I was recently reading
a piece in
ADDitude magazine by Yale Professor Thomas Brown expounding on his rather
conventional views of ADHD as a developmental disorder (yawn) when I was
stopped dead in my tracks. Here’s what he said:
Often the most problematic period
is during junior high, high school, and the first few years of college. That is
the time when the individual faces the widest range of challenging activities
without opportunity to escape from the ones in which they have little interest
or ability. After that period, some with ADHD are fortunate enough to find a
job and a life situation in which they can build on their strengths and work around
their cognitive weaknesses.
In other words, career and life offer opportunities to build
on strengths and work around weaknesses, but school insists a child downplay
strengths and concentrate on weaknesses. Work allows for and even demands
people who are great at certain things but fall short at others, but school demands
people who are competent at a wide range of activities. And here I thought school was supposed to be
preparing kids for life! Silly me.
Given that school is much less tolerant of ADHD than the workplace, perhaps the “disorder” does not reside with the ADHD child
but resides with the school. Perhaps a new diagnosis of school is in order: Institutional
Maladaptive Disorder. Perhaps the school needs the medication, not the child.
School is about to start, a nerve-racking time for square
peg children (those who don’t easily fit into the school system) and their square
peg parents (those who are willing to buck the system and advocate for their
children’s long-term well-being).
If you, like me, have “square peg” children who do not
easily fit into the round peg school system, then you just might find these
resolutions of interest.
If you, like me, believe that schools need to change to
accommodate alternative learning styles and to emphasize alternative skills,
such as creativity and critical thinking, then these resolutions just might
speak to you.
Five New (School)
Year’s Resolutions:
(1) I will not get angry at my kids for their
performance in school or allow my family life to be dictated by school
Commentary:
As the famous Pink Floyd song tells it, school is just “another brick in the wall.”
Yes, it’s an important brick. But more important than school is providing a
supportive family atmosphere that gives our kids the time and space necessary
to identify their passions and become their best selves. Not every kid is on
the same growth trajectory--thank goodness!--and parents need to allow for these differences even if
schools don’t. Family, more than school, is the foundation upon which all other
bricks are laid.
(2) I will not give my children the impression
that their future success relies entirely on their grades
Commentary:
Square peg kids must know that they have more than one bite at the apple. A
grade is a teacher’s assessment of a kid’s ability to regurgitate information,
not the penultimate commentary of a child’s self-worth. Many,
many “poor students” become highly successful adults. A kid not ready for their college of choice at
age 17 may be ready in two years. The world is far more forgiving of late
bloomers than school. Let’s help our kids know that.
(3) I
will approach meetings at the school with the principal, guidance counselor and
teacher with a sense of proportion and humor, and not feel guilty because my
kids don’t perfectly conform
Commentary:
A meeting with school officials can be very stressful for square peg parents
because they know the purpose of the meeting is for the school to do everything
they can to get their children with the program, and that the meeting will
force the parents to walk a fine line between allowing children to grow at
their own rate and placating the school. School officials mean well. They
genuinely (but wrongly) believe that your child’s ability to conform to the
system is hugely important to their future success. But they also want to make
it as easy as possible on themselves. The classroom is set up for average kids
not outliers. Your goals for your children and the school’s goals may not perfectly
align. School officials are not your boss. You have agency. Listen to their
advice but take it with a grain of salt.
(4) I will help my kids identify their passions
and become better at what they care most about.
Commentary:
Schools are set up to get every child to code, not (unfortunately) to help your
child develop a love of learning, identify a sense of purpose and to become
passionate. We parents have a critical role to play in guiding them.
(5) I will work to transform the educational
experience for my children and other
children, for my country and the world
Commentary:
Let’s channel our passion for our own children to help improve learning for all
children.
Dina, age 11, is not doing well in school. She has been
getting C’s and D’s in her divergent thinking classes and, despite all of her
hard work, received a disappointing C+ in science. Her project on plant life showed, according to
Mr. Riley, “little original thinking.” Mr. Riley said, “It’s meticulous, but
hundreds of kids have done something similar.” Dina is losing her confidence
and feels inferior to the majority of kids who are much more creative.
