Emmy-Winning Documentary Everybody Dance Celebrates Inclusion

Dan Watt: Neurotypical kids and kids with disabilities working together as one. The humanity, kinship, and friendships that develop in that environment make her studio so special. It’s a community of dancers helping each other learn how to dance.

Tim Villegas: Hi friends. Welcome to Think Inclusive. I am Tim Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. What you just heard was our amazing guest this week, Dan Watt, a 2024 Emmy award-winning producer and director of the documentary Everybody Dance. I am recording from Baltimore, Maryland, at the Baltimore Convention Center during the CEC Conference.

Dan worked for five years at Columbia Pictures in the film development department on films like House Bunny with Anna Faris and Just Go with It with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. Dan also worked with Simon Cowell on the documentary film about the band One Direction, This Is Us. He is currently in production on an untitled documentary with Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning producer Daryl Roth, and a documentary with Rosie O’Donnell. We’re thrilled to have you here, whether you’re listening to or watching Think Inclusive, MCIE’s podcast that brings you conversations with people doing the work of inclusion in the real world.

As I mentioned, we’re here in Baltimore, Maryland, for the CEC conference. Our CEO, Dr. Carolyn Teigland, is presenting on Friday, and I’m here to support, meet people, and talk about inclusive practices and MCIE’s work. In this episode of Think Inclusive, Dan and I chat about his film Everybody Dance, which follows five students with disabilities as they learn ballet, jazz, and tap at Bonnie’s Dance Studio. The documentary showcases their determination, confidence, and the power of an inclusive community. Dan shares some great stories, which I won’t spoil for you. He also explains why creating an inclusive environment is easier than you might think and offers some great advice for teachers.

If you’re thinking, “I’m not sure this movie is for me,” let me tell you that one of the things I loved about Everybody Dance is that it centers the voices of students. You won’t want to miss this conversation. Before we get into my interview with Dan, I want to tell you about our sponsor for this season, IXL. IXL is a fantastic all-in-one platform designed for K-12 education. It helps boost student achievement, empowers teachers, and tracks progress seamlessly. Imagine having a tool that simplifies what usually requires dozens of different resources. Well, that’s IXL. As students practice, IXL adapts to their individual needs, ensuring they’re both supported and challenged. Plus, each learner receives a personalized learning plan to effectively address any knowledge gaps. Interested in learning more? Visit ixl.com/inclusive. That’s ixl.com/inclusive.

Okay, after a short break, we will jump into my conversation with Dan Watt. Catch you on the other side.

Tim Villegas: Dan Watt, welcome to the Think Inclusive Podcast.

Dan Watt: Well, it’s a pleasure to be here.

Tim Villegas: For those of you watching on YouTube, you can see Dan and the movie poster in the background. Dan, will you tell us what that movie poster says?

Dan Watt: It says Everybody Dance. It is my 2024 Emmy award-winning documentary that I produced and directed.

Tim Villegas: It’s fantastic, and it is a fantastic film. I did see it when we first talked a few months ago when we were setting up this interview. It’s a wonderful film. Thank you so much for making it. Before we officially started recording, you were telling me that it aired on PBS and they submitted it for an Emmy, is that right?

Dan Watt: Yeah, and they didn’t tell me. I knew they could, but I didn’t give it any thought. It’s PBS, you know, who knows? But they aired it, did a limited airing, and submitted it. Then it got selected to be in the top five. Michelle from PBS emailed me saying, “Congratulations, you’re one of the five nominated.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” She said, “For the Emmys.” I was like, “Oh wow.” Because that’s not in the average person’s thought process. When we were there, it truly was unexpected. I always hated when people said this at award shows, “Oh, I didn’t expect it,” and I thought, “You’re full of it.” But there was another documentary about books being taken out of schools, which is such a current issue. I thought they would win because it’s in the news right now. Then they announced my name and my film, and I won. So here we are.

Tim Villegas: That’s amazing. Did you have to go up and give a speech?

Dan Watt: Yeah. Documentaries are like over there in the corner. Part of my speech was, “I’m exhausted. They sat me way over there. I had to go upstairs, downstairs, around a railing, and then up more stairs. My time’s gonna be up before I even get there.”

Tim Villegas: Oh my goodness. Tell us a little bit about the film. I know I’ve seen it, but for our audience, who are mostly educators, can you share the premise of the film and why it was important for you to tell this story?

Dan Watt: In a synopsis, I follow five kids on their journey through life and towards their dance recital. They all take ballet, jazz, and tap at a dance studio here in the valley in Los Angeles. I started the film when the teacher announced to the kids that she was going to do a recital. We get their reaction of, “I’m sorry, what are we doing?” all the way through the recital. The word “dance” is in the title, but it’s not a movie about dance. I follow their home life, their parents, and their stories. It’s more of a documentary about determination, dedication, confidence, and the community that Bonnie has created in her dance studio, Ballet for All Kids. It’s about what they learn while taking dance that they can apply in their everyday life. That was my goal. It was fascinating to see how the parents applied the discipline at home, how they would say, “You’re gonna do your homework just like in dance class for the next 50 minutes. Focus on this, and then we’ll move on to something else.” The repetitiveness and all those things helped them apply what they learned in dance to everyday life.

Tim Villegas: You show the story through the young people’s words and thoughts, which I really loved about the film.

Dan Watt: Yeah. I am neurotypical, and I gave a lot of thought to how to film this and what to do. I wanted to make sure that it was their stories in their words, and I was just offering that platform. I thought this could be a great learning tool for everybody to hear, to have conversations with the parents and the kids, and just sit back and listen. This is how their life is. To have that insight into something that we’re usually not exposed to. Many neurotypical people might have someone in their family who is somewhere on the spectrum. I think it gives us insight, and the conversations these kids had touched my heart and actually changed the way I think.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. Tell me more about that. You went into this project with some assumptions about people with disabilities. Not necessarily bad assumptions, but you probably had a way of thinking. How did that change as you completed the project?

Dan Watt: Well, first, I was there every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, for 10 months. These kids and parents became my family, and I’m still friends with most of them. I was also a dancer in my early career and a dance teacher, so I had the insight of those two backgrounds to be an educator and a dancer. I can tell you a specific moment when I realized I was thinking differently. We were about four months in, and I went to Target for last-minute Christmas shopping, stocking stuffers. I was going down an aisle, and there was a girl laying on the floor having a conniption. As I walked by, I thought, “I wonder if she’s on the spectrum,” and I just kept shopping. I got in my car and started to cry because I didn’t think, “What a rotten kid, what a horrible mother, why isn’t the mother handling this?” There was no judgment. I just went on with my day, and I thought the switch in my brain had flipped. I was so thankful and grateful that happened to me. I thought, “Now I need to make sure that this movie, or try my best, to see if I can make my movie do that for someone else.” All it was is because I was exposed to it for four months, and it just opened up my heart and mind, and I started thinking differently.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. I see a parallel between your story and the idea of exposure. One of the big messages we try to tell educators is when you have learners with and without disabilities learning together, living together, playing together, then it’s no longer a strange occurrence when someone is on the ground because they’re having sensory difficulties, or making noises that might be considered strange, or moving in a way that is different. When you’re exposed to that over time, it’s just like, “Oh, it’s just that person, it’s just that individual.” Maybe there’s something going on, or maybe there isn’t. It’s just part of the fabric of whatever the environment is.

Dan Watt: Well, if we just focus on our similarities, life is so much easier. That’s what’s so great about Bonnie’s school. The title is Ballet for All Kids. You can walk by the studio and look in the window, and you would never know if someone is on the autism spectrum or not because she takes everyone. Thirty percent of her students are neurotypical; they might just not pick up quick enough. Maybe they’re just born not quite as coordinated, and they tried a normal ballet class or jazz class, and it moved a little too quickly. You just never know. As an educator, when I taught dance, I always offered four explanations for one thing. A pas de bourrée is three steps, so I would go left, right, left, right, left, right. I’d go 1, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, backside side, backside side. I would show it because you never know what’s going to click in your student’s mind. If you offer all these different ways in, hopefully one of them will work. That’s what’s great with Bonnie. I think if all educators can think that way, it’s just finding that way in that makes all the difference and can open up somebody’s life.

Tim Villegas: I think it’s just more of a comment that the parallel between an inclusive classroom or school where the expectation is that everyone is together. I want to unpack something you said about Bonnie and her class because I think there can be some misunderstanding about certain kinds of classes. If you are uninformed, you might think, “Well, that’s the ‘special needs’ class,” where they’re only, you know, that’s not a real class or whatever. I wanted to point that out because I think there are certain instances where you can have an extracurricular activity, and the emphasis is really on, “This is only for students or learners or children with disabilities.” It becomes more of a protective, “No, you can’t come into this class, you can’t be a part of this class because this is only for disabled individuals.” What was really nice about seeing this film and Bonnie’s way of doing it is that it really was for everyone. When you have spaces for everyone, then everyone can be a safe space for everyone. Which makes me think, why do you think these particular programs or classes are essential? You spent a lot of time in this class. Why was it important for this class to exist?

Dan Watt: I think there’s a key element that she does. In her class, every person has a shadow. It’s a dancer who has had four or five years of training, and they’re all volunteers. Some kids might be in the class, like Dakota, who can’t stand up by herself. She has braces that she walks with, and they wanted her to be in the recital. What these shadows and mentors did is they held her up and did the choreography with her. She was a part of the dance that the class did. It also gives Bonnie more freedom to walk around the class. When you have someone who has had five years of dance training and you’ve only had two months, they can adjust your feet and say, “First position looks like a pizza slice, so let’s open it up like that.” What that does is it puts neurotypical kids and kids with all disabilities together, working as one. The humanity that comes out of that, the kinship, the friendships, everything that was developed in there, to me, is what makes her studio so special. Some of these kids volunteered to do it.

Dan Watt: You have to volunteer so many hours for school credit and all that kind of stuff. Every one of them that I talked to signed up for a six-month volunteer program, and some have been there for six or seven years. Some of them have gone away to college and then come back to volunteer over the summer because it’s just an inclusive family for everyone. It’s a community of dancers helping other dancers learn how to dance, and that’s all it is.

Tim Villegas: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Watt: I can tell you how important or amazing it is to do it that way. A friend of mine watched the film, and she owns a dance studio closer to me. She said, “Can you help me start a class like this?” So we did it last Saturday, and it’s all-inclusive. There’s this cute little boy, and his sister is in the class. The boy is on the spectrum, but the sister isn’t. There was another boy who tried to take a ballet class, and he’s neurotypical, but there were 35 girls in the class and him. He was like, “Oh no,” and he wouldn’t go in there. His mom said, “But he loves dancing around the house.” So the mom asked if they could try this class, and my friend said, “Sure, of course.” There are only 15 kids in a smaller studio. She took her dancers who have five or six years of training from her dance company, and they were the mentors in that class. Again, it was a dancer with a dancer. These girls are traditionally Russian-trained ballerinas. Francesca is really tough. They’re in black leotards, pink tights, and their hair in a bun. Everyone in the studio is like that. They’re not used to talking a whole lot except for dance. They walked in, and it just turned into older dancers helping younger dancers. Everything else just melted away. Nothing else mattered. It was, “Okay, these are the steps we’re learning now,” and they would help each younger kid figure it out. Francesca and I were out in the hallway crying because nothing had to be said; it just happened. Everything fell into place. It was a 15-year-old dancer helping a 9-year-old dancer. To witness it happen within 10 minutes, it was just the love of dance, and everything disappeared. All we could do was cry and realize that you could apply that in any area of your life if you are open to it.

Tim Villegas: How cool is that?

Dan Watt: So cool. While you were talking, it reminded me of a method to further inclusive practices in school called peer support. There’s a lot of research around peer support. If you’re listening and wondering what that means, if you start googling research about peer support and inclusive education, you’ll find some interesting articles about it. The research says that when you have neurotypical students who are tutors for learners with disabilities in a general education class or an inclusive classroom, it’s beneficial not only for the learner with the disability but also for the peer tutor. It’s a very underutilized method in schools. You’re essentially taking that model and using it in a dance class, or you could use it anywhere, like you said, in any kind of environment.

Dan Watt: Yeah, 100%. I think everybody’s life is better that way. I think back to when I worked at Columbia Pictures, and I was new there. You start as an intern, and someone helps you learn. This is what you do when we give notes on a script. This is what we do with this, this is what we do here. We all have mentors and teachers in our life that help us get to the next level. I was thrown into the world of film and television, not knowing how to produce film and television. I had produced live theater, but the boss saw that I had something, and it was just taking what I knew and turning it into their way. There were people that held my hand and walked me along that path. Why would it be any different for someone who has autism or Down syndrome? It got me my job, it got me to the next level, it got me to the next thing. It baffles my mind now because I’ve gone through it, that this is just not used everywhere, accessible everywhere. We all use tutors, we all use mentors, we all need them in our life. It’s not a big deal.

