In last week’s post, I explained that all teachers develop ADHD. Then I told you
all about a project my students are working on. Then I shared an autobiographical
poem. In the poem, I tagged my family members as “interrupters and storytellers.”
Those same folks are educators, ya’ll. I wondered and wandered all over the place
in that 1,031 word diatribe. Among other topics, I mentioned the following:
Irons
Breast reduction
Family members
Teaching
Poetry
Pioneers
Go Band!
Money hustling
Anthologies
Common Core
Kentucky
Mad Lib
Oh, and a squirrel!
What’s my point? My point is that I am a victim of
Stockholm Syndrome. What is Stockholm Syndrome?
Stockholm Syndrome (per Yahoo
Dictionary)
Noun.
A
psychological syndrome in which a person being held captive beings to identify
with and grow sympathetic to his or her captor, simultaneously becoming unsympathetic
towards the police or other authorities.
FYI: I hate authority. Even way on back to the Sevierville
City Park swimming pool. I’ve always
had an “issue” with lifeguards.
The scene:
Lifeguards: Always whistling, “Tweeeeeeeeeeeeet” and yelling, “Stop running!”
As if I could actually run.
Bug: I usually held my nose, penciled into the deep end,
and stayed under, swimming to the shallows to get out of the large-and-in-charge
teen’s surveillance. I avoided eye contact and stayed under the water (and the radar)
until the awkward moment faded. Ugh. Thank God for nachos and Reese Cups to
calm my frazzled, misunderstood, self-conscious nerves.
So what’s my point about Stockholm Syndrome? My point is
that I have contracted ADHD from my students. Every teacher does.
My teaching buddy J-Bird says he makes to-do lists and only gets half-way through. Foks, he gets half-way through the to-do list, not the to-do's!
ADHD defined (per Mayo
Clinic)
Diagnosis: ADHD includes a combination of problems, such as difficulty
sustaining attention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior. Children
with ADHD also may struggle with low self-esteem, troubled
relationships and poor performance in school.
Every affliction has a cause, right? What could be the
cause/causes of ADHD?
CAUSES
·
Our lives
are dictated by bells. Literally.
Riiiiiiiiiing, “Everybody sit down”
Riiiiiiiiiing, “You are tardy.” (I
can’t wait to retire so I don’t have to use the word ‘tardy’ anymore.)
Riiiiiiiiiing, “Look at the board and
start the (no kidding) ‘bell-ringer’ activity.”
Riiiiiiiiiing, “Don’t forget your
homework. Don’t forget to log off. Good luck at the game tonight. Yes, you can
turn it in later. I don’t know what we did yesterday. Ask another student. Stop
running.”
Riiiiiiiiing, “Yay! I can go tee-tee
now!”
·
We don’t JUST teach. We constantly switch gears
to meet the needs of our students (I have 35 at a time, 4 to 5 classes per day,
in a lab with 35 computers). Here are the roles teachers take:
- patrolmen
- secretaries
- coaches
- party-planners
- cheerleaders
- motivational speakers
- role models
- parents
- theorists
- logistical experts
- administrators
- counselors
- referees
- nurses
- policemen
·
Teachers
do every single thing we do in a hurry.
We eat fast. I do not pack lunches
that need re-heating. That would waste my whole lunch time!
We pack our lunches in a blaze of
fury on Sunday nights. I honestly make all my breakfasts, all Gnome’s
breakfasts, and all my lunches at once with three rows (5 squares each) of tin
foil.
Teachers wear the same black pants
three days a week.
We wear our Sunday clothes on Mondays
(“God first, laundry second,” according to my teacher buddy Sugar Bear.)
We don’t lock the bathroom stall
doors when we tee-tee (if we tee-tee) because, hey, there’s just no time. It’s
easier to say, “I’m in here.”
·
We CENSOR to exhaustion:
Not students, but ourselves! Delicious says “Teachers constantly self-censor
what we say, the tone in which we say it, the volume, everything.” All to avoid
trouble, hurting students’ feelings, miscommunication, and the dreaded parent
phone call. Oops!
Teachers, how many of you have
worried all night about something you’ve said in class? Can I get an AMEN?
· RESPONSES. REALLY.
Finally, if you haven’t noticed or
don’t believe me, I have data to back up my claim. RESEARCH documents that
teachers make thousands of responses. I talked about this with Delicious on my
way to school and said, “Don’t teachers make about three thousand verbal and
non-verbal responses each school day?”
She said, “Oh, no, Bug. It’s THIRTY
thousand.”
When I got to school, I asked Red Hot
Backspace “How many verbal and non-verbal responses do teachers make during the
day?”
She answered, with blunt certainty, “A
zillion.”
Okay, so I typed everything up to this
point in the morning, before class. But, to illustrate this theory and prove
that I am right, I am going to do something odd and obnoxious that will make
the ADHD causes obvious.
I am going to finish writing this
post during second period. Second period is 74 minutes (bell to bell), but I'm only going to use thirty minutes of that time. My
students are finishing up a creative project and should need NO instruction
from me. They have everything they need on the white board, the interactive
board, AND in a Word file on their personal directories. They have the World
Wide Web and each other for help.