Dina attends the Simon Academy for Creativity which, like
nearly every other school in the country, focuses on creativity and divergent
thinking. Despite being superb at math, reading and memorizing factoids, Dina is
forced to attend a traditional creativity school. The one alternative school in
the district that focuses on competency in math, science, reading and writing
is too far from Dina’s home and costs a hefty $18,000 per year.
Dina has always felt out of place at school. While the other
kids are bouncing off the walls, Dina sits still at a desk (a special accomodation), waiting for
instructions from the teacher. Going all the way back to first grade, Dina’s
teachers expressed concern about her “lethargy.”
“All she seems to want to do
is sit down and read, while many of the other kids are running around the
class, learning by doing,” observed Mrs. Weller. “Dina also has a strong need
to receive instruction and is not sufficiently self-directed.”
Now that Dina’s in middle school, the school suggests that
Dina take a battery of psychological tests to determine if she has a learning
disability.
After the testing, the school psychologist, Dr. Schmidt,
called a meeting with Dina’s parents for 3 PM, showing up late as usual. “The
good news is that Dina has a wonderful working memory, which is undoubtedly an
asset. But the tests also indicate that Dina is a classic case of Creativity
Deficit Disorder or CDD. Have you seen the new movie on Jackie Robinson?” Dr
Schmidt interrupted himself. “Oh, yes, back to Dina. The excessive control
functioning in her brain often makes Dina unavailable for learning and is
holding her back academically.”
“Among the many questions Dina was asked on the test was how
many uses she could think of a hard-boiled egg and a spoon. Dina could only
think of 14, which was significantly below the average of 21, putting her at
the 35th percentile in Creativity Quotient (CQ). These numbers suggest Dina is
an at risk child,” he stated. “The test also revealed a glitch in her
conceptual understanding of ideas. While Dina scored in the 96th percentile in
short-term memory, she scored much lower in critical thinking. Because school
is so much more focused on critical thinking than memorization, this is going
to hurt Dina’s performance on tests.”
“What can we do about it?” Dina’s parents asked. “Well,
fortunately, there’s a new medication out called Freeal, which relaxes the
prefrontal brain systems, and allows for more creativity and less self-editing.
While we can’t mandate that she take it, I can say from experience that it will
make her a much better student. I think it’s important that Dina catch up with
her peers, lest she develop an inferiority complex. Also, these learning
difficulties, unaddressed, will, as she goes into the world of work, make it hard for Dina to start her
own company and innovate.”
“Dina’s pediatrician prescribed similar meds once before and
Dina does not like the way she feels on them,” her mother said. “It makes her
feel out of control.”
Dr Schmidt assured her that Freeal has fewer side effects
than previous medications. “Teachers are seeing immediate results. Normally
quiet kids are now calling out. Several of the CDD kids are finally able to
come up with original ideas and are doing much better in school.”
Dina’s parents sat down together to discuss Dina’s
predicament. “I can’t stand that the school is so one-size-fits-all,” her mom
says in frustration. “This world still needs line managers, and I can’t imagine
anyone better cut out for that work than Dina.” Her dad counters that “ultimately
Dina has to adapt to the existing system. We all do. She needs to go to
creativity college if she is going to start her own company someday. Let’s ask
her to try the Freeal.”
Jeremy, now 18, has always been a bit different. He was a dyslexic child who didn’t always click with his teachers and classmates. Jeremy was frequently bullied in school. He consumes fantasy literature and movies, and has a flair for creative writing. He’s not very interested in school. A couple of his English teachers have noticed his writing abilities, but still gave him low grades in their classes. Because of his lackluster grades and SAT scores, Jeremy was not accepted into the creative writing programs at his liberal arts colleges of choice, even though the admissions officers were quite impressed with his highly imaginitive writing samples.
We typically think of bigotry as prejudice against a group, such as African Americans, gays, women, or Jews. In each case, the group has experienced a pattern of mistreatment by large segments of society or the government. In labeling this pattern of mistreatment as bigotry, we highlight the need to support and protect the victims and to censure the behavior of the perpetrators. We include the victim group in our understanding of diversity.
