Jimmy.

[ulysses]

It's not his real name, of course. He's a student of mine, classified Other Health Impaired (this usually means ADHD, and does in his case). He's almost eleven years old and has what we call a "flat affect" - he doesn't come across as a very lively child, to put it mildly. The assistant principal told me a while back that Jimmy was a real behavior problem in the past, a big fighter. Now he's on meds, and I'm asking questions about the level of those meds.

Anyway, I was grading a recent writing assignment of his this morning. As an assignment, it's a huge improvement. His spelling is awful and grading the paper was an exercise in phonetic translation, but to have Jimmy fill an entire 8.5x11 page with writing is progress. The content, however, brought me up short.

The prompt was to write about an interesting place. Most of the students wrote exotica about places they've never been (Hawaii was a regular theme). Jimmy wrote about going to Golden Corral restaurant, a trip his mother had promised for his birthday on December 13. The assignment was to have been an informative essay, but it took Jimmy two sentences to go well afield. Shortly, he was writing about how his mother would tell him, "up in his face" (he was writing in the third person quickly), no, they were not going to Golden Corral and to go on somewhere, and so he would go to his room and not come out until it was time to go to school again and how he would be a boy who did nothing for his eleventh birthday except sit in his room, except that one day he came out and there was a fight and he kicked in the door to his room. And how one day he (still third person) would go "belistec".

So.

Jimmy and the counselor talked this afternoon - I haven't heard back from the counselor yet, but I talked to Jimmy's special ed teacher from last year, who confirmed that his mother, in his last IEP meeting, claimed to not know where he had even come from, that she was eating a chicken wing and out he came. I'm not making this up. She, for all anyone else can tell, thinks that he is an alien and treats him accordingly.

Jimmy takes the standard state test. If he doesn't pass reading and math this year, he won't go to middle school. I'm trying, but he reads at a second grade level. Math is at third grade. Jimmy is in the fifth.

He's a sweet kid who has only ever had any difficulty in class with "Paul" (the subject of an upcoming post). He has little in the way of social skills (he sits in his room all day at home) and even fewer academic ones. He's starting to catch on to multiplication, and will, when called out directly, very quietly participate in the class.

Georgia now has a state-funded voucher for special needs kids to attend private schools and, on the surface, Jimmy is the ideal candidate for that placement...were his family able and willing to make up the difference between the voucher and the tuition. Would it make a difference for him even were they able and willing?

[PDJane]

1. That hurts.

I'm not sure that anything could help Jimmy other than a completely different family and a brand new start in life, because if his mother were a little more understanding, the child woulnd't likely be in this position.

I wish I could take care of every Jimmy I knew......

[Mojorabbit]

2. That is heartbreaking. eom

[Richard Steele]

3. I've got nothing usefulto say, so I'll just rec this. nm

[in_cog_ni_to]

4. Absolutely heartbreaking. Shouldn't he be removed from a home where the mother thinks her own son is

an alien? Is there a father in the home? This is such a sad story.:cry:

[Freedomofspeech]

5. Jimmy is very lucky to have you for a teacher...

as a retired educator, I know many people would totally write him off. Thank you for you work and devotion to helping him. Why is it you have to have a license to drive, but there are no classes on parenting? Poor child, I will pray to Mother Earth for him.

[ulysses]

7. thanks, but I'm not sure I deserve that.

[personman]

18. Don't be too hard on yourself.

Obviously they need all the help they can get, but it's not (only) your responsibility to pick up the people the system let slip through the cracks.

Of course it never feels good to admit to yourself you've done what you can and the problem remains.

But anyway, try to spend as much or more time patting yourself on the back for what you HAVE done, and CAN do, rather than kicking yourself for what you haven't done or can't do.

I say it's not your responsibility to pick up everyone who slips through the cracks, but we should keep in mind an individualistic competitive society tries to teach us, "hey, that's his problem, now get back in the machine and be a cog, or you'll have nothing too." So don't ever lose that sense of social-responsibility. :b

I think it's our responsibility as a society, and how well we do reflects our morality.

[personman]

16. Yes.

I didn't like most of my teachers and the feeling was usually mutual. School was the jail and the teachers were the wardens as far as I was concerned. However, it was also a teacher who first suggested I get checked for ADHD. She was my 5th grade teacher and said I could have been the poster child for it.

I've repeated the same sentiments on parenting, we license people to drive and own guns, but any moron with genitals can make a kid...
Maybe it's true but it's not always fair. It's quite possible the mother's upbringing wasn't any different, and it's quite possible she may have neurological problems as well. Then there are issues of socio-economic class, education, etc. People are too eager to judge each other IMO, having never walked in each other's shoes. Just some thoughts.

-personman

P.S. Day-dreaming through the European imperialist apologia we call history... probably the best thing I've ever NOT learned. :)

The better teachers I have had were more willing to let me pursue my own interests, rather than to try to cram things I'm not particularly interested in, in to my brain. ADHDers have a VERY hard time concentrating on things they are not interested in...Of course there is a fine line...you don't allow the kids to blow-off addition and subtraction just because it's not interesting to them...

