Different; Not Dumb - text version

By Yehudah Zellermaier, LCSW

            Therefore, notwithstanding the advent of an otherwise precociousness of an indeterminable outcome, henceforth and so forthcoming shall transpire whilst any other contingency whence it be deemed gibberish.

            If you are having trouble understanding the abovementioned sentence, you are an idiot.

That is exactly how a child with attention issues feels.

            No matter what is being taught, that is exactly how it sounds to him. It sounds foreign and it sounds different. He can’t decipher it because his attention span isn’t long enough to be able to consume it and digest it all in one sitting. The end result is almost always the same. The child doesn’t get it so he is labeled an idiot in class.

If we were to attach a microphone to a child with attention issues and have it record everything straight throughout the entire day, the predominant word that we would hear when we played it back would be ‘Idiot!’

             

            What happens to a child when they hear the word idiot being spoken at them many times every day? What kind of affect does that have a on a child and on their psyche? How much can a child tolerate of the continuous beating down until it actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy? How much can a child take until they just break down and give up?

            When a child stops trusting himself, when he stops believing that he can do things. When the child starts to believe that he is incapable and that he really is what everybody says about him, then a whole new world of problems has been laid at our feet. The work with this child is now tripled because now we are dealing with a child that has a poor sense of self and a distorted view of reality on top of his attention issues. Try fixing that one now.

The fact is a child with an attention problem is not an idiot. He is extremely smart. He just works differently. His mind just sees, hears and gets things differently.

Many times children with attention issues can literally run circles around their peers with their talent, knowledge, insight and understanding. Such children will build complex castles and cities out of lego while their friends are still sorting out the pieces.

There is only one steadfast rule when it comes to problems with children in school. It is never the child’s fault. The child did not choose to be the way he is. He just is that way. He is a product of his environment, of nurture or nature, or both. He did not walk over to a big box of learning disabilities and arbitrarily pick one because he loved the way it sounds.

The fact is every child is different. Not better or worse, but different. Just as their faces and personalities are different, so are their thought processes and methods of logical deduction and acquisition of knowledge.

            Now this question bears asking. If we can readily accept that each and every child is unique, why do find it so difficult to believe that every child accumulates knowledge differently? Why is it that even though there are three or four children in each class that sit around learning nothing all year and are constantly getting in trouble, we refuse to admit that there is something wrong with the system? Is it okay to presume that those three or four children every year are the small price to pay for the education of the others?

             We have to learn to stop seeing children with learning issues as bad or damaged. We have to start seeing them as children that are as able and willing to learn as others when presented with the right opportunity. It is our job to find their way learning and to give them that opportunity.

            Adults have no problem openly admitting about themselves their styles or methods of learning and absorbing information. An adult will readily admit to you that he doesn’t like to read an instruction manual but would rather watch an instructional video. Another adult will find no problem in being open about the fact that he despises instructional videos but finds instructional audio most helpful.

This is because it makes all the sense in the world that each person will have their preferred method of learning how to do something. Each person gets the job done correctly. It’s just the way they get there that differs.

Then why is it that the same teacher that enjoys reading the funnies in the paper but skips the op-ed refuses to teach his students according to their own unique way? Why is it that he perfectly understands his preferred method of learning but not his students’?

There is a good reason why those three or four children sit around doing nothing every year. It is not because they are stupid. It is because they are not being taught to, they are being taught at. They have absolutely no use for all the assignments and perfectly prepared lectures in class. They have no use for all the spelling words and stories with underlying math problems being presented in class. They just don’t get it, plain and simple. They can’t, don’t, and won’t learn that way. They have a completely different way of learning.

Truth be told it isn’t only those three or four ‘dummies’ that learn in their own way. It is way more than that, only the others don’t have any choice. It is either go with the flow and take what you’re given, or you fall out and become one of the ‘lazy idiots’ who don’t want to learn.

So now you may ask, how can a teacher possibly teach thirty children all in their own way? The answer is, you don’t! You have to offer everything up and allow and facilitate so that each child can absorb the information in their own way.

So now you may ask, what has changed? Our current method of teaching is thousands of years old. Why do we need to teach everything differently nowadays? What changed with children all of a sudden? The answer is, nothing! Children have not changed. It is the teaching that changed. The way we teach today is not the way children have always been taught.

Two thousand years ago learning was not done in a classroom. It was all hands-on. You didn’t teach math, you just took your child shopping and he learned how to calculate.

Two thousand years ago you didn’t teach a child about clouds from a book. You laid out in the fields and looked up to the heavens where, lo and behold, you observed real clouds.

That was how children learned and grew. Every child was able to absorb knowledge at their own pace. Each child was able to take from the situation in their own way. Some by seeing, some by hearing, and some by touching and feeling. Each child was able to experience the same situation and walk away with their own unique perspective. The child was then able to process the information and formulate from there their own opinions and build on it in their own way.

We can read more books in class, solve more math problems, but until we accept and embrace the fact that every child is different, and we actually do something to demonstrate that, we will always have those three or four children that will just fall to the wayside and go through the stages of life as a casualty of society.