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8:48 AM | 
Posted by
kender
First off, thanks for letting me vent and insights are very welcome here.
This morning, lying in bed talking to my wife, I was voicing my concerns about our son and his achievement in school. You see, my son is very, very bright. At teh age of five he is in kindergarten. I was a stay at home dad for his first three years and worked with him alot, reading and teaching him numbers, colors and whatever else came to mind that I thought he should know.
At about three we put him into a montessori school. We did our research and decided that teh montessori system sounded great. The children learn at their own pace and are taught basic skills like cleaning up after themselves, how to sweep, mop etc. etc. You know, those basic things everybody should know how to do. He still loves to sweep, mop and vacuum the house.
Now, at five, he blows through the work that he needs to know by the end of the first grade. He is over a year ahead and although I have talked to his teachers about it they are still reluctant to move him up any higher, even in work level. Perhaps they are correct. Maybe it would make for strained relationships with his classmates if he did work so far past them. I don't know.
The point of this little missive is this: My son has told me he gets bored in school having to listen to the teacher about the work and has a hard time listening. This gets him in trouble. My wife says, "Well, he has ADD, just like I do." "Horseshit", I said, "he is a little boy and he is bored bacause he is beyond the level of the work he is asked to do." Mind you my wife and I both read at very young ages also. Our son reads, computes and comprehends at a forst grade level and is straining to do more and sha claims he has ADD. He can concentrate, when he plays his video games, reads a new book or does something new and interesting he concentrates. He concentrates just fine if he has something he needs to do. But the repitition of doing the things that he has mastered bores him and now it earns him an ADD title?
I will tell you what. I did the same thing in school but my parents didn't seem to care so I tok matters into my own hands. I used to ditch school and hang out at the LIBRARY!!!!! Tell me their isn't something wrong there. That screams bored student. I would risk punishment to go sit and read all day. I would read books covering all sorts of subjects. History, art, science, whatever caught my eye.
A serious problem in this country is the over medication of children because they have dumbed down the schools so much that more and more kids are ahead of the curve. Simply deciding that a kid being a kid merits medication because they are rambunctuious or bored in school and acting out is wrong. My son will NOT be medicated. Absolutely not!!! My wife never even suggested that BTW.
One more thing. The person that first strung the words
"Attention", "Deficit" and "Disorder" together to make some BS diagnosis should be slowly tortured to death as an enemy of children everywhere.
Hey, it'd be "For The Children" right?
This morning, lying in bed talking to my wife, I was voicing my concerns about our son and his achievement in school. You see, my son is very, very bright. At teh age of five he is in kindergarten. I was a stay at home dad for his first three years and worked with him alot, reading and teaching him numbers, colors and whatever else came to mind that I thought he should know.
At about three we put him into a montessori school. We did our research and decided that teh montessori system sounded great. The children learn at their own pace and are taught basic skills like cleaning up after themselves, how to sweep, mop etc. etc. You know, those basic things everybody should know how to do. He still loves to sweep, mop and vacuum the house.
Now, at five, he blows through the work that he needs to know by the end of the first grade. He is over a year ahead and although I have talked to his teachers about it they are still reluctant to move him up any higher, even in work level. Perhaps they are correct. Maybe it would make for strained relationships with his classmates if he did work so far past them. I don't know.
The point of this little missive is this: My son has told me he gets bored in school having to listen to the teacher about the work and has a hard time listening. This gets him in trouble. My wife says, "Well, he has ADD, just like I do." "Horseshit", I said, "he is a little boy and he is bored bacause he is beyond the level of the work he is asked to do." Mind you my wife and I both read at very young ages also. Our son reads, computes and comprehends at a forst grade level and is straining to do more and sha claims he has ADD. He can concentrate, when he plays his video games, reads a new book or does something new and interesting he concentrates. He concentrates just fine if he has something he needs to do. But the repitition of doing the things that he has mastered bores him and now it earns him an ADD title?
I will tell you what. I did the same thing in school but my parents didn't seem to care so I tok matters into my own hands. I used to ditch school and hang out at the LIBRARY!!!!! Tell me their isn't something wrong there. That screams bored student. I would risk punishment to go sit and read all day. I would read books covering all sorts of subjects. History, art, science, whatever caught my eye.
A serious problem in this country is the over medication of children because they have dumbed down the schools so much that more and more kids are ahead of the curve. Simply deciding that a kid being a kid merits medication because they are rambunctuious or bored in school and acting out is wrong. My son will NOT be medicated. Absolutely not!!! My wife never even suggested that BTW.
One more thing. The person that first strung the words
"Attention", "Deficit" and "Disorder" together to make some BS diagnosis should be slowly tortured to death as an enemy of children everywhere.
Hey, it'd be "For The Children" right?
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9 comments:
ADD is a recent condition that teachers use to describe students who are smarter than they are. If your family is able to get by on one income, the best thing you can do is to homeschool your kids. When a high school graduate, stay-at-home-mother can consistently educate her kids around the kitchen table at the 96th percentile, there is something seriously wrong with the public school system. Both my sons inherited my 145 IQ. I sent one to a private school and one to a public school. The private schooler is now a robotics engineer; the public schooler is in a failing rock band. Were I have it to do over again, I'd sell pencils in the street rather than send one of my kids to the Los Angeles public school system. You need to make some tough decisions. You need to either sacrifice your current standard of living to educate your son or you need to sacrifice your son to keep up your standard of living.
I think I agree with Lone Ranger. My kids were "dumbed down" by the public school system that they used to attend. When we moved out of that district they were fairly well behind their new district counterparts. While they've managed to get themselves caught up, for the most part, I know that they aren't learning up to their potential.
In any event, keep buying him new books to read. It'll at least keep him busy.
Income isn't a problem. My wife is an extremely successful woman that will never be out of a good paying job, and even if she was for awhile, we live well within our means. Public school will never be an option for my son. His teacher has never said, nor even hinted at ADD. What she has said is that he is extrememly bright, but for some reason she is hesitant to give him work that is beyond even some of the first graders.
I plan on taking care of that little problem on monday. Being the president of the PTA at my sons' school, I have some sway there. I am a king at getting what I want, and I will have him moved up in grade level, workwise, by 9 A.M. on monday.
Happy New Year, Kender!
So, WHOA on that ADD crap! I was really bright, too -- read at age 2, in kindergarten at 4. Luckily, this was in the 70s before all this ADD bullshit. I remember sneaking books into class and reading under my desk all the time. Trey was considered retarded in school because he never participated in stuff, until his mom told the the teacher to have Trey read her the front page of the New York Times at age 5 and get back to her. I'm really glad we didn't live in the age of Ritalin. In my opinion, Ritalin is only for adults so they can do things like REALLY clean the house. But --
One thing you might NOT want to do is skip your son TOO far ahead. One grade is cool, but when he gets older, the age difference can be really hard. It was really hard for me to be a year younger than everyone else come puberty time -- I was always really skinny and younger and couldn't drive and all that. Find a balance between what will engage your son intellectually, without putting him in a position where socially he will feel too at odds. It's hard, but you sound like a really great dad and I'm sure you'll do what's best.
Man, I live in fear of some crazy school system telling me that our kids-to-be need Ritalin. I would fucking kill someone!
Good luck, and kind regards!
Lillet
P.S.
Kender, there is this GREAT article that appeared in Harper's I think in the summer-ish of 2003. It's all about how the public school systems slowly became about creating an obedient class of drones to become unquestioning office workers. It's really inspiring. It goes into great detail about the cadre of guys who came up with these repressive school policies. I will try to track it down for you.
Best!
Lillet
PS If they DO prescribe Ritalin for your son, we will buy it from you. Do you take Paypal? We really need to take down our Christmas tree... Thanks!!!
Lillett, there will be absoltely no prescriptions, especially for ritalin or any other "drone drug", for my son. I don't want to skip him ahead in grades, I simply want his work to be harder. It is montessori after all, and the kids ar supposed to work at their own pace.
Good Luck on the christmas tree and happy new year to you kids also.
I agree - as usual - mostly...
But really, admit it, the real point of this blog was just to brag about your kid... :-)
Seriously, I think ADD is largely (if not totally) made up. I do think that some people have more energy than others and some people have less patience than others. I do not think that these are diseases or illnesses. These are what used to be known as DIFFERENCES.
Anyway, I still think public schools can and should be fixed. I also think that people should be careful with home schooling because kids can end up brilliant but socially inept. Also, I think that even home schooled kids should be tested by the state to make sure they are really being taught. For many, this would be a cake-walk. However, my possible future step-in-laws (my girlfriends family is complicated) is a good example. Her step-mom pulled her half brothers out of school because she disagreed with one of their teachers. She said she would home school them, but never really did. Now all they do is go bowling. Their parents pulled them out of school and then failed them and they will probably never recover.
Anyway, back on the topic of ADD. Even kids who they think have ADD should never be told it. It just becomes an excuse to act however they want instead of trying to learn to deal with their differences.
K1....My son, even with being around other kids, sometimes drives me nuts with teh way he interacts with them. He tends to be a brat at times. I am assured that this is normal for a 5 year old. I think perhaps a little brother or sister would give him more patience, but I would never survive my wife being pregnant a second time. We have considered adopting.
They do test the kids here with the state tests. The kids at his school all consistently test above their grade levels.
And you're right, never tell a kid they have someting like that. It will become an excuse. When I was young I had serious health problems. My parents tried to make me act different than the other kids, claiming that I couldn't do what they did because of my health, (I had a nephrostomy tube in my side from the age of two to six) but I never once listened to them. Tube? So what? I am gonna climb trees too.
Years later, after out living all the doctors that gave me a week to live I still don't listen to anyone about what I can or can't do.
I check back on your blog from time to time still, as it's a reliable source for what the general right-wing mind will be perceptive of in these times.
Know your enemy, they say.
Aside it's far more interesting than your standard shaved-edge RW newspaper.
I caught time to read through the A.D.D. column. In typical lazy Commie fashion, I skimmed through it.
I was always taught to think of time as a circle, instead of a chronical line where we're at the driving end of it and some are left behind. Arabs in the stone age and so forth. Left wings and right wings are often amazingly inside the same circle. For literacy's sake I'd expanded that circle into an oval, and then a hockey rink. This leaves players, coaches spectators, and media types.
But to get to the point, you're completely spot on for this article. I won't extend any pretentious insight as to how to raise a kid. Oftentimes school systems are in disrepair and seek the easiest paths. Kids who are clearly faster and adaptable should be left with additional educational resources.
But it is a fine line. I would always kick up a storm at the mention of my skipping ahead a grade. My friends were all in my grade. So I'd get my things done and then lay on a rug while my friends learned to read. Any listening problems were primarily due to the fact that I'd known exactly what was going to be said before the teachers fulfilled their job requirements and said it.
And the teachers are oftentimes more bored than the kids.
I see A.D.D. as a symptom of the scientific community's belief that we can isolate every known difference, treat it, and level off.
Like you said---completely invented.
But perhaps they'll prove themselves right after awhile.
But left or right, people in general should be very afraid of the level at which we could level off to. It could well be the lowest common denominator. Chances are that our instincts will tell a better story than the newspapers will.
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