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Unschooling With ADD
In recent years there's been a strong trend for parents to remove their children
from school and bring them home to learn because many schools have been failing
to provide a positive learning experience for their children. These kids
have been bright, personable, competent in many realms, and yet they've found
themselves existing on the outskirts of the learning experiences that have
been offered them, often having been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention
Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) or ADD (ADHD without hyperactivity commonly
referred to as Attention Deficit Disorder). Frequently these children have
other diagnoses attached to their ADD/ADHD, depending upon what their problems
with institutional learning may be. These learning disabilities include but
are certainly not limited to Developmental Reading Disorder (DRD or dyslexia),
Developmental Writing Disorder (dysgraphia), Developmental Arithmetic Disorder
(dyscalculia), NLD (Non-verbal Learning Disorder, which might be considered
the opposite of dyslexia), and Auditory Processing Disability.
Many of the children have been disheartened, overwhelmed, or even become
depressed by what they've encountered in an institutional setting. One child
with an ADHD diagnosis I know felt that the only thing he learned his entire
fifth grade year resulted from punishment. He learned how to care for trees.
He had many hours to watch the school gardeners plant new trees, cultivate
the roots, fertilize the trees, water them, and otherwise care for them from
his perch atop "The Wall" where students who didn't conform were required
to spend their "time-outs." While his parents realized that their child was
becoming bored and unhappy at school, it was this knowledge, coming out as
an answer to his Dad's question, "What were the best things you learned at
school this year, son?" which prompted his parents to bring him home to learn,
heartsick over what he had been experiencing and feeling guilty that they
hadn't figured out what was happening sooner. While there are some dedicated
teachers working in the schools who really want to benefit the children,
sometimes the burdens of institutional education (such as ever-increasing
classroom size accompanied by the need to be enforcers of crowd control and
the lack of time available to do much of anything besides a one-size-fits-all
program) totally obstruct any impulse by a compassionate, interested teacher
to reach out a helping hand to an individual student. Many parents that I
know who have children with a LD (Learning Disabled) label have been studying
about the situation on their own and doing what they can in the hours that
their child is at home. Many of them are burning out and asking "Why not
homeschool?" Why not indeed? Many of them already are spending hours facilitating
their child's education. So it's pretty natural to finally decide to bring
their kids home.
Once these children are at home and have "deschooled" for a year or so, their
parents begin to wonder if some large part of the learning disability they've
been told about might not be school-induced. In households where child-led
learning is practiced the child begins to learn naturally, learning what
he needs when he needs to, and the stress of mastering a specific skill such
as handwriting or multiplication tables at a specific age is gone. The child
begins to unwind and blossom. He pursues his passions whether trains, art,
raising animals, dance, writing poetry, or webpage design. What if he wants
to build his Lego creations dancing to his favorite CD, what if he wants
to be outside exploring his environment and only comes in to touch base for
short times each day? What if she wants to spend hours reading, looking at
books, or drawing? When there's no rigidity in the schedule, no jarring bells,
no stifling need to remain seated quietly in the classroom, no rules of silence,
many of these kids begin to regain their joy in learning, they begin to feel
happy to be themselves again. And their parents begin to see that what was
labeled as a "learning disability" has a flip side of "learning attribute"
or "learning potentiality." All these children needed was to be removed from
an institutional setting and allowed to set their own pace.
Three Thumbnail Definitions of ADD
(1) The manual that health professionals who work with children use to attempt
to nail down a diagnosis of ADHD or ADD (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition or DSM-IV) lists a plethora of symptoms
that might appear in an ADD individual, child or adult. Some of them (but
by no means all of them) are: distractibility, impulsivity, restlessness
(having trouble remaining seated when required to for instance) which may
be physical or mental, boredom and frustration with school (!), easily loses
things, often hops from one activity to the next without completing the first,
interrupts people frequently, difficulty waiting his turn when involved in
group activities, daydreaming, sensation seeking, hyperactivity (in ADHD),
may lack in social skills, academic underachievement, hypersensitivity to
stimulation, mood swings.
