Dec 28 2012: At any rate sorry for the multiple long winded replies I was compelled to be as informative as possibly due to my experience helping people in the ADHD and Spectrum community. I also work with people with ADHD leaving corrections with recover issues. I know it sounds like I am being a monk or a saint however I find that due to my own ADHD and other issues I am able to understand them and they say that they feel understood. Additionally my Father was an unsung hero in my Childhood neighbourhood with a gift for helping troubled youth. I somehow learned this by association and observation at the wonder of this ability. He owned his own custom steel fabrication business and often employed people no one else would. My Father had a simple philosophy “If you can do the work, you have the work, if can’t do the work but are willing to learn and are teachable you have the work!” Simple, effective, accepting, and my Father also had ADHD he was diagnosed late upon my insistence upon my diagnosis.
Again I apologize for the very long replies.
Take care and have a great weekend!
Dec 28 2012: For 3 years I have worked with a 55 year old man from China diagnosed with ADHD and Aspergers. He was judged “Rebellious” “Not Good Student” and never received education in any form. Upon landing in Canada he began to spend all his time at Libraries. He educated himself. He is amazing. Once while driving to a dinner in part to his honour he asked “Clifton… do you feel like a loser?” to which I replied “Yes Dani, I often have in the past but not so much now.” It has been a very long haul of perpetual positive reinforcement with Dani. What I find extremely upsetting is the Social Agencies and Social Workers who send him for “Assessment testing” for suitability for employment only to tell him he is not suitable. Dani has always worked to the degree he could. He loves to work despite the social anxiety he suffers because in his own words “I do not feel like such a loser when I work!” So the system in Canada is fiercely invested in telling Dani that he is a loser (in his words, not mine) all the intervention is for the sole purpose of informing him he is a victim and is disabled and should not even attempt to work. What he believes he is hearing is that no one wants to allow him to work, he is somewhat paranoid of tampering professionals. All Dani wants is to be in a Graphic Design Studio or even a library with a Graphic Design Professional to watch and learn, he will do the rest and he will find his own employment. Believe me, Dani hears the phrase “New Educational Paradigm” all the time. We have a loose knit library club of ADHDers to bounce ideas off each other and undo damage by well meaning professional educators. This group ranges in age 18 to 70, we get along just fine without the educational oligarchy selling the lame idea of E.Q. (Emotional Quotient), and Social Skills. Educators like all skilled professionals are being replaced in part due to economics. Their security is superstition and they need to wake up to their imminent demise.
Dec 28 2012: Dr. Ed Hallowell and Dr.John J. Ratey are considered leaders in the ADHD community. Nancy A. Ratey, Ed.M, MCC, SCAC, is a strategic life coach specializing in coaching high-achieving professionals with ADHD wrote “The Disorganized Mind” for people with ADHD to understand the role of the Coach in their lives. Dr. John J. Ratey wrote a book “Spark” which advocates exercise as a treatment/medication for ADHD. However it still does not advocate elimination of medication till it is evident it is unnecessary.
I would have to summarize the new Education Spectrum Paradigm as “WE LEARN BY DOING” this seems to be the best description I see with the people I work with. They appear to know what they want to do and if I provide them with the positive environment for them to pursue what is in them and that they have a BURNING DESIRE to achieve which inevitably is the creation of a life that they will love they simply launch with more than abundant energy and create it. Positive support is necessary along with a positive environment they can immerse themselves in and access to people in the fields they require to achieve their intended goals. Above all, people attempting to make them into something they think they should be, need to be eliminated from interfering with them. The last thing they need is more rejection and judgment or educators who assume they know what they need.
Dec 28 2012: The new paradigm Ken Robinson is referring to is in fact quite old. Europe and in particular Russia is quite advanced in this form of education. Physical education to this day is very important and unique to Russia. Several countries in Europe were successfully using this new paradigm in the 1920’s. Sweden, Germany, Russia, and many others including India were using this new educational paradigm. I was fortunate to be enrolled in Canada for one year in this new paradigm. However what Ken Robinson is proposing is very limited and incomplete. The hypothesis was that the brilliant students were in fact the less bright students and the poor performing students were the bright students. Mind Mapping, Exercise, non-linear thinking and presentation were integral in proving this hypothesis. Learning for the Spectrum Disordered Child is very different as ADHD and Autism are being diagnosed together now, it is becoming very common. In Europe academic drawing, music education, is part of the curriculum but it is not considered art but valuable tools to aid in communication and presentation. So I find Ken Robinson’s “Changing education paradigms” to be quite old and dated with little relevance to present day issues. Considering it is now established that people with ADHD and/or Spectrum Disorders learn online with superior results than teacher led environments. I work with people with Spectrum disorders. I have for 15 years now, mentoring them for employment. I am now working with an International Corporation creating a Graphic Design Studio for disabled people of which the largest contingent will be people with Neurological issues such as ADHD and Spectrum disorders. Unfortunately we have found that without diagnosis and medication people with ADHD do not thrive in the workplace. We accept non-medicated people with ADHD but the problems are almost always too disruptive to succeed. There are a few exceptions, but that is all.
