AEG Blog

Children are naturally messy creatures.  With the exception of those who are genetically wired to organize and clean, children need to be taught how to maintain all of their stuff whether it is papers, toys, clothing or books. 

This can be especially true with ADHD children who can be in a room full of clutter and not even notice it.  According to End Household Clutter: ADHD Organization Help for Kids from ADDitude Magazine:

First, a word about why kids with ADD are so good at creating clutter. It's not that they're inconsiderate. It's not that they are defiant or disrespectful. It's the way they're wired. They get so focused on tasks that they fail to notice the mess they've created. If the mess is pointed out, they may be clueless as to how to clean it up - or may start cleaning up at once, only to stop before finishing.

So if a child doesn't naturally gravitate toward the organizing bins at the neighborhood supercenter, he will need to be taught how to clean up.  And for ADHD kids it will also be important to maximize their chances of success through specific strategies. The ADDitude article suggests four keys:

• Hang it up
• Throw it away
• Pick it up
• Put it away

Read the whole article for specific ways to implement these four suggestions with your child.

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What makes one teacher great and another merely good?  What is the difference between a great teacher who gets the most out of every student and the good one who manages to do an acceptable job?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is financing a two-year study of six school districts in order to discover what makes a great teacher.  The project will cost $45 million dollars.

One retired teacher believes he can save everyone the time and effort (and money) of undertaking the study.  He knows what makes a great teacher.

In Education Week's Attention, Gates: Here's What Makes a Great Teacher, James D. Starkey offers his perspective on the study:

When the Gates Foundation finally crunches all the numbers from its two-year research project, that is what it will discover. Great teaching is not quantifiable. As dorky as this sounds, great teaching happens by magic. It isn’t something that can be taught. I’m not even sure that good teaching can be taught. The only thing that I know can be taught is average teaching, and almost anybody who has paid attention through all those interminable hours in school classrooms and is willing to work hard can pull that off.

So, Bill and Melinda, listen up. Here are 10 qualities of a great teacher: (1) has a sense of humor; (2) is intuitive; (3) knows the subject matter; (4) listens well; (5) is articulate; (6) has an obsessive/compulsive side; (7) can be subversive; (8) is arrogant enough to be fearless; (9) has a performer’s instincts; (10) is a real taskmaster.

So what are the qualities of a great teacher?  Can any teacher learn to be a great teacher? Or are great teachers simply that way because of who they are? 

Technology impacts the way education is delivered at virtually every grade level.  But finding ways to make it truly effective in each individual student's learning process is much more challenging than simply wiring a school and setting up a computer lab. 

With the increase of digital tools available, educators are seeking new and creative ways to utilize them and, at the same time, maximize the personal approach to each student's education.

In Digital Tools Expand Options for Personalized Learning from The Christian Science Monitor, some of these very tools are explored and explained.

Vander Ark says that supplemental-service providers, like private tutoring companies or after-school programs, have taken the lead in offering tailored instruction. The ways those providers use assessment tools to gather and process data and then suggest a roster of activities for each student could pave the way for similar approaches within the school day, he says.

He points to one widely publicized model: New York City's School of One.

The pilot program at Dr. Sun Yat Sen Middle School in Chinatown provided math lessons that were customized every day to meet the individual needs, and progress, of the 80 incoming 7th graders who volunteered to attend the five-week session this past summer. The School of One combined face-to-face instruction, software-based activities, and online lessons designed to move each new 7th grader through a defined set of math benchmarks at his or her own pace.

As students entered school each morning, they could view their schedules for the day on a computer monitor—similar to the arrival-and-departure monitors at airports—and proceed to the assigned locations. A student’s schedule could include traditional lessons from a certified teacher, small-group work, virtual learning, or specific computer-based activities, most of them offered in converted space in the school library.

After each half-day of instruction, teachers entered data on students’ progress and instructional needs into a computer program that recommended the next day’s tasks.

(snip)

“When we ask ourselves how much instruction during the course of a typical school day does each student get exactly on the skill they’re working on, and in the amount that is right for them, the answer is very little,” says Joel Rose, a former teacher who has been instrumental in the development and expansion of the School of One.

“By leveraging technology to play a role in the delivery of instruction,” he says, “we can help to complement what live teachers do.”