(2) "There are some children," she said, "who chronically daydream. They
are often very bright, but they have trouble attending to any one topic for
very long. They are full of energy and have trouble staying put. They can
be quite impulsive in saying or doing whatever comes to mind, and they find
distractions impossible to resist." (Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., quoting his
neuropsychiatry teacher in Driven to Distraction)
(3) Individuals with ADD or ADHD are "Hunters in a Farmer's World." (Author
Thom Hartmann)
What strikes me in all that I've read about so-called attention deficit is
the huge divide between the two dominant models for ADD. The first definition
above tends to view ADD as a problem, a disease, or a disorder. The second
definition resists portraying these individuals as disordered but instead
addresses the problems that can arise from stuffing these children into a
modern classroom learning situation and expecting them to reach their potential
there. The third definition is the one that I like. It's the one that has
helped me to step out of the ADD-as-a-disorder paradigm and into a wonderful,
freeing model of ADD as a variation, a set of skills and innate abilities,
and a propensity for creative thinking. The third definition places ADD into
a framework of diversity among people, situating ADD individuals someplace
among a whole range of human differences. The deficit is not within the person,
rather it is within the ways that we've chosen to educate our children at
the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. The great value
of that third definition for me is that it points out clearly: A difference
is not necessarily a disorder.
A Hunter in a Farmer's World?
The concept of ADD individuals being "Hunters in a Farmer's World" was
popularized by Thom Hartmann in the 1993 book Attention Deficit Disorder:
A Different Perspective and his follow-up book Beyond ADD. His
theory is that ADD individuals are a genetic remnant of the hunter-gatherers
in early human societies who are now having to find a way to live in the
modern world which has been a Farmer's world for centuries. Many thousands
of years ago most people would have had Hunter traits such as constantly
scanning the environment for prey and for danger (distractibility), quick
decision-making (impulsiveness), a willingness to take risks, flexibility,
they can totally throw themselves into the moment (during the hunt), time
for them is elastic (it takes however long it takes to complete the hunt
and down time is very slow), they think visually, mundane tasks may be boring
to them, they have an ability to become suddenly hyperfocused on their task
(the hunt). Hyperfocusing is a common trait in ADD people. Some researchers
think that ADD would be more properly termed an attention inconsistency rather
than an attention deficit. All of these traits helped the hunter societies
survive and thrive.
As the worldwide agricultural revolution began and during the more recent
industrial revolution that followed, all of these Hunter traits became less
and less of an advantage to the individual and to his society since whole
societies were changing from hunting for survival to farming and then to
manufacture. A farmer had to keep his attention focused on the tasks at hand,
he had to sustain a steady, dependable effort, he couldn't go off wandering
in the woods to check out an interesting distraction during planting time
or during the harvest. He had to care for his animals meticulously, day in
and day out, month after month, year after year. In an agricultural society
a risk-taking personality could be detrimental, but a careful, patient, organized
approach was likely to bring success. Stability, goal-orientation, planning
ahead, and a linear sense of time (as opposed to the Hunter's more flexible,
elastic time-sense) are needed to assure survival.
Over time the Hunter societies were eliminated one way or another, through
isolation, or often through outright extermination. The Farmers needed space
and land, the Hunters became expendable. Today most of our modern cultures
are set up to reward the behavior of Farmers, our schools are based on an
agricultural (or industrial) model, using repetitive techniques, stressing
linear rather than divergent thinking, the latter manner of thinking being
the specialty of ADD individuals. Linear thinking is a step by step kind
of thinking, it's organized thinking, but divergent thinking involves forgetting
some things, letting others go, stepping across boundaries and mixing ideas
together in new ways. Divergent thinking is a creative style of thinking.
Instead of coming to a point or a close, one's thoughts tend to branch out,
exploring new byways. Divergent thinking is associated with the right hemisphere
of the brain and linear (or convergent) thinking is associated with the left
hemisphere. While divergent thinking may be compatible with creativity, linear
thinking generally is compatible with getting things done. Some studies have
shown certain creative people are more likely to exhibit mixed or right brain
dominance than the general population.
One of the things that Hartmann stresses is that society still needs its
Hunters, whether most people realize this or not. Hunters are generally the
pioneers, the entrepreneurs, the agents of change, the innovators, the creators.
