Blog Assignment #12

The Assignment

Watch Sir Ken Robinson's speech, Changing Education Paradigms.  Write 2 or more paragraphs discussing the video.  What do you think about what Sir Ken Robinson says about ADHD? 

My Post

First of all let me start out by saying that I love listening to Sir Ken Robinson speak.  He has such a simple and revolutionary ideas about education.  I was first introduced to him in Blog Post #2. in this animated speech, he discusses ideas of how our education system needs change.  We need to raise the standards of our education system. Our country is using a system that was developed centuries ago.  The students of today are of a complete and different, well, I guess race of their own kind.  They were born into a world of computers, internet, iPods, and hundreds of channels on the TV.  Then they go to school and they become bored.  So what is the solution?  Medicate them to calm them down and bring their focus back. 

ADHD is becoming so diagnosed, and according to Sir Robinson the diagnosis gets worse as you head to the east of the United States.  As previously stated, I am the mother of a child who is ADHD, or so the doctors have told me.  What happened to the kids in the animation, is exactly what happened to my son.  He started Kindergarten at the age of 5 and was expected to sit quietly to do his work for 8 hours.  Not a solid straight 8 hours though.  They do get recess and have physical education class.  The majority of his day, was spent inside of the classroom.  It was a MAJOR change from our family life -- which is rather energetic.  After all was said and done, and after several meetings at school, it was discussed that we should look into testing for my son.  He was put on medication and it completely wiped his personality out.  This broke my heart.  After several attempts to see what would work best, we found a doctor that understood my concerns, as well as, the schools concerns and found something that helped my son focus on school and still be himself.

No matter how much the material changes, a 5 year old boy is going to act like a 5 year old boy.

Sir Ken Robinson states, "the arts are the victims of this mentality.  Aesthetic experience is when the senses are operating at their peak."  What we are doing to our children is giving them a prescription and shutting their senses off.  They are not able to operate at their full peak.  So what do we do?  The options are this:  Keep medicating our children, and allow teachers to have a more "peaceful" classroom or not medicate our children and have teachers teach in a way that "wakes" them up.  

Having been around children for years, in a classroom and in my home, I will say that it is quite challenging at times when you have 25 six year old kids running around.  As teachers, we have to be able to channel that energy into productive, challenging, and most importantly engaging learning.  This is not such a simple task, but these are our kids.  They are our future.  Why wouldn't we take the challenge and turn it into opportunity.  

Everyone can see that our public education system needs change.  Change is never easy, but as my grandmother says, "anything worth having is worth fighting for".  I believe that I will "fight" for my own children and for the children in my future classroom.  Will you?