🎙 Live from FETC | The Barrier Is Never the Learner. It's the Design.

Guest: CAST

Host: Arvin Ross + Dr. Michelle Ament

Presented by: The Human Intelligence Movement

🔍Episode Summary:

What if every system we've built in education was designed for a brain that doesn't exist? A standardized brain. A one-size-fits-all brain. A brain that, if we're being honest, describes exactly no one.

Kelli Suding, Luis Perez, Mia Laudato from CAST sat down at FETC 2026 to talk about what Universal Design for Learning actually looks like when you take it seriously. Not as a checklist. Not as one more thing for teachers. As a systems-level commitment to the idea that variability is the rule, not the exception.

Luis put it plainly: our goal is to maximize human potential. And that starts with designing for one, not for all. One size fits one. Kelli brought the urgency: assistive technology is not cheating. Full stop. Mia reframed the entire access conversation: access is not a technology problem. It's a systems belief and design problem.

The barrier is never in the learner. It's always in the design. That mindset shift changes everything about how schools approach inclusion.

This one is for anyone who cares about what K-12 education owes every student, not just the ones the system was built for.

Part of the Game Changers Series, recorded live at FETC 2026.

🎙️About the Hosts:

Michelle Ament and Arvin Ross come from different generations, experiences, and disciplines—but their unlikely partnership is built on mutual curiosity, deep listening, and a shared belief in the power of human connection. Their conversations are real, unscripted, and often challenging—in all the right ways.

Dr. Michelle Ament Co-President of the Human Intelligence Movement & Chief Academic Officer at ProSolve.

Arvin Ross Co-Founder of ProSovle, educator, speaker, and adaptability enthusiast.

Jena Crossland ⁠ Production Manager for Unscripted Intelligence and Director of Operations + Marketing for the Human Intelligence Movement.

🔗Join the Movement:

Website: ⁠Humanintelligencemovement.org

Email: ⁠members@hi4ai.org⁠

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