But why do we limit our understanding of bigotry to groups? Aren’t individuals who deviate from the norm, who learn differently, think differently, and act differently, also mistreated by large segments of society? Isn’t mistreating and bullying a "quirky" individual such as Jeremy every bit as insidious as mistreating a member of a group? Doesn’t the victim suffer just as much and need the same level of protection? It’s time that we recognize cruelty against individuals who are different as a form of bigotry. Indeed, with astounding progress in gay rights in the past decade, overcoming bigotry toward individuals may well be the next big social project.
All forms of bigotry are both bad for the victim and bad for society. The victim bears the brunt of the hatred, but the larger society deprives itself of the victim’s full contribution. Slavery in the American South, for example, was first and foremost a crime against the slaves, but it also severely hampered the South’s economy. In providing itself slave labor, the South denied itself consumers with purchasing power. Northern states, by contrast, boasted a more expensive labor force that could afford to purchase goods produced by the burgeoning industrial economy. The North flourished while the South languished. Racism turned out to be an economic as well as a moral scourge.
The same principle applies to gender equality. When Bill Gates spoke at a Saudi university, a Saudi man asked Gates if Saudi Arabia will ever achieve its goal in becoming a world leader in information technology. Gates responded that “well, if you’re not fully utilizing half of the talent in the country, you’re not going to get too close to the top ten.” Societies and institutions that exhibit gender inequality are poorer and less innovative than those that include women. By the same token, a business dominated by an old boy’s network is handicapped by its failure to use the entirety of its human resources. Women employees are the primary victims, but the company pays a price in profits for its sexism.
With the onset of the civil rights era and the feminist movement, America began to come to terms with its legacy of racism and sexism. It passed new laws and classified victim groups as protected classes. It was no longer permissible to discriminate against minorities in employment or socially acceptable to hurl racial epithets. Human resources departments began diversifying the workforce, which meant including people of various protected classes. Diversity itself became a value. While America still has a ways to go in overcoming its legacy of racism and sexism, at the very least it has a robust legal and social framework in place enabling progress.
There is no such framework protecting individuals who are different. As with the victims of other forms of bigotry, the Jeremys of the world are the primary victims, but in mistreating them, in underestimating their value, in shutting them out of the discussion, society deprives itself of their talents. We need people who are different, who bring a fresh approach and an alternative point of view. In being different, they think differently, and bring incredible value to our society and economy.
There's an ugly streak in society, however, that wants to purge such diversity from its ranks and wants everyone to be the same. And just as bigotry against groups can be embedded in the fabric of society, so too can bias against individuals with differences. The very structure of formal education, inasmuch as it upholds a single definition of intelligence and talent, devalues their attributes and potential contribution. The talents of those who deviate from the norm are often invisible to those around them.
Cruelty to individuals, like other forms of bigotry, is a cultural pathology that stifles the contributions of its victims, and suppresses human creativity and the growth of knowledge. It hurts not only the victim, but society at large. The purpose of the diversity ideal—the antidote to bigotry—is not just to protect the individual but to advance society. It calls for using everyone's talents. Up until now, we have mostly limited the definition of diversity to including protected groups. Top learning expert Mel Levine notes, however, that “the growth of our society and the progress of the world are dependent on our commitment to fostering in our children, and among ourselves, the coexistence and mutual respect of these many different kinds of minds.”
In making the case that mistreating and denying people who are different is a form of bigotry, and that our concept of diversity should include people with individual differences, I’m not arguing for the creation of a new protected class under the law or a new form of political correctness. I’m simply trying to raise our collective consciousness of kids like Jeremy, who have so much to offer the world but are precluded from fully offering it. They are the victims of systemic discrimination. We all pay the price.
My wife and I were musing about the challenges we face educating our ADHD kids: how little willingness there is on the part of schools to embrace alternative learning styles and how much pressure there is to get them
adequately medicated. The schools always tell us how much
they love our kids. They say they want to give them the best learning experience possible and put them
into a "position to succeed."