Here's an observation from Dr. Will Krynen, M.D. in Attention Deficit
Disorder: A Different Perception by Thom Hartmann (p.20): "As a physician
I've worked among indigenous hunting societies in other parts of the world,
from Asia to the Americas. Over and over again I see among their adults and
children the constellation of behaviors that we call ADD. Among the members
of the tribes of northern Canada, such as the caribou hunters of the McKenzie
Basin, these adaptive characteristics -- constantly scanning the environment,
quick decision-making (impulsiveness), and a willingness to take risks --
contribute every year to the tribe's survival." It's pretty clear that these
are the same traits which, while a blessing in one environment, are a problem
in today's institutional schooling. Unfortunately today's Hunter children
from every environment have been labeled as the ones with the problem, they
are the ones being treated and "fixed" rather than the schools. Hartmann's
books and the other books listed here turn that model on its head and show
that ADD children are gifted in certain ways and offer suggestions for helping
the children to access these gifts so that they may find ways to express
their extraordinary abilities.
In her book The Edison Trait: Saving the Spirit of Your Nonconforming
Child, Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D., starts with Hartmann's Hunter theory
and delineates a different sort of Hunter-like profile. She calls this person
the Dreamer and uses Thomas Edison as her model. Here's what she says about
the Dreamer: "Although Edison-trait Dreamers are explorers, they don't quite
fit the profile of the Hunter. They do not have quick-to-accelerate and
given-to-the-chase Hunter qualities. While they seek new places and new
experiences, they do so at their own self-styled pace. They are wanderers
set on their own inner course." She goes on to liken the Dreamer ADD individuals
to our ancestral food gatherers among the hunter-gatherer societies of the
ancient world. These people are inclined like the Hunters to go after what
they want, follow their instincts, and act on their own. Like Hunters they
are highly visual. And as Hunters do, they often operate within their own
concept of time, or timelessness to be more accurate. Dreamers have a unique
fondness for collecting things, especially objects of nature. Dreamers seem
to be a good representation of a subset of Hunter/ADD individuals, perhaps
those less inclined to be very active and more apt to be on the quiet end
of the spectrum. Some Dreamers have a visionary bent. Dreamers, like Hunters,
are often misunderstood and have no small difficulty navigating through a
Farmer's world and its schools.
Something that Hartmann hints at in his books is that in coming years, in
the Information Age, which some see as a time of rapid and radical change,
those individuals who have been blessed with Hunters' minds may again find
themselves at an advantage as they navigate the exciting and possibly tumultuous
times ahead.
Hartmann's book was revolutionary when it was first published but was well
received by many experts in the field of ADD research and treatment and it
has provided a healing vision for many individuals with ADD, both adults
and children.
Creativity and ADD
"I'm alarmed that to think than modern science may be turning creativity
into a medical disorder" - Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D., from The Myth of the
ADD Child.
People who score high in tests of creativity sometimes show more hyperactivity
than other children. Children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD very often have high
scores on tests of creativity. Many personality traits commonly associated
with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are also associated with highly
creative people.
The highly creative individual has the ability to take dissimilar pieces
of information and join them in completely new ways. Artists of all kinds,
musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, scientists, mathematicians, engineers,
troubleshooters, and inventors all depend on creativity. Many parents of
Hunter or Edison-trait children are quite aware that there is a large overlap
between what we call ADD and creativity, even if their children have never
taken a test for creativity. It's that obvious.
Traits of Gifted/Creative Kids (From the National Foundation for the Gifted
and Creative)
* High sensitivity
* Excessive amounts of energy.
* Bores easily and may appear to have a short attention span.
* Requires emotionally stable and secure adults around him/her.
* Will resist authority if it not democratically oriented.
* Have preferred ways of learning; particularly in reading and mathematics.
* May become easily frustrated because of his/her big ideas and not having
the resources or people to assist him/her in carrying these tasks to fruition.
* Learns from an exploratory level and resists rote memory and just being
a listener.
* Cannot sit still unless absorbed in something of his/her own interest.
* Very compassionate and has many fears such as death and loss of loved ones.
* If they experience failure early, may give up and develop permanent learning
blocks.
