Ayana's Site On Teaching and Learning!

On Teaching With ADD

July, 2004,

(edited for clarity Sept, 2006)

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Introduction

My ADD is a gift... but sometimes it's a gift that I want to return to the store! I am a teacher who has Attention-Deficit Disorder. For me ADD is a disability in areas of life where it hurts and a gift in areas where it helps. For example, when I started teaching in 1994, I realized that teaching reading is one of the hardest skills to master. I became obsessed with reading instruction and I hyperfocused on it for seven years. That ADD ability to focus on something to the exclusion of everything else can be such a strength.

My positive obsession with reading instruction has benefited my students. Last March, I tested the reading of my second-graders and discovered that 3 of my students had made a year of progress in only seven months. The vast majority of the other students had also made significant progress. In fact, this is the third year in a row in which many of my students have made outstanding progress in reading.

And yet, my ADD complicates some aspects of my job. For example, the clutter in my classroom can get really out of control. One of the first things my principal suggested to me last September was that I put some of the extra stuff in the closet.
 

"I can't," I said.
 

"Why not?" the principal asked.
 

"The closets are full," was my answer.
 

And they were.
 

Full to the brim.

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The NYT article

A recent New York Times magazine article, "Office Messes" by Lisa Belkin (July 18, 2004,  starts p. 24), describes the trials that can plague ADD adults at work and mentions an episode in my personal clutter wars. The part about me, excerpted here, is on p. 46:

. . . .

    Ayana Kee did not walk into Jennifer Koretsky's office on a recent spring day, so much as she swept in, radiating exuberance and energy. Kee is a second-grade teacher -- by all accounts the kind you would want your child to have. Koretsky is her A.D.D. coach. Their twice-weekly sessions are rivets in the infrastructure that is rising within the world of adults suffering from A.D.D.

    Kee settled herself on the couch across from Koretsky and started to explain that she loves her job, loves teaching children. But while all the other teachers are gone by 4:30, after an eight-hour workday, Kee is sometimes there until 7. ''The custodian tells me I have to leave because he has to mop the floors,'' she said. Then she brings a satchel of materials home and works until bedtime.

    The two women spent the rest of the session mapping out a time-management plan for Kee. ''Let's look at some things you can take off your plate,'' Koretsky said. ''It's not like you have an assistant you can delegate to, but what you do have are kids in the classroom. How much of the classroom management can go to them?''

    Kee's eyes widened. She had never thought of this.

    ''Everything in your class is already clearly labeled, right?'' Koretsky asked.

    ''It is, it is,'' Kee answered.

    ''And the children like to help, right?''

    ''Oh, yes, they do,'' Kee said, and she was off and running. ''The books in the classroom library are labeled on the back to show what baskets they go in. They can put the books away. They can put away the crayons and pencils and things that I am forever cleaning up after they are gone. I can make a list of all the possible jobs within the classroom. We already have a daily job board. I can also make an afternoon job board, and each afternoon we could stop and take just a few minutes to do those. I have 19 students. If we spent 10 minutes. . . . I just thought of a job! Museum curator! They could help me set up the boards where their work is displayed.''

    ''So this idea sounds like it would work?'' Koretsky asked.

    ''It's a plan,'' Kee said.

. . . .

My Path to Diagnosis

I was first diagnosed in the summer of 2000. I was seeing a therapist and she suggested that some of my difficulties were related to ADD. But it wasn't until the summer of 2002 that I actively sought treatment. Here's why:

I was teaching third-graders at a half-day remedial summer program for kids who had failed their standardized reading test, math test, or both. It seemed like a nice set-up. Teach for four hours, then go to the beach, right? Wrong. The time with kids wasn't really the problem. Yes, there is a problem with subjecting 8 year-olds to high-stakes tests and then giving them the stake when they fail.

But for me that summer was also an exercise in frustration. I remember one afternoon in particular when I was still at school at 4pm. The kids had been dismissed at 1, the other teachers had all gone by 2, the custodians were done by 3, and I was still there because I just couldn't concentrate on the paperwork. I distinctly remember getting up to get something, walking halfway across my classroom, and realizing that I couldn't remember what it was I needed. This happened three times in one hour. After that day, I got myself to a doctor and started my ADD treatment in earnest.

Yet despite my personal difficulties with ADD, I know I have it good.

The simple fact that I am an adult allows me to control my environment in a way that I could not when I was a child. Trial and error and error and success have taught me strategies that help me function well. My medicine, my support network (including my ADD coach), and my freedom to experiment all help me to be successful.

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Our Students

Our students don't have that freedom. They may or may not be medicated. They haven't learned a whole lot of strategies. And they certainly don't have an ADD coach. Thus, as teachers we play a crucial role in helping our students with attentional difficulties. But just because our role is important doesn't mean it's easy. Students with ADD can be very difficult to reach and teach.

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On This Page...

Introduction

The NYT article

My_Path_to_Diagnosis

Our_Students

ADD Links

Photo by Alessandra Petlin for The New York Times

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This page was updated: September, 2006.

Copyright © 2004-2006 Ayana Kee