When I was growing up and zoning out in class, my parents were not nearly under so
much pressure to bring me to grade level. While ADHD was gaining ground as a
recognizable disorder in the late 1970s, apparently the news had yet to reach
Columbus, Ohio.At one point in high
school, I got my hands on my “permanent record,” which contained a report of an
appointment I must have had in my early childhood years with a psychologist of
some kind. It described me as “curious but inattentive.” The doctor never used
the word “ADD” or “ADHD,” which leads me to believe he hadn’t been reading his
medical journals. No entreaties were made to my parents to put me on medication.
Some are quick to exalt those simpler times, when school
supposedly allowed kids to be kids. There was no “Race to the Top”, no “Common Core
Curriculum,” no high stakes standardized testing. But there was a downside to the 1970s conception of a child. While teachers didn’t view me as ADHD, they just thought I was stupid,
irresponsible and messy. They were completely blind to my strengths. There was
no love, real or otherwise.
If I had grown up today in the Washington DC area,
where I now live, there would have been no end to the love and concern school would have
heaped upon me. Here, “every child” must be good at the same things at the same
time and be tested on them, or the system itself is to blame. There's a big incentive to care and, to be fair, many actually do. The educators and guidance counselors
would have paid lip service to my “creativity” and “strengths”--"he's just wonderfully imaginative"--but then launched
into the litany of my supposed learning issues, followed by the recommended interventions.
The sad truth is that these "strengths"--creativity, critical thinking, teamwork--are nowhere to be found in the school's hierarchy of metrics. The following dialogue would never happen: "We know, Mrs. Smith, that Denise is a straight A student in all of her other subjects, but the D in creativity still stands."
My older son’s guidance counselor once
said to me “I am well aware of his creativity and am very familiar with Howard Gardner’s
theory of multiple intelligences.”
"Great," I remember thinking at the time, "but the school you work for pays short shrift to these other kinds of intelligences."
When all is said and done, I think I'd take today’s
educational farce over the one I grew up in. If nothing else, at least there’s a
glimmer of a recognition that kids with learning differences can succeed, even
if the schools educate kids as if that’s not the case. At least the guidance
counselor had read Howard Gardner. The first step to change is awareness.
Dr. Marilyn Wedge argues in Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD in Psychology Today that US therapists (and their co-conspirators in school) tend to over-diagnose ADHD, and points out that French therapists rarely make such a diagnosis or prescribe medication. She goes on to say the following about the reasons for the lower incidence of ADHD in France:
French parents have a different philosophy of discipline.
Consistently enforced limits, in the French view, make children feel
safe and secure. Clear limits, they believe, actually make a child feel
happier and safer—something that is congruent with my own experience as
both a therapist and a parent. Finally, French parents believe that
hearing the word "no" rescues children from the "tyranny of their own
desires." And spanking, when used judiciously, is not considered child abuse in France..
I agree with Wedge that the US tends to "pathologize much of what is normal childhood behavior." I disagree that we should mimic French parenting styles in order to gain control over ADHD. Rather than treating ADHD as medically pathological, as American
clinicians are wont to do, Wedge treats it as socially pathological. It should be viewed as
neither.
As Judith Harris pointed out more than a decade ago in The Nurture Assumption, parenting styles have very little impact on children's behavior. Culture, on the other hand, has a huge impact. In parenting the way that they do, French parents are simply reflecting and reinforcing French cultural standards of behavior. Placed in an American cultural context, such parenting would have little impact. American culture, and not just parenting styles, would have to drastically change for French-style parenting to work for American parents.
Indeed, American culture is less constrained and hierarchical than French society. Wedge points out that French "children grow up in families in which the rules are well-understood, and a clear family hierarchy is firmly in place." This also partially explains why France is far less innovative than America. Strict behavioral norms impede creativity.
When I was in elementary school, I couldn’t pay attention in
class for the life of me. A teacher lecturing sounded to me like the garbled
voice of the unseen figure in Charlie Brown films: wah wah, wah wah wah
wah. I was completely out of it. People who know me well now would say I still
am but, if pressed, might admit that I’m good at a few things.
My younger son’s teachers from last year thought that his
difficulty paying attention to the lesson was a really big deal. “It’s causing
him to fall behind in all his subjects,” we were told, as if not being enrapt
by first grade science constitutes a severe deprivation of the mind. I’m sure
that if I grew up in this day and age in the Washington, DC area, they’d have
said the same about me.