Chomsky has some interesting ideas on education. (What me?! Quote Chomsky? ;)

“Most problems of teaching are not problems of growth but helping cultivate growth. As far as I know, and this is only from personal experience in teaching, I think about ninety percent of the problem in teaching, or maybe ninety-eight percent, is just to help the students get interested. Or what it usually amounts to is to not prevent them from being interested. Typically they come in interested, and the process of education is a way of driving that defect out of their minds. But if children<’s> <…> normal interest is maintained or even aroused, they can do all kinds of things in ways we don’t understand.”

Here he talks about how our education system and society pre-select for obedience:

“If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you’re saying, because it’s too hard to believe one thing and say another. I can see it very strikingly in my own background. Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience. And that makes sense. If you’ve resisted the temptation to tell the teacher, “You’re an asshole,” which maybe he or she is, and if you don’t say, “That’s idiotic,” when you get a stupid assignment, you will gradually pass through the required filters. You will end up at a good college and eventually with a good job.”

“Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don’t think people didn’t know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason. It was also understood by the elites. Emerson once said something about how we’re educating them to keep them from our throats. If you don’t educate them, what we call “education,” they’re going to take control — “they” being what Alexander Hamilton called the “great beast,” namely the people. The anti-democratic thrust of opinion in what are called democratic societies is really ferocious. And for good reason. Because the freer the society gets, the more dangerous the great beast becomes and the more you have to be careful to cage it somehow.”

“So when you go to graduate school in the natural sciences, you’re immediately brought into critical inquiry - and, in fact, what you’re learning is kind of a craft; you don’t really teach science, people sort of get the idea how to do it as apprentices, hopefully by working with good people. But the goal is to learn how to do creative work, and to challenge everything <…> people have to be trained for creativity and disobedience - because there is no other way you can do science. But in the humanities and social sciences, and in fields like journalism and economics and so on <…> people have to be trained to be managers, and controllers, and to accept things, and not to question too much.”

[movie_girl99]

21. what book did the quotes come from?

I would really like to read it.

[personman]

24. It looks like they were taken from a variety of sources:

Here is the URL I found them at:

http://oneducation.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/chomsky-quotes-on-education/

Looks like some might be from articles available on-line.

A lot of his article are available at http://www.chomsky.info/

If you do a search on my site, in my signature, there are some Chomsky videos and articles as well.

There are a lot of great quotes at wikiquote.org too.

If I ever manage to make it through the stack of books I have, I'd like to go back and start reading his older books.

[MiniMe]

6. The way the Mom treats him sounds like child abuse to me

Of course he isn't doing well, what kind of stimulation does he get sitting in his room all the time.

[EFerrari]

12. It sounds like she has something going on, too. My ex's mom

was like that. At first I thought she was just abusive but after interacting with her for a while, I realized she didn't really connect to people and she was simply trying to behave the way she thought she should. She had no emotional "cues" to work with, she just made it up as she went along and as best as she could.

[personman]

14. My thoughts as well, see post 13

I can identify with that, I can tend to be aloof at times... to the point where it's strange enough, even I notice.

Maybe there is more to it then that, but perhaps it's a factor, I don't know, just speculating.

It's sort of interesting to me that some smarter people with ADHD, who have primarily "inattentive" forms of it, such as myself, tend to be day-dreamers, and fit the "absent-minded professor" stereo-type.

According to personality tests, I'm an INTJ (but real close to INTP) and there seem to be some similar characteristics in this personality type that would fit the stereotype of the "absent-minded professor" as well.

So it's an interesting question...am I aloof because I'm neurologically wired that way? What is the relation with personality type?

A little wiki research turned up this:

The absent-minded professor is a stock character of popular fiction usually portrayed as an academic with important information, but whose focus on their learning leads them to ignore or forget their surroundings.

The stereotype is very old; Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, describes Daedalus as making the Labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it.

The archetype is generally associated with, but not restricted to college professors; in the fantasy genre, he may appear as a wizard. (included because it allows for the possibility that I'm a wizard...dude, super-powers are sweet...Gandalf is my homey)

The article also mentions Asperger Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, and states that Einstein may have had it.

I've read various articles that have said he may have had Asperger's or ADHD. Just recently on Book TV that had someone lecturing on him who didn't seem to believe he had asperger's, but thought there was a possibility of some ADHD. I won't speculate because I don't know, but of course, people with ADHD want to believe he had ADHD, people with Asperger's, want to believe he had Asperger's...who knows..

Anyway, the reason I bring this all up though, goes back to "aloofness:"

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has
always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct
contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a
'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my
friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face
of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for
solitude..."

-Albert Einstein

Interesting eh? Any thoughts? Anyone following this? Is this a non-sensical ADHD fueled rant? hehe

:)

[flashl]

19. The label of ADHD was market driven for a drug company

and it also serves as a tool of social engineering. Our society needs "dreamers".