THAT BEING SAID, every time they, a
teacher, a bell, or other thing interrupts me, I’m going to post a picture of a
squirrel. I thought about putting a caption detailing the interruption, but
there’s no way I can do that AND teach AND moonlight with this blog. Shhhhh.
Top secret. Well, consider this research and development. Maybe I can come up
with an ADHD version of Airborne (that teacher is a millionaire)!
Understand and say a little prayer for harried,
hurried, ADHD teachers everywhere.
I think I’ll diagram a sentence or two, ya’ll! (But in a
different way). Let’s just take each of the Mayo Clinic ADHD symptoms one by
one and examine them.
ADHD SYMPTOMS
Difficulty sustaining attention:
My teaching buddy, let’s call him "Magic Mike" because he half-stripped
for Delicious on her 60th birthday, said he can do exactly
twenty-three things at the same time. I’d like to see you try, Magic Mike, I’d
like to see you try. We do many things at once because that is our comfort
zone. The zone of chaos. The zone of multi-tasking, talking, directing, responding,
writing, correcting, etc.
Hyperactivity:
Teachers are the most talkative people in the world.
Almost all of us have second jobs. Read Theory 24: Teachers are money hustlers, ya'll.
Have you ever tried to talk to a teacher in her classroom
full of students? She pops up and down like a prairie dog at the Knoxville Zoo.
Teachers even SAY, “I’m sorry, I’m not listening.”
Impulsive behavior:
Delicious
bought a 70-acre farm one weekend. Delicious and I are trying to find a cabin
on the Little River to buy. We’ve already made and lost on two offers. (Top
secret. Tall Child has NO idea!)
Low self-esteem:
Women eat for comfort, right? You should see the damage we do at in-services
lunches. You should see the damaged people
at in-services. Wide loads, comin’ through!
Troubled relationships: If we get into fights at home in the morning, we can’t
settle them to we return that night! We are too busy, too frazzled, and can’t
text at school.
Poor performance in school:
I just want to graduate and finish my Master’s Degree
before I have to start the dreaded Christmas season. I am too old for this! Oh, and no
worries. I love Jesus. I just hate December.
~ ~ ~
So my students have $1500 MacBook Pro’s, iPhones, iPads,
and name-brand clothes, while I go to grad school with an Etch-a-Sketch, have
the oldest smartphone on planet Earth, tote maxi-pads (a cruel joke on this infertile woman),
and wear shrunken Faded Glory shirts and flood-ready britches.
I think it’s time I get an IEP. For ME!
IEP (defined by "About Parenting")
IEP (defined by "About Parenting")
Short for Individualized
Education Program, an
IEP is the legal document that defines a child's special education program. An
IEP includes the disability under which the child qualifies for Special
Education Services, the services the team has determined the school will
provide, his yearly goals and objectives and any accommodations that must be made to assist his learning.
Hmmm. Let me break this down.
Bug's IEP
Disability: ADHD
Goals (in order of importance and difficulty):
Lose 10 pounds by Christmas
Maintain full-time employment
Publish Student Anthology Project for my freshmen
(Copyright CB Publishing)
Not get into a single fist fight (manage my rage)
Learn to use the software I'm supposed to use
Finish my Theories: Size 12 humor book by summer 2015
Finish my M. Ed. in December
Stay safe on Alcoa Highway
Accomodations:
Money from Tall Child to buy all meat and produce (no carbs) at Kroger
Exercise routine (gross)
Patience (from the people around me)
Bota Box in large supply
Small group settings. Classes of fewer than 15 would be nice. Ha!
Money from Tall Child to buy all meat and produce (no carbs) at Kroger
Exercise routine (gross)
Patience (from the people around me)
Bota Box in large supply
Small group settings. Classes of fewer than 15 would be nice. Ha!
Services the school should provide:
A laptop (I teach technology, and I am sick of carrying this Etch-A-Sketch around.)
A company car to keep me safer on Alcoa Hwy. Maybe a school bus?
Catered lunch. To my room. Already heated and ready to eat. And low carb.
A private bathroom.
A private weekly session with the school psychologist. Hey, here's here anyway, right?
An endless supply of Crocs, deoderant, mechanical pencils, jump drives, sticky notes, and, ............................ Adderall and Vyvanse!
I took this one to the streets, well, my
classroom actually. Here’s what the students of Lab 211 have to say to my
question, “Do teachers have ADHD?”
Response (in loud chorus): “YES!!!”
Bug: “Why do you say that?”
Freshmen Responses:
They all are
always running around the halls trying to find things.
They talk fast.
They are easily
agitated.
They get off topic.
They lose their smart board pens all the time and freak out.
They're always pacing around the room.
10 squirrels in 30 minutes. Common Core that, and you will deduce why all teachers develop ADHD!
Let's talk! Find me and friend me!
Also, visit Amazon.com or my website to read about my book, The Eye of Adoption, my short story, Field Day, and my collection of essays for parents and teachers, Parents, Stop and Think.
Author website: www.jodydyer.com
Facebook: Theories: Size 12 (See each post, comment, share, and talk directly with others readers and me!) I'd LOVE to hear your theories!
