Back to School

In a former post, I mentioned Husband’s college transcripts and the number of incomplete courses or failures recorded on them.

Seriously, the total of both outnumbered the total of classes he passed, and that is really too bad. He is highly intelligent and knowledgeable.

He has always been the King of Trivial Pursuit and a storehouse for useless information. He takes pride in it.

He knows impractical nonsense such as who Cloris Leachman went to high school with. I mean, seriously folks, how many people even know who Cloris Leachman is?

It seems absurd he failed his classes. He should have passed with an exceptionally high GPA.

During our younger days, college courses challenged everything related to his ADHD, only we did not know it then. I thought he merely lacked self-discipline and motivation.

Yes, that may have been part of the problem, but those were the days before Strattera and before we really knew about ADHD or even much about minimal brain dysfunction.

But as we think about it today, had he known his psychiatrist then, his college career would have been much more successful.

As he told her this week: “Had we known you then, I would have been much more successful. Of course when we were 20, you were about five, and someone would have accused you of being a drug dealer.”

The point was made though. When Husband needed structure, attention, focus, and ability to plan ahead, help was not available.

Today it is different. Today he has returned to college for another degree and is performing quite well in all his courses.

He earned his first degree after age 50 in a well-designed program for nontraditional adult learners. Everything in the design took into consideration that adults have different learning needs than people in their late teens and early 20’s, and the one-night-per-week model suited him perfectly.

Even before Strattera, he did well with those late-life classes because I served as his external structure, reminding him of when assignments were due and when he should write course papers.  At the time, all five of us were enrolled in some level of college. The pressure to keep up with the rest of us provided motivation for him.

“I can’t let the rest of you out-do me. Besides, I have my own professor in the house.”

Currently, he is enrolled in an online learning environment which requires him to go to his class nearly every day of the week. It has become his consistent link in his schedule.

He has finally learned to use his day planner. He has finally learned to remember when his online seminars take place. He has made friends with making lists.

His medication helps his concentration, but so do the nature of his courses and how applicable they are to his real life.

Of course he still plays Trivial Pursuit with all of us. His favorite topic is anatomy and physiology. We hear all about the medical terms, and the functions of the body systems, and how he is thoroughly intrigued with the human body.

His latest final in one of the A&P courses required him to write a paper on the digestive system of the human body. So, he wrote about being on a surfboard riding the waves through an imaginary man’s system beginning in the mouth and ending out the out place. In one place he read how he used a quote from his instructor. The next line he wrote “ and there is the swish, swish sound made by the kissing up to the instructor.” I thought it was funny, but a bit immature. The instructor loved it, though.

I admit his approach demonstrated his sense of creativity and the amount of knowledge he gained from his study of the system.