published in Dyslexia, researchers found that gifted students’ advanced language abilities can help compensate for reading difficulties, potentially making dyslexia harder to identify.
The reverse can also happen. A learning disability may prevent educators from recognizing a child’s exceptional abilities.
In both cases, we risk missing something essential.
Emily Kircher-Morris put it powerfully in a recent interview:
“Gifted education is not a privilege that a student earns.”
It is about understanding and responding to a child’s learning needs.
Consider the implications.
A student earning satisfactory grades may be working extraordinarily hard to compensate for an unidentified difficulty.
A student struggling academically may possess remarkable intellectual potential that conventional measures fail to reveal.
And a child who needs significant support may also need significantly greater challenge.
What if our most important educational question is not simply how a child is performing, but what we have yet to understand about how that child learns?
NOW WHAT
At Mack, we talk about ensuring that children are deeply known.
For twice-exceptional learners, that commitment carries particular meaning.
It means we cannot allow strengths to become reasons to withhold support.
Nor can we allow challenges to become reasons to withhold opportunities.
We must do both.
Challenge the mind. Support the learner.
Recognize the gift. Understand the difficulty.
Provide explicit instruction where skills need development, while creating rich opportunities for intellectual exploration, creativity, inquiry, and meaningful contribution.
And perhaps most importantly, help children develop an understanding of themselves that includes both their strengths and their needs, without shame or diminished expectations.
Not every child with dyslexia is twice-exceptional, and not every twice-exceptional child has dyslexia. But Wednesday’s museum offered a compelling reminder that a learning difference never tells the whole story of a learner.
I keep coming back to the experience of watching our Orchard Center students become our teachers.
One day, our adults were learning from Emily Kircher-Morris.
The next day, our students were teaching us.
There is something beautiful about that sequence.
And something important.
Perhaps the deepest expression of being known is not simply having someone understand our struggles.
It is having someone recognize our capabilities, take our challenges seriously, and create opportunities for us to contribute.
The view from here:
A child is never just a strength. Never just a struggle. And never fully described by a label. Our brains are as unique as our fingerprints. Neurodiversity is beautiful.
Our responsibility is to see the whole child, and to keep looking for what we have not yet seen.
Rooted & Rising,
Bo
What is The Alpine View?
The Alpine View is a weekly reflection from the Head of School at Mackintosh Academy Boulder. It is a place to pause, notice, wonder, and make meaning together about learning, childhood, community, and the work of becoming.
The view may change from week to week, but the hope is the same: to look closely at what matters and to invite conversation about the people we are and the people we are becoming.
References & Further Reading
1. Emily Kircher-Morris: On the State of Gifted Education (August 2026)
David Adade, Multi-Health Systems (MHS)
A thoughtful interview exploring twice-exceptionality, neurodiversity, and the importance of recognizing both the remarkable strengths and the learning challenges of gifted students.
Read the interview
2. Identifying and Serving Gifted Children Who Are Twice-Exceptional (September 2026)
National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)
A newly published position statement advocating strength-based, talent-focused, and inclusive approaches to identifying and supporting twice-exceptional learners.
Read the position statement
3. Twice-Exceptionality Unmasked: A Systematic Narrative Review of the Literature on Identifying Dyslexia in the Gifted Child (2024)
Amanda E. Kranz, Tanya A. Serry, and Pamela C. Snow, Dyslexia, 30(1), e1763.
A peer-reviewed research review examining how gifted students’ intellectual and language strengths can mask dyslexia, complicating identification and delaying appropriate support.
Read the research