What did I miss during those countless hours of
inattentiveness?
I never learned to think inside the system
While other kids are solving problems in the system, the ADD
kid may be operating at ten thousand feet, detached from the immediate
classroom agenda, pondering abstractions. When the mind can’t focus on what’s
happening within the system, it’s not frozen in suspended animation, it’s doing
something entirely different. That, of
course, may not be all bad. By not being attuned to the finer points of the
curriculum, the contemplative ADD kid may be developing higher order thinking
skills well in advance of his classmates.
ADD is, to be sure, both a strength and a weakness. No doubt
I missed out on more than a nugget or two of useful information. Absent from
the discussion of ADD, however, is that the more controlled mind often misses
out on higher level observation. People with ADD tend to be big picture
thinkers because they’re not capable of being small picture thinkers. People
with a more controlled mind, ever rewarded for being on task, can have a hard
time breaking out and seeing the big picture. I’ll bet that a disproportionate
number of social change agents are ADD, both because they’re angry at how they
were treated growing up, and because their minds are well-suited for and
trained to examine whole systems.
Tragically, ADD kids often sense a depth in themselves that
many lack at their age but can’t figure out why others, especially parents and teachers,
don’t recognize it in them. I felt that way well into adulthood.
I never learned not to be creative or curious
Research shows that children are untaught creativity early in
their educational careers. Hal Gregersen, who conducted a six year study on
creative executives, stated that “If you look at 4-year-olds, they are
constantly asking questions and wondering how things work.” By the time they
are in first grade, however, they cease asking questions because they learn
that teachers value the right answers more than pointed questions. Of his
school experience, Steve Jobs said “They came close to really beating any
curiosity out of me.”
ADD kids are notoriously curious and creative. That may be
in part because the ADD mind is most active in the regions of the brain that
generate creative thought. Another reason may be when you’re not paying
attention and don’t know the “right answer,” you don’t learn that there is only
one right answer or that it’s a bad idea to push the issue further. Your curiosity
level stays locked into toddlerhood. Moreover, all the structured time in the classroom
dedicated to teaching to the test tends to crowd out time for more creative
pursuits. When you can’t pay attention in class for 35 hours a week, all you
got is time.
I never learned to provide unqualified respect for authority
Psychiatrist and cognitive theorist William Glasser stated
that many educators "teach thoughtless conformity to school rules and call
the conforming child ‘responsible.” Such “learning” can create a followers
mentality that inhibits personal growth and leadership development. Questioning
authority (appropriately), on the other hand, is a hallmark of critical
thinking and innovation.
When the teacher doesn’t seem to like you because you can’t
pay attention in class, you may not learn how to curry favor to authority figures.
This can be a blessing or a curse or both, depending on the direction it takes.
New York Times columnist David Brooks
wrote that “The education system has become culturally cohesive, rewarding and
encouraging a certain sort of person…People who don’t fit this cultural ideal
respond by disengaging and rebelling.”
Many kids, very often boys with alternative learning styles,
never overcome this deep inferiority complex and anger at authority. We all
know them—they’re often very bright, with a quick, sarcastic, even angry wit. Discouraged
by the system, some of them enter a vicious cycle of self-destructive behavior;
others eventually make it, sometimes in a big way. If schools were to stop treating
the ADD mind as a blight and make room for diverse learning styles, they could
help so many more of these kids find their place in the world and make a
contribution.
Given the chance, these kids can set a useful counterexample
for the more conventional students and bring a unique set of cognitive
abilities to the table. Schools should focus less on making the ADD kid a little
more like everyone else, and focus more on making everybody else a little more
like the ADD kid. La La Land has its advantages.
When my younger son was diagnosed with ADHD, the school psychologist
ticked off a list of symptoms (hyperactivity, impulsivity,
distractibility, etc.) and recommended medication. "Why," I asked, "Do
you consider his learning issues a disability?" With an air of medical
certainty, he responded that "these qualities are inappropriate for his
age and will make it hard for him to function in a school setting."
But what if the disability in question actually has value to society?
