The View from Here:
Just a Little Different: My ADHD Students and I

Lynne K. Fukuda
Instructor, Institute of Biology, Hawaii Pacific University
lfukuda@hawaii.edu

    I lived in the old days before labeling and medication. It was a Godsend. I was never identified. Nevertheless, my days in school were pure torture. I could not sit still, nor could I concentrate on one thing for more than five or ten minutes. My mind would be racing ahead or be lost in creative daydreams. My thoughts were thousands of miles away from my classmates.
    "Pay attention, Lynne," a stern voice would say, rudely penetrating my dream-like state. Some of my teachers would become hysterical witches, ready with their yardsticks to inflict pain and humiliation. The stinging blow of the swinging yardstick worked like an electric shock treatment for the insane.

    The rest of the class had already started their assignment. I was lost. A blank look and a blank mind told all. "If you only listened when I was giving instructions ... " the teacher would begin. I dreaded hearing those words, but I did not know what else to do but dumbly take them in with my young ears.
    I shuddered, anticipating the humiliation. A teacher would drag me to the front of the class by my wrist, making me the object of ridicule. Another teacher would punish me by denying me class privileges. Sitting in a corner or in the hallway alone, I was soon forgotten in the corner like an unwanted toy or a broken object left to perish under the layers of educational dust. I was excluded from classroom activity. I was not normal. I was not acceptable. I was not good student material.
    I cried bitter tears in those days. I truly hated school. "My tummy hurts," I would say to my mother early in the morning. I dreaded school so much that (faked or real) my stomach would seem to hurt with the early seeds of an ulcer. It was so bad once that my mother dragged me off to the hospital, where a very knowledgeable young doctor winked at my mother and offered to cure my tummy ache with a giant shot.
    He brought out a hypodermic needle that was the size of a gun and said; "I guess we'll have to give you this for the pain."
    I suddenly jumped off the emergency room bed and exclaimed, "Mummy, my tummy is okay now!"
    I went on to become a "normal" human being, although I bore the scars from the harsh discipline I received from teachers who did not quite understand why I was different. As a result, I stuttered, became painfully shy, had very low self-esteem, and continued to hate school. I felt as though people were staring at me. Sometimes I would hear cruel whispers emanating from girls who were considered to be class leaders.
    "Look at how she dresses ... and acts. She's really weird," Tammie, a pretty girl everyone admired said about me. I knew that everyone listened to her words and believed them. I hung my head and went in the other direction, avoiding her and her allies during recess and during lunchtime.

    I returned to grade school in my thirties as a teacher. As a former part-time grade-school teacher nearly ten years before, I did not realize that some students were ADHD or had attention disorders or hyperactivity. I was oblivious to their differences and to the problems teachers faced each day in their crowded classrooms. But when I became a teacher's aide and worked with the same children day after day and week after week, the disorders that had masked themselves to teachers (who were only briefly with their students) appeared with clarity in my daily life.

    "That's the problem child," the teacher I worked with said, pointing in the direction of a very angelic-looking boy. "He gets physical and scratches and pinches."
    But to a former ADHD kid, that child was nearly normal. "Miss Lynne, I love you," the small angel said, his clear blue eyes gazing into mine. The teachers were so busy with their lessons that they did not have time to keep a watchful eye on each child. Thus, the difficult one became a problem.
    "You are too soft," my teacher-colleague said to me, emphasizing discipline and punishment as a means of keeping order in a chaotic classroom full of small children. I did not blame her. "How can one adult control twenty-four children alone if she does not have an assistant at all times?" I wondered.
    My days were filled with mommy-tasks. I held hands with the problem children as we traveled on campus. I wiped up their messes, and gently scolded them when they misbehaved, laughing at their antics when they were not looking. I gave them a shoulder to cry on when school became a frustrating, frightening, hateful mess. I took them to the health room when they got sick and stuck band-aids on their knees when they scraped them.