In Conclusion
It's a sad fact that treatment of children has been quite appalling throughout
history. Every era and every culture has shown consistency in this, even
though it's not a topic that we talk about very much. People haven't generally
made any allowance for differences in children, haven't analyzed their own
theories about "bad" behavior, and only recently have many adults begun to
analyze and criticize our own ways of responding to diversity in children's
behavior. We can be sure that fidgety, zingy, active children along with
dreamy, distractible, impulsive children have been around as long as there
have been children. If children in general haven't been treated well, these
children have been treated very poorly indeed. Far too often it's been
recommended that they be beaten, and in some cases even killed. These children
have been subjected to some of the very worst that we have had to offer.
It is only recently that portions of our society have begun to acknowledge
that children are more than property and ought to be treated respectfully
as individuals in their own rights. It's only recently that people have begun
to view what was once called misbehavior as something else, something besides
a moral problem deserving a punishment or something besides satanic possession
(yes, even today there are places where this is taught). Hopefully we are
on the verge of even more extensive changes.
Unschooling and people with Hunter traits are a wonderful combination. In
a home where the learning is child-led, learning variations are well-tolerated.
Learning that's uneven compared to the one-size-fits-all learning of most
schools is taken for granted, even encouraged. Math texts can be put aside
while a child learns hands-on and practical math skills by cooking or baking
with a parent, by constructing a bird house or animal pen or even a simple
garden fence; biology, zoology, herpetology, ecology are right there in her
hands for a child who is raising iguanas and reading everything she can get
her hands on about them; children who want to write a story but can't manage
to do it alone can dictate to someone else; a story can be listened to on
audiotape; any number of pieces of beautiful literature can be read aloud
to the child by someone who enjoys doing it so that they can hear and respond
to the flow of beautiful language, even though their reading skills are not
yet matured enough to do it alone. Is it a problem for a child to run around,
play, jump, and climb most of the day when the child is learning all of the
time in her own best way with the support of a loving parent? Knowing that
all people are really natural learners at heart when the constraints of
institutionalized learning are removed once and for all has shown us that
many of the traits that are labeled "learning disabilities" in the classroom
fall away and show their positive side in an unschooling home. Disabilities
become differences and differences open the door wide to discovery and wonder.
Books with a positive view of ADD/ADHD traits
Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping With Attention Deficit Disorder
from Childhood Through Adulthood by Edward M. Hallowell, John J. Ratey
- This book is considered a classic on ADD, for all ages. It was written
by two doctors who live with ADD themselves.
In Their Own Way. Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Own Personal
Learning Styles by Dr.Thomas Armstrong
Awakening Your Child's Natural Genius. Enhancing Curiosity, Creativity,
and Learning Ability by Dr. Thomas Armstrong
7 Kinds of Smart. Identifying and Developing Your Many Intelligences
by Dr. Thomas Armstrong
The Myth of the ADD Childby Dr. Thomas Armstrong
A.D.D. and Creativity - Tapping Your Inner Muse by Lynn Wiess, Ph.D.
Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World:
Unlocking the Potential of Your ADD Child by Jeffrey Freed and Laurie
Parsons
How Children Fail by John Holt
How Children Learn by John Holt
Learning All the Time by John Holt
Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perspective by Thom Hartmann
Beyond ADD: Hunting for Reasons in the Past and Present by Thom Hartmann
Anything about ADD written by Thom Hartmann
The Edison Trait: Saving the Spirit of Your Nonconforming Child by
Lucy Jo Palladino
Books about different kinds of intelligence (aka Multiple Intelligences)
written by Howard Gardner may help to understand your child's various talents
and abilities.
Copyright 2000 Katherine Ward
~daydreamer, eccentric, head-in-the-clouds, too sensitive, too intense,
obstinate, contrary, impulsive, procrastinator, moody, accident-prone, not
practical, too idealistic, absent-minded, addled, space cadet,
she'd-lose-her-own-head-if-it-weren't-attached Dreamer child, mother of some
Dreamers and Hunters~
Originally appeared in Gentle Spirit Magazine, Vol.6, No.10
Gentle Spirit is published bi-monthly and subscriptions are $22/year.
For more information contact:
Gentle Spirit, Inc.
PO Box 246
Wauna, WA 98395
Or visit www.gentlespirit.com
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