Dec 28 2012: I do not understand your statement “rigorously diagnosed with ADHD repeatedly.” If you were diagnosed by a Developmental Psychiatrist it would only need to be done once correctly. If you had studied medicine you would know of the relationship between TaqI A polymorphism of DRD2 gene and ADHD. This has been widely published in genetic journals. Considering ADHD is a relatively recent diagnosis I do not understand how you arrived at the determination of the diagnosis of your Grandfather and Grandmother. I do not know your age however the ADHD diagnosis was revised from Attention Deficit Disorder in 1987. Prior to that it was known as Attention Deficit Disorder, prior to this it was known as “Minimal Brain Dysfunction” and/or “Hyperkinetic Disorder of Childhood” approximately in 1960, prior to that it was believed to be “Defect of Moral Control”, “Post-Encephalitic Behavior Disorder”, even “Bad Core” as in evil and by some Physicians, not just the general public. Around 1937 stimulants were found to greatly improve ADHD behaviour. So again I do not know how diagnosis would have been achieved in your Grandparents nor even in your Aunts and Uncles. It was really only in the 1980’s that it became more common and then only by Developmental Psychiatrists, due to the difficulty in accurate diagnosis at that time. I encounter people who think they have ADHD or that their entire family has ADHD yet they are unable to elaborate on their personal experiences, issues, difficulties and successes. A child with a correct diagnosis of ADHD and not ADHD affect must be diagnosed to prevent a decline in cognitive ability. This is irrefutable and not the domain of educators but of developmental psychiatrists. Regarding other medical issues if you are referring to Comorbid Conditions then yes that is correct; bipolar depression, aspergers sydrome, and many other issues are possible. Treatment is always on an individual basis, each Child presents differently.
Dec 10 2012: There are other words than Gratefulness, Mindfulness, Contemplation and Appreciation can work. I appreciate that I am alive, I appreciate that evolution has brought humans to awareness we exist, that life in and of itself is quite wondrous. Meditation develops the region of the brain I mentioned in an earlier post. Awareness brings intelligence and sharing and compassion. Organic life avoids pain and seeks pleasure.
Personally I have experienced pain in my life, I did not like it one bit and I know of no one who likes it so I am compassionate. If I were NOT alive I would not have experienced anything. So to me life is special.
Dec 10 2012: What is God? Simple! Not you nor I… why? We need a point of unity and conformity outside ourselves to act as a axiomatic symbol of defeat and an expression of need and a cry for help. This intuitive concept was unconsciously formed when humans were unable to cope with the complexities, hardships and the terrible heartbreak of the loss of loved ones. Neuroscience has identified a region of the brain that allows for a state of perspective outside of ourselves. This state can be so convincing that people in terrible catastrophes may experience what is called “The Third Person”. This is where someone mortally wounded in let us say a car accident, alone, on a highway near death is comforted by a person who does not exist. There are thousands and thousands of these accounts and through the miracle of modern medicine and a strong desire to live these people survived. Upon asking about the compassionate person who was with them in their moment of need paramedics replied that there was no one present when they arrived. Yet this compassionate person even interacted with the Paramedics. This region of the mind allows us to get outside ourselves, often people refer to a paradigm shift in their concept of life and who they are because they were able to use this region of the brain to accept painful truths about themselves and their hurtful behaviour to others… to be continued.
Dec 9 2012: ADHD is not a fictitious modern plague. It is an impairment in the executive function of the frontal lobe of the brain. Public discussion based on nothing more than opinion will never have affect on the diagnosis of ADHD. A person with correctly diagnosed ADHD by a developmental psychiatrist and correctly treated can create a life that they will love, with the correct supports. People with ADHD are not here to be the poster boys and girls for social fascists to be publicly tampered with for the sole purpose of placating their inability to grasp the harm their ignorance inflicts on people with ADHD. If a person correctly diagnosed with ADHD by a professional developmental psychiatrist with endless years of education and accreditation by people NOT in the Arts but in the field of Medicine were to be denied treatment and correctly prescribed medication will experience cognitive decline! Yes! That is correct! They experience a decline in their IQ! As I have stated, all the public argument, all the Faux proof and Faux expert websites on the topic matter for naught and I am grateful! The last time I checked, surrounding a person correctly diagnosed with ADHD with troupes of Mimes, Orchestras, Painters, Multimedia Artists, Dancers, Social Scientists has not made ADHD disappear… this and so much more has been all done before including inquisitions with torture and murdering people with ADHD! Personally I will go with Psychiatry and Pharmacology every time… why? They deliver results every time and the results keep improving with time! I do acknowledge that correct diet and exercise can improve the life of an ADHDer but it will never make it go away. Exercise as a treatment places a ridiculous amount of burden on the ADHDer in the professional workplace. It it catch 22 situation. However I do agree with its effectiveness, but it is not a solution, merely an improvement..
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A reply on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
Again I apologize for the very long replies.
Take care and have a great weekend!
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
I would have to summarize the new Education Spectrum Paradigm as “WE LEARN BY DOING” this seems to be the best description I see with the people I work with. They appear to know what they want to do and if I provide them with the positive environment for them to pursue what is in them and that they have a BURNING DESIRE to achieve which inevitably is the creation of a life that they will love they simply launch with more than abundant energy and create it. Positive support is necessary along with a positive environment they can immerse themselves in and access to people in the fields they require to achieve their intended goals. Above all, people attempting to make them into something they think they should be, need to be eliminated from interfering with them. The last thing they need is more rejection and judgment or educators who assume they know what they need.
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
A comment on Conversation: Should we feel gratitude for our life? To whom?
Personally I have experienced pain in my life, I did not like it one bit and I know of no one who likes it so I am compassionate. If I were NOT alive I would not have experienced anything. So to me life is special.
A comment on Conversation: Should we feel gratitude for our life? To whom?
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms