Mac Gander, Dec 8, 2014 NB: This is the first of two pieces on education and contemporary American society. It focuses on the structure of public education and the impact of this structure on children who have challenges complying with it. The second piece will examine the impact of the digital revolution on teaching and learning. When I present to educators on the topic of learning differences, I emphasize how vital it is to engage multiple perspectives or frames of reference in order to gain a rich rather than one-dimensional understanding. I picked up this habit during the years I worked as a journalist in my twenties—that idea that you need to hear a story from all sides, and that the true story only begins to emerge after you have done this. I tend to focus on ADHD, since it is our current epidemic—11 percent of school-age kids have been diagnosed with it at some point. I like to lay out several different approaches. History provides one guide: what we know call ADHD was first labeled a “failure of moral development.” Social and educational policy is interesting: the social legislation related to ADD in the area of Medicare, Supplemental Security Income, and Special Education in public schools all changed around 1990 to expand coverage to ADHD. Between 1990 and 1993, the number of people diagnosed with ADHD in the US expanded from about 900,000 to 2.1 million. The disorder had been incentivized. The clinical or psychiatric perspective holds that there is a chemical imbalance in the brain—a problem with transmission and re-uptake of dopamine, a neurotransmitter related to a broad range of functions and feelings, like satisfaction, motivation, and focus. This imbalance reduces the ability to stay focused and motivated, and to inhibit response to novelty and stimulus. Stimulant medications substitute for this missing chemistry, and function for people with ADHD the way eye-glasses function for people who are near-sighted. Researchers in cognitive psychology who are interested in creativity provide another perspective. ADHD and creativity have been rarely studied, but the core deficit in ADHD—a failure to inhibit distraction—has been studied in relation to creative and divergent thinking. It turns out that the worse you are at inhibiting distraction, the better you are at tests of creative and divergent thinking. The research on this score is conclusive. Read More ➤
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 15:51:29 +0000
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