As digital tools become increasingly more accessible, teachers have many options as they plan lessons for their students.  The most effective schools and teachers will utilize technology to create individual, personalized learning opportunities for each student based on his or her specific academic needs.

It is no secret that children learn differently.  Finding a way to customize and individualize education is one of the core values of American Education Group.

Class Struggle by Jay Matthews in The Washington Post featured a letter from educator Susan Ohanian entitled Elementary gifted ed made easy.  Ohanian recounts how she changed things up for students and made Resource a place of learning and exploration through open-ended "messing around".

Eons ago, I persuaded my principal, who was starting a new school that had a state mandate and funds to be innovative, to do away with remedial reading (I was the remedial reading teacher). We called my room Resource and I announced I was an adjunct of the media center.

(snip)

Mind you, I was still the remedial reading teacher--but we kept this secret from the kids. Teachers had a list of students who had to come to the room x times a week to fulfill our obligation to the state. For everyone else (K-6), it was student initiated: A child came when he could persuade his teacher to let him. There was no schedule and there were no bells.

(snip)

In the spring, state Education Department officials came to see why the reading scores for the identified remedial readers soared. As expected, they were mystified. Building bridges, making musical instruments, discovering the law of gravity in Remedial Reading? (One day my principal came into the room sputtering, "You mean to tell me that this heavy box and this ball fall at the same rate?" A student team dropping objects in the stairwell had been explaining their experiment to him.)

(snip)

I'm not trying to say what a good teacher am I. I'm just trying to say "yes" to your point about flexibility being the key. Different kids have different needs, and providing choices allows all children to soar at different things.

Understanding the learning style of each child is of paramount importance.  Accepting  learning differences and personalizing learning opportunities based on those realities means greater opportunities for all students.

Finding the best treatment for ADHD can be tricky.  It often involves trying different solutions until finding what works best for a particular child.  But there is one kind of treatment that is fairly easy to implement and costs almost nothing to try at home.

Some ADHD children respond very well to changes in diet.  Changes can include adding certain foods and eliminating others as described in Balanced Meals, Better Behaviors: Treating ADHD with Diet:

Faye Berger Mitchell, a registered dietitian from Bethesda, Maryland, has a nine-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with ADHD five years ago. While her daughter takes stimulant medicine to control her ADHD, Mitchell concluded that a pill is not enough.

She finds that when her daughter eats a well-balanced ADD-friendly diet, including vegetables, carbohydrates, fruits, and plenty of protein, her behavior tends to be more consistently under control.

“The biggest challenge is to get my daughter to eat protein,” she says. Protein is key, says Mitchell, because it can prevent surges in blood sugar, which may increase hyperactivity. For Mitchell, something as simple as slipping a little chicken or lean beef into every meal (and even into snacks) has made a difference for her daughter.

Making dietary changes can be an effective way to treat ADHD symptoms.  Like other alternative treatments, it may take some time and adjustments along the way to discover what works best.  But trying diet changes along with treatments suggested by the child's doctor may be a simple but effective way to improve ADHD symptoms.

A new study released by The Kaiser Family Foundation stated that tweens and teens (ages 8 - 18), spend approximately 7 hours and 38 minutes a day engaged in media.  That is a total of 53 hours a week.  When media multitasking was included, the number was even more astounding:

The numbers zoom even higher if you consider kids' multitasking — such as listening to music while on the computer. Those data show young people are marinating in media for what amounts to 10 hours, 45 minutes a day — an increase of almost 2.25 hours since 2004.

The report, M2: Media in the Lives of 8-to 18-Year-Olds, suggests that excessive media usage may have a negative impact on student learning:

When it comes to report cards, the Kaiser report finds a difference between heavy and light media users, though researchers note that they haven't determined cause and effect. Nearly half of all heavy media users, those who consume more than 16 hours a day (including time spent multitasking), say they usually get "fair or poor" grades compared with about a quarter of light users (less than 3 hours).

The full article and study (PDF) are both available online.
 

Blake Taylor knows what it is like to live with ADHD and has (narrowly) lived to tell about it.  Whether he was lighting the kitchen table on fire with eyeglass cleaner or contemplating what kind of car he is, Taylor has a knack for putting the reader right into the midst of his life growing up with ADHD.