    Sometimes I saw the Devil possess them, looking at me in the evil glimmer in their eyes. They were like criminals in miniature, cunning and sharp, looking for loopholes in the system. Sometimes they were like wild animals, refusing to be tamed. Some would not remain in their seats and proceed to run about like wild monkeys. Others would throw their school supplies at other students and onto the floor.
    "Sweetie, how come you're not doing your work?" I would ask a sluggish student, pointing at the blank piece of paper that remained empty even after thirty minutes.
    The child would look at me incredulously as if I expected him to produce something out of thin air. "No," the child would stay obstinately, "I don't want to."
    And yet, I smiled. I knew the system. I knew their insides. I had been one of them.
    "Did you know that work piles up and you will have papers and papers and mountains of papers until it almost buries you, and then it collapses in a enormous avalanche?" I began, describing a very Dr. Seuss-like scenario to the very imaginative boy in front of me, watching his face for a hint of understanding, "And them you will have to stare at it day after day, and you won't make it to the next grade and you will come back again to the same class to the same teacher."
    I saw his shiny blue eyes widen with surprise. Instead of nagging or yelling, I had revealed to him the true consequences. I saw the small wheels grinding in his head as he began to think of the mountain of work he would encounter even after a fun, relaxing weekend at home. The piles of papers would shake and move, calling out to him saying, "Jason, do your work."
    I smiled a secret smile, not feeling guilty about scaring an innocent young boy. I did not wish to inflict any verbal punishment. Instead, I did battle like the doctor with the giant needle in his hand, and left the boy with those words hanging in the air until I returned five minutes later. The paper would be miraculously done. Sometimes Jason would write verse in a Morse code pattern and explain the writing in a song or in a poem. My heart would flutter, pleased with his creativity.
    "Look what I made, Miss Lynne," Jason would say, waving a mysterious sheet of paper.
    I would study it in fascination. I marveled at the imagination and the resourcefulness of this very young child. "Beautiful," I would reply, my mind still singing with amazement.
    I smiled and listened patiently every day, every hour, and every minute to each good and naughty child. I knew that once I lost my patience, the children would lose respect for me. I never raised my voice. I was surprised at my patience because as a child, I had been short-tempered, spoiled, and violent. Like a burning torch, it was love and compassion for the children who suffered in a rigid school system that kept me going day after exhausting day.
    "I hope to God that no child should ever feel the humiliation I felt," I would say to myself. Sometimes I wanted to give up, and yet, another day arrived when the problem child improved a notch--and then another.

    After nearly a year in school, after many months of mommying, I gained the trust and love of my problem children. They looked up to me with shining eyes and achieved for me in ways they would have never done if love did not exist. I held their small hands in mine, warm with affection. I looked into their clear, intelligent eyes and saw the good, the hope, and only the best. They no longer hit or scratched each other unless provoked; they did not turn into stubborn mules when given directions. Instead, they smiled and played with other children and slowly grew away from my mommying.
    "I can do it myself, Miss Lynne," one of the children said, "Look, I'm a big boy now."
    "Look what I did, Miss Lynne," another said to me, showing me her work that was done neatly and accurately.
    Tears remained suspended in my eyes when I heard those words; when these children are in the next grade, they would no longer need me, I hoped. My small babies would be leaving the nest.

    I suppose my situations were idealistic. Many ADHD children do need special assistance and eventually are placed in Special Ed, but my students, like myself, were just a little different--but mostly normal and healthy with a strong will and a sense of rebellion. These are traits much admired by some cultures; they make good soldiers, good hunters, and good colonists. Yet, these traits are detrimental to a child in any school culture.
    I pray for a time when all children can learn freely, naturally, and happily, where each child can have hands-on activities and more space to move out and still perform well academically. I hope for a day when children find much pleasure learning in a meaningful manner, where they can help others and contribute to society, where they can be creative and become productive citizens.
    I have a dream of school as a large garden, where learning blossoms in each child, protected and guided by the warmth of the sun. It will no longer matter when the blossoms appear or in what form, it will only matter that each child learns. Some day, new ways of teaching, new educational technology, and new teachers will lead the way to a better model of learning for children. And when that time comes, I will be in the midst of it, smiling at my students, encouraging them to learn in their own way, each at a different pace, each with a different perspective. Our world in that distant future will be a much bigger place, where children of different cultures and different backgrounds will share the love of learning.
    Until that day comes, I will continue my mommying ways, comforting a frustrated children, giving a kind word of encouragement, or watching over them to see that no harm comes just because they are "a little different."

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Page Viewed:   / Created: 30 January 2003 / Updated: 3 February 2003