When your society has decided that an activity or idea holds value, and is therefore important, then almost by default this activity or idea is worthy of your attention. If it does not hold your attention then there is something wrong with you not the activity or idea. It is an interesting concept when you stop to think about it. The ruling group has decided something is important, the majority of the population accepts that decision and voila you have an activity worth focusing on. Unfortunately there is a sub-group, a little bit less than 10% of the population, that does not conform to this idea.
I understand that having a set of norms and rules is an important part of a civilized society. Education is also important and helps society members learn the rules of the society and receive knowledge in order to give back and continue to help nurture society as it is. But some of the largest leaps forward throughout history were because of ADHDers and how they think.
In recent history, Bill Gates & Steve Jobs and their ADHD minds moved modern technology forward in ways no one, quite literally no one, else had thought to do.
One very big reason ADHDers have gotten bad press is because they do not stay focused on the “correct” activities, i.e. school. They are not suited to the way they are taught in western schools. School has become the gatekeeper to success in life. And because most of the population can make their way through school in an orderly fashion it must be a good gatekeeper, right? Not for different thinkers. If your mind receives and processes information differently than the way it is distributed in school you are sunk. This system neglects some of our best and brightest. It feeds students who can sit still, follow written and oral instruction and who do not challenge the current teaching methods or the material being taught.
My guess is, Bill Gates was way ahead of anything being taught in the classroom but he seems relatively low key so most likely he sat quietly in class. His mind was probably racing here there and everywhere coming up with ideas like, oh I don’t know, personal computers, or how to vaccinate the world, little stuff like that.
If you don’t turn in homework or test well then something is not working. You may not be understanding the material, the homework may bore you to tears, or your brain may process information differently than the way you are being taught and although you understand the concepts the homework and/or tests don’t make sense.
In any case school isn’t working for you. Scratch that, you are not working with school, so the obvious solution, more school! A tutor or outside of school “practice”(can you say Kumon?) that is sure to do the trick.
Because, obviously, it is not the system that is failing the student it is the student failing within the system. Because of these reactions the message is loud and clear there is something wrong with you, ADHDers, not the school or system. When you put young people in a situation in which the unspoken message is “you are broken” or “there’s something wrong with you” you create a dynamic in which ADHDers doubt themselves and their abilities which in turn creates stress and worry which then takes attention away from activities such as school in order to process the internal turmoil created by the system in which they don’t fit. In short, it is a mess.
The self-talk that accompanies these, mostly, unspoken messages is hugely damaging to ADHDers and it starts as soon as the child enters any type of school setting. If you have ever spoken to a little kid you have experienced kid “logic” – or lack thereof. Kids fill in the blanks as best they can. The general tendency, for most of us not just kids, is to assume the greater structure, such as school, is correct and we are wrong. So kids fill in the blanks with less than positive ideas about themselves.
For instance:
First grader Sam missed the ball when it was his turn at kick ball. Everyone laughed, Sam laughed too. He was given a second chance and this time he made contact with the ball but it went almost directly behind him. Again there is laughter. This time it is more difficult for Sam to laugh along. He gets one more try and he is able to kick the ball, straight ahead, and right to the first baseperson and is out before he makes it to the base. This is a yucky day of kickball for Sam. In Sam’s mind he has filled in the blanks as to why everything went so wrong: he must not be athletic and his teammates must mad at him. The kid logic does not take into account that he had never played kickball before, or that the pitcher was putting spin on the ball or that everyone gets a chuckle when they miss the ball and no one really cares about the outcome of the game after recess is over. None of that matters in Sam’s mind. The kid logic is strong and absolute: not athletic and everyone is mad at me.
If Sam had to play kickball every day at every recess his logic would be locked in place very quickly. Luckily Sam doesn’t have to play kickball if he doesn’t want to. Sam will eventually forget about the yucky day of kickball, it will fade and other activities and fun things will happen at recess.
If you have ADHD you can’t just opt out of the activity you are not doing well, because the activity is school in general. There will be something pretty much every day – missed homework, scolded for not paying attention or asked to stop fussing or disrupting – that reaffirms the message from school that there is something wrong with you, not the system. And this is just elementary school!
Fast forward to high school and we have a group of students with low self-esteem from years of self-chastise, self-doubt and the school’s affirmation of their lack of ability to do things “correctly”. Some are withdrawn, in their own world fantasizing about inventions like the personal computer or new ways to solve big problems like how to light up the darkness (Thomas Edison’s light bulb - ADHDer). Or those who act out either because they truly cannot sit still or have chosen to be class clown – why not at least make people laugh and have friends to make their time at school tolerable?
The self-talk that accompanies ADHD can be crippling. The daily barrage of messages that there is something wrong with you is a heavy burden to carry. The good news is that self-talk is a habit or pattern. Habits and patterns are learned and therefore can be modified.
If you get rid of the idea that ADHD needs to be cured, curbed or otherwise toned down and that succeeding in school does not equate to succeeding in life then we can accept that ADHDers as a necessary part of the evolution of our society . We can work with them to create a learning environment that makes sense to them. Our society should celebrate different thinkers for their unique genius and the ways in which they can solve problems and take us all forward by leaps and bounds.