ADHD & Me: What I Learned from Lighting Fires at the Dinner Table is an honest look at the ups and downs of having a learning difference.  It is not just a series of stories focusing on comical events and near tragedies.  He also explores the positive aspect of ADHD and encourages others to consider what they can gain from harnessing the learning difference.  He writes:

ADHD has many great qualities! Sometimes kids don’t realize this fact, but the very traits that make ADHD difficult to live with when you are very young also make it a gift as you get older. As Lara Honos-Webb said in her book, ADHD kids are “different and in a way that our culture has not learned to fully appreciate” (Honos-Webb 2005, 5). If you are hyperactive, as many ADHD individuals are, you have boundless energy to pursue many things. For instance, you can channel that energy into taking more classes than the average student, performing well on sports teams, playing an instrument, or finding the hours to actively participate in community service or in the arts and still have time for your friends. You have more energy than most people. You can accomplish more in a day.

This books would be of interest to any young adult, parent, teacher, grandparent or friend who wants to gain a better understanding of ADHD through the eyes of someone living with it. To read more about ADHD & Me, visit Blake Taylor's website.

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A student with learning differences benefits from a solid support system consisting of parents, teachers and other professionals.  But perhaps the greatest benefit of all comes when he understands his unique situation and learns to become his own advocate.

Helping Students Understand and Accept Their Learning Disabilities: The Demystification Conference from LD Online offers an interesting look into a yearly practice of the Churchill Center & School. Called the Demystification Conference, it is a time when students learn more about how they learn best, the impact of their learning differences on their lives, and how to make the most of those differences. From the article:

The yearly Demystification Conferences are an integral focal point of the year. Students become excited about learning and talking about themselves in a positive manner. They are able to express their creativity as well as their self-knowledge. Parents learn how their children are being taught and why the strategies, methods, and techniques are increasing their child's success. Most importantly, students become empowered by the fact that learning differently has little to do with how capable, intelligent, and talented they are as individuals.

The article explains the general pattern of the conference and how each student is involved in the planning. The planning includes planning how to present the information in a creative and age-appropriate format. 

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What makes one student with learning differences go on to achieve a successful and satisfying life while another one struggles his entire life?  Are there key factors that make or break a student's chances of becoming everything he hopes to be?

LD Online offers an in-depth analysis of what determines success among those with learning differences.  Life Success for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Parent's Guide looks at the results of their long-term study and offers suggestions for parents who are attempting to guide their child to success in life.  From the article:

Our 20-year study, in particular, highlighted the importance of six success attributes for individuals with learning disabilities. These success attributes included: self-awareness, proactivity, perseverance, goal-setting, the presence and use of effective support systems, and emotional coping strategies. It is important to emphasize that not every successful individual possesses each of these attributes, and some attributes may be present to a greater or lesser degree. Similarly, persons who might be considered "unsuccessful" may nevertheless possess some of the success attributes, again, to a lesser or greater degree.

What it does mean is that successful persons with learning disabilities are much more likely to have these characteristics than unsuccessful individuals. It is our hope that, by helping parents understand these success attributes, they will be better prepared to work with and guide their children toward satisfying and rewarding lives. It is also important to keep in mind that having these attributes does not guarantee success. Rather, it increases the chances of achieving a fulfilling and successful life. It is interesting to note that our research indicates that these characteristics may have a greater influence on success than even such factors as academic achievement, gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and even intelligence quotient (IQ).

The rest of the article goes on to explore each of the six success attributes including testimonials by different study participants.  It then provides parents with recommendations in each area to encourage an honest assessment of their child's current situation and to develop a plan for helping their child succeed.

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Whether you call it wired, plugged in, or just plain "on", students today are writing constantly.  Texting, emails, and online chatting are big among students.  Each involves writing in one form or another.  Someone's first instinct might be that all of this casual interaction is creating a new generation of students who can't write a decent sentence.  But a professor at Standford University thinks that just the opposite may be happening.

In Clive Thompson on the New Literacy from Wired.com, Andrea Lunsford states that we may be in the midst of one of the biggest literacy revolutions since Greek civilization.  From the article:

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That's because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

It's almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they'd leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

Thompson goes on to explore the idea that students today are much more in tune with writing for an audience than perhaps any recent generation.  And rather than all of this casual writing and chatting being a detriment in the classroom, Lunsford argues that students are still adept at focusing on the appropriate audience and writing in an appropriate style.

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