Tim Villegas: Right, exactly. When you’re thinking about the film, is there a particular story arc that highlights the message of the film? I know maybe the message isn’t intentional, like you don’t go out making a film to have a message, but a message that emerges. Was there one that really sticks out to you?

Dan Watt: There’s a quote from Alfred Hitchcock that Morgan Spurlock, who was my mentor through all of this, shared with me when I would cry and text him at midnight. Alfred Hitchcock said something along the lines of, “In a film, the director is God. In a documentary, the people in it are the director, and you have to just follow them.” I was so glad that I knew that because I had to adjust to whatever stories were being told in front of me. There are two that I absolutely love, and I’ll tell you one to show how, if we work together as a community, we can apply these lessons and how it will help anyone in their life in other areas. There’s a girl, Maddie, who has Down syndrome. What Bonnie does in her dance class is on the floor, everybody has a square, and they’re in different colored pieces of tape. I think Maddie’s was lime green. When Maddie would step outside of her box, Bonnie would say, “Oh, where’s Maddie?” Maddie would step in her box, and Bonnie would say, “Oh, Maddie, it’s so nice to see you.” Maddie realized that the green box was her safe place, where she could talk and be herself, seen and accepted. From that lime green square, the mom and dad then bought lime green placemats for their house. Maddie knew that when she ate, this was where she should be, where she could talk, where there was structure, and she was safe. It went even a step further in her school. With her schoolwork, they put lime green tape around the edge of her desk, so she knew this was her safe space. It went from a square on the floor to where she could be safe, heard, and seen at home to in her traditional school, where she learned math and all of that. The teacher took that exact same thing, so they worked together because, for whatever reason, it worked for Maddie. They just applied it in the other areas of her life. Just by teachers communicating to each other, look what this did. It opened up Maddie’s life in such a way, in all areas.

Dan Watt: And that is just it. It’s communication, you know? One of the parts that touched my heart is when Liam is sitting on the couch with his mom and he said, “I don’t feel like I fit in at school, but at the dance studio I do.”

Tim Villegas: Mm-hmm.

Dan Watt: I think so many people can relate to that. Yes, he has autism, but I was a theater geek. I’m from Cleveland, Ohio. How many boys dance in Cleveland, Ohio? I can tell you there were seven because I was one of them in every production that ever went on in Cleveland, Ohio. We went from show to show, you know, seven guys doing Guys and Dolls, and then there were 14 girls with their hair up under a hat dressing like a guy. To find my community in theater, and you know, there’s video games, there’s so many different things. We all want to fit in. Being able to find that space where you’re with like-minded people can make you flourish, expand, and find greatness. I was the producer, but I had turned into the dance teacher, so I’m crying in his kitchen with his mom, and I’m like, “Wait, you have to film this. You have to just sit back and capture it on film because this is the story that people need to hear.”

Tim Villegas: Yeah. That’s gotta be really difficult if you’re the one capturing these moments and you become so attached to the people you’re filming, right? We made this audio documentary series called Inclusion Stories. I was doing some interviews at a conference in Baltimore with a number of young pre-service teachers, people learning to become special education teachers. The professor was a friend of mine, and she said, “Why don’t you come and interview these young people because they’re really passionate about inclusion and inclusive education?” So here I am with my recorder and microphone in hand, and we’re doing interviews. The professor looks over and goes, “Oh my gosh, that is my mentor.” The one that taught me, and here I am, the teacher teaching these people. It was hard not to get choked up because it’s so powerful to see people get passionate about inclusion, about community. Even though I was the spectator, the observer, the recorder, I don’t think I held it together very well.

