a really long post in which I ramble on and on

I prefer to wear bare feet. But I don’t feel the need to make sure that everyone sees the benefit of bare feet. (You know, the simplicity and joy that comes from feeling the grass beneath your feet among other things that I don’t have the time to think of at this moment to try and prove my point.) No, and I can’t imagine going a step further and enforcing that feet go bare in certain places at certain times and then think of a consequence when someone wears shoes. (That would be a lot of work and leave me less time to enjoy walking around in my bare feet!)


A silly example, but I’m trying to make a point. The people who make the official rules and regulations of society are usually a certain kind of person. They mean well and want things to run smoothly and have order. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that usually these people are not people who have ADD.

Just because someone thinks that a certain way is the right way, doesn’t mean that every other way is the wrong way.


People with ADD usually don’t have the tendency to enforce things on others. They are usually working hard to maintain and balance their lives. “The System” doesn’t come naturally to someone who has ADD to begin with and as things become more and more regulated, it becomes harder to break through the system and make changes that would benefit them. It’s like it goes directly against the nature of one with ADD, but if we don’t do it, then who will?

It is hard to imagine thinking in a way that seems foreign to us. We can’t know what it feels like to have someone else’s brain. But it seems like there are enough studies out there that can help us understand different ways to learn and different ways to teach. There is not just one right way, but right now there is only one way in action which could be why there are so many kids on medication.



If there is a group of people who can prove that they have learned specific content by taking a written test that needs to be finished within a certain amount of time, that doesn’t mean that testing someone orally is wrong.



I remember when I was in middle school I had undergone a lot of different testing to try to figure out what was going on with me. We knew I was smart, but we didn’t know why I didn’t look smart on paper. I didn’t have a name for it until college: ADD/I.

My middle school put me in this really ridiculous reading class that was a complete waist of time and they put me in a math class that was far below my skill level. I didn’t understand why they were putting me in classes that didn’t challenge me at all. I was frustrated and bored and felt misunderstood. Looking back as an adult, I can see clearly what was going on, but when I was younger I didn’t know how to express it. So I acted out. I decided if they didn’t care, then I didn’t care. I started skipping class and not doing my homework. I would hang out with my boyfriend and then walk into class 20 minutes late. I remember that my desk was on the far side of the classroom and I walked in and made a big commotion, interrupting the teacher’s lesson and then climbed up on a desk and walked across the tops of the desks over to my seat and sat down and got my stuff out. He wasn’t the best teacher, obviously, because when I was seated he just continued on like I hadn’t done something rude, so I half listened while I drew on my desk.

I knew the math. I knew the math even when I missed half of class and I knew the math without doing my homework. What would it have taken for the school to find a way for me to prove that I knew the math? What would it have taken to find out what I knew and figure out a way to challenge me so that I would actually be interested? Because that’s the big key for ADD: interest. It’s not as hard to concentrate on something when you are interested in it.

So here’s the question: What could we change in public schools to make it more learning friendly for all kinds of brains? I am wondering if there is a way to balance it and make it better all around without decreasing the efficiency. Are the only choices a parent has for their children with ADD 1: medication, 2: home school, or 3: allowing them to struggle through feeling like a failure?


To see the previous discussion about ADD, click here.

destroying the evidence

I am a primary teacher for the 8-12 year-old girls in church.  When everyone was all together  for sharing time, they were discussing sin and how we get tangled up trying to lie about it or cover it up instead of just admitting to it and saying we're sorry.  They were having an object lesson about the atonement. 

The kids were talking about things they cover up in order to avoid punishment.  They obviously had a lot of experience making it look like they hadn't eaten cookies when they had been sneaking them and they were giving up all thier secrets about hiding the evidence.

"Wipe the crumbs off the counter."

"If you are getting it from a cooling rack you can rearrange the cookies so it doesn't look like one is gone."

Then my son raises his hand and says:

I have one! 

Mop up the blood and hide the body.

seven

Sweet Pea,

I hope you could feel all.the.LOVE. on your birthday.  I wanted to celebrate you big time.

You are an incredible person.  You came into my life like a whirlwind and I haven't stopped spinning since.  Arms out, looking up, skirt flying, a smile on my face and you right next to me.  You make my life interesting.  You make me a better person.  You are like my personal muse always spurring me to search harder, look closer, find beauty. 

We describe you as intense and feisty and I think it's a good thing.  You show us all how to live with passion. 

I wish I could bottle up my love for you to keep in your pocket. Then in those hard moments when you feel bad about whatever it might be, you could take it out and uncork it and know without a doubt that it will all be okay.  That there is nothing wrong with you.  That you are strong and beautiful and smart.  That you are divine.  That the answers will come.  That you are so incredibly loved.

I bet this year will be the best one yet.  After all, seven and eleven rhyme.

Love always,

Mommy

sneaking in some calm

Last evening I went to pick up a prescription for #5. She is recovering from pneumonia and the doctor wants me to give her breathing treatments to help her little body out a bit. There is a lab near my pharmacy and I was determined to get my blood drawn. My doctor had ordered blood tests so long ago and it is so hard to get to the lab!

So I snuck away and left Jake with the kiddos. I drove in silence. My mind racing with all the things I have to do, but there was quiet around me. I brought the book I just got from the library and I walked up the stairs and into a huge waiting room that was almost empty. I signed my name on the list and sat down across from a very grumpy looking girl. I wondered if I should make conversation with her, but she was staring at my feet with this look on her face. I thought about how I had run out of the house without bothering to put socks on because some things don’t matter enough to distract me from the goal (in this case: actually leaving the house without five kids noticing that I am sneaking out to run an errand). My shoes didn’t match my outfit and they definitely looked weird without socks and it was obvious when I was sitting there all alone without the distraction of kiddos running around me. I decided to leave the girl alone and let her fester and I opened my book and read a page before my name was called.



He looked me up in the computer and he announced that the orders were sent on February 11th. “It’s so hard to get to the lab!” I told him apologetically. He told me that’s what the last guy said and he jovially started making conversation from what he knew about me from the vast pool of information about me on his computer.


He sat me down in the chair and I stared at the walls as we chatted and he tied the rubber thing around my arm. The walls were covered with all kinds of pictures. Covered. Some were personal pictures, obviously belonging to the staff of blood-drawing folk, and some were torn out of magazines and what not. There were puppies and kittens and family pictures. There were pictures of the woods and of waterfalls. Babies in costumes and a random bear. I thought about Fringe (I can’t help it - I love that show!): Olivia was getting her blood drawn and she was staring at a screen that had peaceful things playing on it—a waterfall with the gushing sound, and then the ocean with the sound of the waves crashing on the shore.

“Are all these pictures supposed to calm me down?” I teased. He joked about the fire risk that his co-workers are imposing on him. He kidded with me that he could tell by the color of my blood that I wasn’t where the computer said I was from because my blood would be blue. By the time I left I was completely calm.

I wanted to share this beautiful poem I found recently that touches on adoption:

Just the Same

Sometimes--
God sends rain
Straight from the sky
To nourish the young flower
and it grows.

Sometimes--
God sends rain from the sky
To the mountaintops,
Then over hills and through valleys
Until it reaches the flower
and it grows, just the same.

Sometimes--
God sends a child
Straight from His realm
Into a mother's arms
and love grows.

Sometimes--
God sends a child
From heaven to another's arms,
Then over hills and through valleys
Until he reaches the arms of his mother
and love grows, just the same.


By Diana Lynn Lacey