What if our economic well-being demands more people with that
disability? It's time that we rethink our concept of disability.
In researching disability, I came across numerous technical and legal
definitions, all devoid of social context. These definitions speak of
being "impaired," but impaired compared to what and at what cost? What
we really mean by disability is being significantly less proficient than
most at a task society deems important. A person who is under par at,
say, bending his left pinky wouldn't have a disability because pinky
bending is not viewed as important. A person who is hard of hearing
would have a disability because she is well below average at a task we
consider important. If most people were hard of hearing, then it
wouldn't be a disability. It would be normal hearing. A disability is
not something most people have, or it would be considered normal.
The definition of disability matters because once we label a person
disabled, we place an onus on society to accommodate that person and on
the individual to accept every available remedy for the condition. So if
a child has attention control problems, we consider that child as
having a disability because she has difficulty at a task society thinks
is important—sitting still and paying attention to the teacher. We
expect the school to offer accommodations—extra time to take a test—and
expect the child to accept the remedy, taking medication or learning new
coping skills.
Some disabilities, it turns out, come packaged
with high value strengths. That child with attention control issues may
be inherently more creative than most of his classmates. According to
one recent study,
the prefrontal brain systems that govern cognitive control may suppress
creative thinking. Highly controlled people are often less creative,
and highly creative people are often less controlled. As education
scholar Yong Zhou put it, "certain human qualities may be antithetical
to each other."
Other disabilities are also linked to unusual cognitive powers. Dr. Laurent Mottron argues in the journal Nature
that we must stop considering the different brain structure of autistic
people to be an impairment. "Recent data and my own personal experience
suggest it's time to start thinking of autism as an advantage in some
spheres, not a cross to bear," Mottron said.
By focusing on
fixing the disability rather than building up the accompanying
strength—by trying to make the individual more "normal"—we may be
holding him back. We force him to devote most of his time and energy at
improving at what he's not good at rather than getting better at what he
naturally excels in. Such an emphasis will likely damage his
self-esteem because he will always be worse than average at certain
tasks. And with all the time spent on improving on his weak points, he
will have little left to fully develop his strengths.
We are much
less disaffirming of the weaknesses of the majority. We don't, for
example, consider an uncreative child as having a disability because
most people are not particularly creative. According to one study, 98
percent of 3-5 year olds scored at the genius level on a creativity
test, 32 percent scored at that level 5 years later and only 2 percent
of adults. We consider being creative as possessing a special ability,
but don't consider lacking creativity as possessing a disability. The
uncreative child never visits a tutor.
During the industrial era,
the economy required far less variety of abilities than it does today.
There were few opportunities to specialize. Whole cities were built
around a single industry and a narrow skill set. But increasingly the
minority quality—the less controlled but more innovative mind—is an
indispensable ingredient of productivity. In today's economy, a young
person who would have made a lousy pipefitter or plant manager might
make a brilliant app designer.
To be sure, the concept of
disability has its place. Some disabilities don't come paired with
obvious strengths, make a person genuinely miserable, or render her
incapable of functioning independently. A schizophrenic, beset with
hallucinations, disorganized thought, and bizarre delusions, may only be
capable of functioning in society, if at all, under strict psychiatric
care. Society is right to demand that she take her meds. Likewise, some
children with ADHD are so hyperactive that they can't function in social
situations. The condition drowns out their strengths. In such extreme
cases, we should not hesitate to call ADHD a disability and treat it
accordingly.
If we had a magic wand, we would undoubtedly do
away with schizophrenia. But would we extinguish ADHD, and its attendant
positive traits? Our economic and social condition demands people with
unconventional combinations of strengths and weaknesses, and ridding
ourselves of them would cut off a source of innovation and renewal. With
a 25 percent rise in the use of ADHD drugs in the past decade, that's
precisely what we are trying to do.
It's time to shift our
thinking about what constitutes a disability and what doesn't. Rather
than change the definition of disability, we should revisit our idea of
what’s important. Is it really critical that a child sit still and
follow directions all day? Can we allow children and adults to be bad at
things most are good at and be good at things most are bad at? We
should. Our new economy needs more of them.
