ADHD is in epidemic proportions in our children. While this may sound like a panic statement is not intended to incite panic. It doesn’t even have to be crisis, except that children with ADHD test the educational system at every turn. And the educational system is failing these children. Our answer to this seems to be to blame the students, medicate them, and insist that they continue in the system that is not equipped to handle them.

 

Part of the problem, when it comes to students with ADHD, is that they learn differently than other students. In an institutional school setting it is difficult to deal with one child who has trouble sitting quietly in a desk, cannot be still, and is easily distracted. But supposed that there are two, three, or even four students who have this issue? What is a teacher of 25 students supposed to do with the students who are disruptive by virtue of the fact that they are constant motion and noise of the students.

 

This is the dilemma of a teacher, children today, even those without ADHD, seem to be wired differently from the students of one hundred years ago. From a very age we bombard them with stimulation. Before a baby can even turn over by themselves they have music, lights, and sound in their cribs, in the form of toys, mobiles, and stuffed animals that make noises or lullabies. By the time they are toddling, many of their toys make sound, light up,or more.

 

It is not long before we have educational programs for baby on the television. We are giving our children computer access at progressively earlier ages. Everything moves fast, and is noisy. And this is all before we send them to school, during those years when the pathways in the brain are still being formed. We make them wired to think being alone and quiet is bad. We push for them to learn such things as colors and numbers are early ages when maybe they should be learning other things. We force our children into a constant input state.

 

And then we send them to school. This is where the trouble begins. We expect them to sit quietly. We expect them to be satisfied with repetition. We limit the amount of time that they spend physically expending energy because we do not allow them more than a couple of short recesses each day. All of the rest of the time we expect them to sit, still and quiet.

By: Mylene C. Obispo | Teacher I | Pagalanggang Elem. School | Dinalupihan, Bataan