[personman]

20. The opposition to the label of ADHD is driven by scientologists.

Some examples of impulsivity from untreated ADHD could be jumping up and down on Oprah's couch on national TV, or accusing Matt Laur of "glibness."

hehe but back to the land of the relevant:

This is the debate of is it a disorder, or is it diversity?

There are good arguments on both sides, perhaps they are both right.

But I agree that we need more dreamers...John Lennon is often pointed to as probably having had ADHD. I won't draw a conclusion because I don't know, but some of us have some creative surpluses I guess you could say.

I was a really good artist as a child, I'm into music now, I play guitar and drums, sing a bit, I'm interested in mixed martial arts, computers, political philosophy, etc. and I tend to be pretty good at the things I have interest in.

Is it a matter of deficiency? or just difference? It's an interesting debate.

I guess some symptoms are similar to minimal brain damage, including what may be caused by exposure to heavy metals, chemicals, etc. I've read estimates 1/3 of cases are thought to be brought on by environment, rather than hereditary.

[flashl]

26. The opposition to ADHD is driven by

PARENTS who found themselves in a position where their children were labeled with ADHD. Schools usurped parental control by identifying children as ADHD. If parents refused to medicate their children, schools used their “authority” citing a 1991 Department of Education memo to separate the child from school.

As this battle continued, it became obvious that using the DOE memo schools received a “bounty” from DOE under the disability act for each ADHD child. Since 1993, the “expert”, a pawn of pharmaceuticals for Ritalin and who first wrote of its benefits specifically for ADHD have been disproved in a court of law.

[HughMoran]

8. I hope he finds his place

My feelings of empathy are on "high" right now - thanks for sharing. I wonder if his mother would even want to send him to a private school - she doesn't sound real with it. It sounds like there is a bit more than ADHD going on, but it may just be environmental. In my opinion (after thinking for a minute here), I think he may need to go to the private school - it doesn't sound like mainstreaming is going to work out well for him.

[Redneck Socialist]

9. There are so many broken people in this world.

I worked for a time as a paraprofessional and assisted mainly with the "special Ed" kids. Your tale is all too heartbreakingly familiar. I wish you the best of luck with your career. Keep up the good work.

[ClayZ]

10. K and R

:cry:

[flashl]

11. Thanks for sharing. Jimmy is a product of a broken society. n/t

[personman]

25. Word. n/t

[personman]

13. K&R for a fellow ADHDer

I wonder if the mom has ADHD?...it frequently runs in families. Diagnosed or not, most of my family on my mothers side have it, or characteristics of it, including my mother.
ADHD seems to be a strange one, seems very different from person to person, case to case. It is very frequently accompanied by co-morbid conditions, depression, anxiety, OCD, bi-polar, etc. Sounds like the mother has some issues of her own.

If they happen to not be particularly bright that doesn't help things. I have a fairly high IQ, a reasonably intelligent parent who helped me out, and still had a horrible time with school.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhd">wikipedia:

During the elementary years an ADHD student will have more difficulties with work completion, productivity, planning, remembering things needed for school, and meeting deadlines. Oppositional and socially aggressive behaviour is seen in 40-70 percent of children at this age. Even ADHD kids with average to above average intelligence show "chronic and severe under achievement". Fully 46% of those with ADHD have been suspended and 11% expelled. Thirty seven percent of those with ADHD do not get a high school diploma even though many of them will receive special education services.<17> The combined outcomes of the expulsion and dropout rates indicate that almost half of all ADHD students never finish highschool.<44> Only five percent of those with ADHD will get a college degree compared to twenty seven percent of the general population. (US Census, 2003)

[blondeatlast]

15. Would it make a difference? Of course not, I'm afraid. That poor child.

I would love to see the money spent on vouchers be used to improve public education, especially special education.

My father was a public special education administrator for years, bitterly opposed to vouchers. I knew far too many "Jimmys" but they got the best treatment they could through public programs. We often lived on the state grounds and if it weren't for the foster grandparents these kids would have no one at all on the outside who cared.

[madokie]

17. What a wonderful person

You of course.

Jimmy has one thing going for him and its a very important one too, a caring loving person. Something that is otherwise lacking in his life, may you be blessed with thousands of hearts :-) the world needs them

[blondeatlast]

22. Vouchers exist for one reason and one reason only...

To isolate the "wrong" kind of students from the rest of them.

Not the "right" religion? Go to an underfunded public school.

Not a wealthy DD child? Go to an underfunded, woefully understaffed SE progranm in a public school where the instructors work daily miracles with virtually no resources.

Have vouchers been challenged on Constitutional grounds? They are public funding of discriminatory practices and absolutely should be challenged as such. OTOH, with this SCOTUS, maybe we're better off waiting for that. What a nation we've become... (sigh...).

[Cronus Protagonist]

27. Don't forget the funnelling of cash into parochial schools

And is it me, or was the mention of vouchers in this story a clear non-sequitur?

[SoCalDem]

23. Sounds like a call to Children's Services may be in order

Jimmy will end up in juvenile hall if he has no guidance..:(