Dan Watt: Well, even when I watch the movie now, there’s a point—I don’t want to give away the ending—but we end up with the recital. There’s the girl, Sarah, who was 17 or 18 when we filmed, walked for the first time. We captured that on film. She took about eight steps and fell. Then there’s the part at the recital. To see her walk, we just happened to be there. I thought, “I have angels looking over my shoulder that put me here at this time to capture this story.” You started to cry, Bonnie’s crying, Sarah’s crying. Thank God my cameraman was focused on filming because this emotional wreck lost it then. After 17 years, they still haven’t diagnosed her. There’s something not connected from her brain to below her knees, so she couldn’t transmit the movement. Because of all the repetition of five or six years in dance class, holding onto the bar or her mentor and helper, look what happened. It took a while, but I didn’t get to Columbia Pictures until I was in my forties, so it took a while.

Tim Villegas: There you go.

Dan Watt: Who gives a hoot?

Tim Villegas: You’re gonna have to pull out that bleeper again.

Dan Watt: I said hoot. I got caught.

Tim Villegas: Yeah, you did. Oh my goodness. Like I said earlier, Dan, we have a lot of teachers that listen. I’m wondering if you have any clues on how to create an inclusive classroom with what you observed with Bonnie and your experience being with these families for 10 months.

Dan Watt: I think it’s so much easier than people think. Going back to why this movie came to me when I was a dance teacher. My initial idea was to talk to people who studied the arts but never became professionals in it. Did your mom make you take piano for four years, or violin, or singing, or go be in the theater to get used to talking in front of people, but you never made a career out of it? What helped you during those studies? That was my initial idea, but I had a dream of a woman, Fran, and her two daughters. This was before I started filming, so it was 18 years ago then, probably 20 now. Both of Fran’s daughters had autism. Figure 20 years ago, I knew nothing about it. I have not been trained in anything in this area except now filming the movie and working on another one, but we’ll talk about that. I thought, “Why am I dreaming about Fran and her two daughters?” What a weird dream to have. I didn’t give it any more thought because I don’t remember my dreams that much. Then I dreamed about them again a couple of weeks later, and I thought, “This is God pushing me. This is my higher power going, ‘This is your way in. You can still tell the same story of how the arts can be applied in everyday life, but I’m telling you, do it this way. Go this way.'” So I trusted my gut and did it.

The reason I’m telling you that story is I was in my twenties as a dance teacher, not knowing anything about teaching anyone with a disability. But I talked to Fran, and she said, “We know our daughters. It might take them a little longer to get from Jazz 1 to Jazz 2, and we’ve talked to them. So don’t promote them if they’re not ready. They understand that Allie might learn a little quicker, so Allie will go to Jazz 2, but you guys will stay here.” All I did was teach my class like I taught any other class. I knew that one daughter was sensory sensitive, so I did not touch her. I showed her with my arms, and after class, I talked to the mom to see if they had any questions. I just taught like any other class. After about a year and a half, I moved them. As the kids get better in a dance class, you move the ones who know your warmup to the front so you can go around and correct. They’re the ones leading the class. I moved both of her daughters up because they were ready. One of them started to cry, and I thought, “Oh no, I have messed up everything. Everything I taught for a year and a half is now going out the window.” She said, “No, she’s crying tears of happiness because she knows she’s now good enough to be in the front row.” All I did was teach dance and come up with different ways to show and explain to them, but not just them.

Dan Watt: Like I said earlier, a pas de bourrée—you give them five different versions of it. Even though it’s the same thing, you’re offering different ways in. What’s going to click for you? When you’re playing basketball, trying to get it in the hoop, I can’t do that. Nothing clicked for me with that. But you just offer different ways. You know what it’s like if one teacher tells you one thing, but you’re sick of your math teacher because you’ve been there for a year, and another teacher words it just slightly differently. It now makes sense. As a dance teacher, I just tried to give all my students different ways to get into it. When I went to the studio, I thought, “Oh my gosh, this can be applied everywhere.”

Tim Villegas: Mm-hmm.

Dan Watt: Any kid should be able to go into any class. I think we put up barriers because we think it’s going to be harder, and we wonder if there’s extra work in it for us. But there really isn’t.

Tim Villegas: Right.

Dan Watt: That’s what I took away from all of this. Now I’m like, “Why not?”

Tim Villegas: Yeah. Well, I think you just said it, and it was really evident in how you described how you taught your class. The mindset barrier was gone. You already had the assumption that they belonged in your class, right?

Dan Watt: Yeah.

Tim Villegas: It wasn’t like, “Oh, this kid’s not getting it. They don’t belong here,” which is unfortunately part of the problem. There’s a mindset that if you can’t keep up or do something yet, then you don’t belong in this particular class. But what I’m hearing is you teach them until they can do it, and you expect them to make progress.

Dan Watt: Right.

Tim Villegas: Yeah.

Dan Watt: Everybody makes progress at their own pace. Maybe it’s because I was labeled the “jazz boy” in Cleveland, so I was the jazz boy dancer. Social labels put us in categories—race, gender, class, sexual orientation. These labels come with expectations, but they’re labels that other people came up with and applied. I’m like, “But you don’t even know.” I think it’s because I’ve lived it. These stereotypes result in unrealistic and false expectations. That’s where it might get stuck in this world. Like you said, someone hears the word “autism” and they now expect this because they haven’t investigated or been exposed to it. If you know anybody with autism, as most people say, you know one person with autism. But that’s like any human being. If you know one human being, you know one human being because we’re all different. I think, why do you even have to say, “If you know one person with autism, you know one person with autism,” because they’re on a spectrum. We’re all on a spectrum.

Tim Villegas: Yeah, yeah. Life is a spectrum.

Dan Watt: Yeah.

Tim Villegas: Your professors and teachers are gonna be like, “What is this guy talking about?”

Dan Watt: No, no. This is a great conversation. I think whoever’s listening will immediately understand and see the connection between the ideas you’re talking about as a dance teacher and in this film. It definitely applies to educators in general. This is a great conversation. I do want you to share how anyone can watch the film. You teased a little bit about a future project. Why don’t you tell us about those two things?

Dan Watt: Everybody Dance is currently free on Prime Video and Tubi. We got Amazon Prime to offer it for free during Disability Awareness Month, and the response was great. I suggest all your listeners go there, watch it, and leave a comment. If the numbers keep up, they will keep offering it for free. Don’t just click the like button; you have to leave a comment. They judge it on how many people take the time to write something, not just click the like.

Tim Villegas: Okay. Good to know.

Dan Watt: It’s free on Prime Video, Amazon Prime, and Tubi. You can pay for it on Apple TV and Google Play, but why when you can get it for free?

Because of my Emmy win, Rosie O’Donnell reached out to me. Her child, Clay, has autism, and she had an idea for a film. We started discussions, and I filmed one day already. I think that’s all I’ll say.

Tim Villegas: It’s gonna be another documentary?

Dan Watt: Yeah. This is strictly gonna be about autism because Clay has autism. On YouTube, there are shows called object shows, and one of them is called Battle for Dream Island. It’s like a sponge talking to a pen—normal things you have around your house that have been created into characters. There are a few of them, but I’ll talk about Battle for Dream Island only. We’re interviewing all of them. These kids started this show when they were 13, and they’re now in their twenties. Last year, it blew up. Their last video got 85 million views. The autism community has embraced these shows, and there are chat rooms and community rooms on Twitter and Facebook because of these shows. Rosie’s child, Clay, found the show, and it changed their life and behavior in everyday school. They started taking drawing classes. I’ve interviewed a girl who is now creating her own show and working on different cartoon voices and voicing characters. She’s getting into voiceover work. They had a convention this past summer, and Rosie took Clay. Rosie said a third of the audience was on the autism spectrum. She said, “There’s gotta be something there. Let’s figure it out.” It’s like this underground little world. I’m going to a convention for one of the other ones with Rosie to see the craziness. I’ve talked to a few psychologists and read a few papers and professors, and we’re trying to figure out what’s going on.

Dan Watt: But again, I want to talk to the kids about it. So maybe if there’s somebody in your audience, if they have a child that knows what this show is. Here’s a sponge that gets hit by a rock, and they both have personalities. The sponge, because it’s an animated show, says “Ouch” and makes an ouch face. Then the rock character laughs at it. Two minutes later, the rock comes over and apologizes to the sponge, saying, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Kids on the spectrum don’t have to think like when you talk to them. When you want to get specific answers and have a conversation, sometimes it’s harder for someone on the spectrum when you ask big generic questions like, “How was your day?”

Tim Villegas: Right. Yeah. Because it can go in too many directions.

