Spring 2006

Wellbeing and connectedness

School skills ward off more ills

The label Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is being attached to an increasing number of young people. Brenton Prosser implores caregivers to find a solution that is not about medical intervention.

You hear a lot of heartbreaking and inspiring stories when researching young people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and their families. I heard another thought-provoking story just last month.

A man in his early twenties took me aside at a conference and, with a sense of urgency, asked me about the long-term impact of drug treatment for ADHD. He revealed that he had been diagnosed with ADHD when eight years old. As we spoke further, he described growing up with ADHD, the struggles he had at school and how he now considered himself ‘adult ADHD’. Dispelling the myth that young people with ADHD are not intelligent, he also told me he had recently completed his PhD and was now working within the IT industry. It was after this that he paused and reflected: ‘You know, if it wasn’t for the demands of my PhD and the pressure of my job, I don’t think I would still need to be taking my ADHD medication’.

It is a story that leads me to ask why it is that some contemporary Australians find it necessary to take medication to cope with the demands of modern schooling and work.

Whatever your view of ADHD, the world in which so many children are now diagnosed with the disorder has changed immensely in the past thirty years. As blue-collar work has dwindled, there is less space for people who abound in physical energy, are intuitive rather than logical and work through challenges by doing rather than reflecting.

The benchmark for behaviour in our classrooms is increasingly based on the traditional model of the hard-working, studious female student, and because schools are primarily geared towards a one-size-fits-all standard of success, successful students are passive and compliant.

Outside of school, many of the avenues for letting off steam once available to young people are disappearing from the urban landscape. Parents are too afraid to let their kids go to the local shops alone. Increasingly, adults are more likely to be at a workstation than a worksite and young people are safer at a PlayStation than in a playground.

Life is also moving faster; working hours are longer. According to the Australia Institute, Australians now work longer hours than German, American, and even Japanese workers. Our competitive workplace now wants employees who are not only smart and creative, but focused and compliant as well. Schools have the job of trying to instil these conflicting qualities in their students in order to make them workplace-ready. Some young people can cope with this, but with such huge social and technological shifts in such a short time, it’s a big ask to expect all human beings, diverse as we are, to adapt to these new rules in less than one generation.

An interesting way to think about this in Australia is to reflect on the Anzac ideal. This ideal encompasses qualities such as courage, creativity and taking on the world, as well as being energetic, rebellious and anti-authoritarian. It could be argued that while we laud the Anzac legend to our youth, we also wish to curb in our schools any imitation of the very qualities that helped the Anzacs survive and succeed. Could it be that today’s young Australians are much more like the Anzacs than our values for schooling would acknowledge or our society accept?

It seems to me that what we now call a ‘disorder’ could be blamed, at least in part, on a mismatch between the natural diversity of human behaviours and a world that has changed so much that these behaviours no longer fit. This is not to dismiss the difficulties families face, but rather to point out that, as a community, we all need to take some responsibility for ADHD.

Past efforts within schools have mostly focused on getting children to fit their surroundings through medical or other interventions. However, in addition to asking how children with ADHD are failing in our schools, should we not also be asking what it is about our schools that is failing them?

Through no fault of their own, these young people struggle to meet social preferences for certain behaviour, while their lives grow increasingly troubled both at home and at school. Yet there persists a belief, even among many professionals and policymakers, that somehow these children are the troublemakers.

So how can we as educators support a new view of ADHD?

Firstly, we need to dispel some of the myths that surround ADHD. Poor parenting, diet or too much television do not cause ADHD. Research shows that these things may have an influence, but they are not root causes. Another popular myth is that parents are keen to drug their children as a quick fix. Evidence reveals that the majority of parents are reluctant to medicate their child and ADHD diagnosis is only sought after they feel schools have failed to provide adequate support. In my experience, the myths around ADHD are more often about shifting the blame than finding a solution.

Secondly, we must recognise that if we only ask medical questions about ADHD, we will only get medical answers and more drug treatment. We need a broader explanation that also answers the educational questions. With children spending about half their daylight hours at school, ADHD is a major part of many of today’s classrooms. Doctors and other professionals work with children with ADHD for only a few hours each month, while teachers, like parents, are in the front-line. Teacher support is vital to help these students. The expertise of educators, so often excluded from ADHD debate, is imperative for a broader explanation of ADHD.

Thirdly, we need to address some of the pressures increasingly being placed on students and teachers. My research shows that teachers are often caught between the significant needs of a few students and the broader needs of the whole class. Teachers need more time and resource support to keep this tension in balance, especially when larger class sizes dictate more ‘chalk and talk’ teaching—which does not suit students with ADHD.

I have found that the problem is not that the students with ADHD do not understand their schoolwork, but that schools often do not understand how these students work. There needs to be more teacher education on the issue. ADHD must be seen as a cluster of associated difficulties (including educational) and while pills may provide a ‘window of opportunity’, only educational support can provide the skills needed for the greater social and academic demands of secondary school.

Finally, and most importantly, we need to be looking at recent priorities in education and asking exactly who is failing whom when it comes to ADHD?

References

Diller, L (1998). Running on Ritalin, Bantam Books, New York.

Little, E (2003). Kids Behaving Badly: Teacher strategies for classroom behaviour, Pearson Education Australia, South Melbourne.

DuPaul, G & Stoner, J (1994). ADHD in Schools: Assessment and intervention strategies, Guildford Press, New York.

Prosser, B (2006). ADHD: Who’s failing who?, Finch Publishing, Sydney.

Brenton Prosser is a research fellow at the University of South Australia.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au