Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Today I want to share something I am dealing with. Bear with me for a minute because I think a little back story is necessary. I will attempt to be concise, but no promises. It is not a strength. I am 53 year old women. As a young child I was active, inquisitive and basically all over the place. I struggled in school, teachers either found me charming or annoying. I was a solid C student, and was thrilled by a B or any praise given. That was until about half way through college when my mother found a set of cassette tapes called "Where There's A Will There's an A", John Ritter was actually the celebrity spokesperson. It actually helped. I learned some strategies for note taking and preparing for tests. Although my grades took a definite turn for the better I never considered myself "smart". I had my strengths for sure, but I attributed the successes in my life to my strategies and my failures to my lack of ability or discipline.
So let's fast forward to my late 40's. I had been married for 20 plus years, raised 2 children and successfully taught numerous children. My opinion of myself had not really changed over the years. I saw myself as a kind, hard working, nurturer who struggled with staying on top of everything. I was like the proverbial duck on a swimming in a pond. On the surface all appears calm, but under the water there was a tornado happening. When the hormonal upheaval of menopause crept into my daily life my ability to stay on top of everything became more difficult, and more things began to fall through the cracks. My husband expressed a concern and I of course was irritated by the suggestion I didn't have it all under control. I do have a family history of dementia so his concerns were warranted. I had always had a bad memory. I believed it was just how I am wired. In an attempt to put the conversation to bed I made an appointment with a psychiatrist in town. After the initial appointment she was confident I was not suffering from dementia, but had extreme anxiety and symptoms consistent with ADHD. The doctor felt the anxiety was the source of my difficulties and the ADHD played only a minor role. I began a treatment protocol for the anxiety and purchased a book on adult ADHD. There was definite improvement and for the most part I was feeling pretty good about myself and my capabilities.
Three years ago my husband took a new job across the country. Together we decided it was time to pack up and move south. A decision I am still happy with today in spite of the changes it required. Over the course of the last three years we have started a whole new life. My husband started a new role within a new company. We moved. Our children graduated from college and started graduate programs on the other side of the country and in a whole different country. And of course, the hormonal upheaval of menopause continued to plague my daily life. Once again I began to drop the ball. These types of issues can be attributed to so many things and can often be misdiagnosed or overlooked. I was beginning to feel like maybe there was a bigger issue and I made the decision to make an appointment with a neurologist in brain clinic. During the initial appointment I held nothing back. I gave him every detail of my personal and family history. I was not concise. And then I said, "I just want to know. Should I be worried?" After an initial screening he was confident I did not have any signs of the early stages of dementia. But . . . considering my history it would be a good idea to get a baseline and a complete neuro-psychological profile. I agreed to the testing, but was a little bit scared. It turned out to be the best thing I could have done and a total disrupter.
All the medical tests came out normal with no cause for concern. It was that neuro-psych evaluation that changed things for me. Have you ever had one of these? I had no memory of every having it done. It was four hours of different tests that required every ounce of concentration and attention I had. It left me exhausted. When I say I just wanted a cookie and nap I am not exaggerating. I spent the next 6 weeks was wondering what they were going to tell me. Everything else was fine so it basically came down to this. What would the results tell them? Tell me? Did I want to know? I don't want to say I was wondering if I was crazy, but I was wondering if it was possible. What exactly would all those cubes and questions tell them? I was definitely sweating as I sat in front of my computer waiting for the doctor to join the call and go over the results. So here is where it gets interesting. My memory recall and processing speeds are actually very good! How is that possible was my response. As it turns out I am actually smart, have an excellent memory and am pretty quick minded. All of this goes completely against what I have always thought and been told. I was stunned. The doctor simply stated that you cannot process or remember what you never grasped in the first place. At some point should I not have figured this out. I am a teacher for God's sake! The testing clearly showed the underlying issue is my ability to sustain attention and most likely has been for my entire life.
What to do with this information now? I am 53. My career as a teacher is over. My role as a mom will never go away, but is much less demanding and time consuming. My immediate thought was to go back to school. I can see it clearly, me walking through the hallowed halls of a prestigious university flexing my newly discovered brain power! As much as I love a college campus and learning new things I don't think this is the next step for me just now. I think I may have already found the direction I should be going. Continuing to learn and research topics that interest me and then share that information with anyone interested is what feels right today. Tomorrow I may feel differently, but today it fits.
Now to the point. I said I would try to be concise and I did try, even if I was not successful. In the final year of my classroom teaching I had an amazing group of students with very different needs and challenges, so much so that I felt ill equipped to meet the challenge. I perused extra training in anything that I thought might make me more successful at meeting the needs of each student. What I found was that the specific accommodations for some were often beneficial to all. I started making adjustments to not only the way I taught individuals, but in how I taught the class. Giving visual prompts not just to the students with IEPs but to the entire class was where I started. I noticed that it normalized accommodations and the kids that needed them used them freely IEP or no IEP. The results were so gratifying and eye opening. My point of sharing my personal story along with my classroom experience is that I believe we do not know how many kids in our classroom could benefit from adjustments/accommodations being made for some. So many kids go through the school system without ever being identified. They have learned to mask their struggles or coping strategies that keep them from getting the support they need. I want to be careful here, because I am not suggesting that every kid should go through testing and get a label. In my case a label of ADHD most likely would have been beneficial, but I have no way of knowing that. A label can help open a new world to a student, or it could put them in a box that does not allow them to grow.* There is a time for testing and time not to and that decision should be made on a case by case basis with all the stakeholders involved. What I am saying is why wouldn't we take strategies we know assist in executive functioning and learning and make them available to the whole class. I believe that we need to take a look at how we have done things in education, especially in the area of accommodations and make some adjustments. I think it is time for some disruption in our educational system. Why not start here?
Just my thoughts based on my experience. If you have any experiences that you would like to share I would love to hear them.
*I will expand on this view in a later post, just not the place for today's discussion.
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