Dan Watt: So in the object show, the sponge says “Ouch,” makes an ouch face, and starts to cry. It’s all right there. You don’t have to think about it. Everything you need to know is right there. Then the other character comes over and apologizes. It’s all right there. You don’t need to think anymore about it.

Tim Villegas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dan Watt: The professors and psychologists I’ve talked to think it could be because it’s that defined. They don’t have to open up nine folders and get frustrated in their heads to figure out what the human that said to them meant.

Tim Villegas: Right. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well, I will definitely check out Battle for Dream Island. You’re gonna watch it and go, “What am I looking at?” If you’re listening and you’re like, “I know exactly what Battle for Dream Island is,” then send me an email or message on social media.

Dan Watt: Yeah, I’m @dancingdanw on Instagram.

Tim Villegas: Awesome. Thank you.

Dan Watt: It was so cool that she wanted to continue exploring and offering films that feature kids with disabilities. This one focuses on autism. How cool is it that this YouTube show opened up the mind and a pathway to creativity for this kid who is now flourishing? Rosie’s like, “We gotta tell people about this.” Not that this particular show is going to attract everyone. It’s like anything. I’m still a Law and Order fan, you know, Law and Order: SVU.

Tim Villegas: Oh man. This is great. Thank you for spending some time with us. Do you have time for a mystery question? Do you know what I’m talking about when I say mystery question?

Dan Watt: No, it scares me.

Tim Villegas: Okay, good. So how I wrap up each interview with my guests is I have a stack of cards. It’s just a prompt card, and I select it at random, and then we both answer the question. Does that sound okay?

Dan Watt: Do you have your bleep button close by?

Tim Villegas: I do. I don’t think we’re gonna need it, but we’ll see. Okay, so this question is: Would you travel to space if possible?

Dan Watt: No.

Tim Villegas: No? That’s an easy question. Can I ask you why? Why wouldn’t you want to go to space?

Dan Watt: I think there’s still so much on this earth that I would want to experience. I don’t know if I could survive not having contact like this. First of all, the other astronauts would be like, “Shut up.” I could see myself trying to teach them ballet in space, and they’d be like, “Just leave me alone.” I don’t know if I could survive in an atmosphere that didn’t have personal one-on-one contact.

Tim Villegas: Okay. That’s fair. I think I would like to travel to space if given the opportunity. I don’t know if I’d want to live in space. The people who say we’re gonna colonize Mars or whatever, I don’t know. I’ve seen The Martian and Interstellar, and both of those terrify me. But I enjoy learning about space, looking at the stars, and the constellations. I’m also a big Doctor Who fan, so there’s part of me that wants to get in the TARDIS and go all around in different times.

Dan Watt: I would do like the last season of Doctor Who, where they just went to different eras.

Tim Villegas: Yeah, exactly.

Dan Watt: But again, there’s people there. To me, space is me in a capsule for eight months without Law and Order: SVU. I don’t know if I could do it.

Tim Villegas: Okay, so space plus Law and Order: SVU, then you’re good.

Dan Watt: Right.

Tim Villegas: All right. Thanks for playing along. Dan Watt, thank you so much for being on the Think Inclusive Podcast. We really appreciate it.

Dan Watt: I had a great conversation. Thanks for having me.

Tim Villegas: Welcome back. That’s a wrap for this episode of Think Inclusive. Let’s roll the credits. Think Inclusive is brought to you by me, Tim Villegas. I handle the writing, editing, design, mixing, and mastering. This podcast is a proud production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Our original music is by Miles Reich, with additional tunes from Melody. A big shout-out to our sponsor, IXL. Check them out at ixl.com/inclusive. We truly appreciate each and every one of you who tunes in. We’d love to hear how you’re using our episodes. Are they part of your teaching toolkit? Do you share them with school administrators? Let me know. You can always reach out to me at tvillegas@mcie.org. That’s T-V-I-L-L-E-G-A-S at M-C-I-E dot O-R-G. And hey, if you’re still with us this far into the episode, it probably means that you love Think Inclusive and the work that MCIE is doing. Can I ask a small favor? Help us keep the momentum by donating at our website mcie.org. Just click the button at the top of the site and chip in $5, $10, $15, $20. It would mean the world to us and the children in the schools and districts we partner with. Thanks for your time and attention. And remember, inclusion always works.

Download the complete and unedited transcript here.