Throwing Themselves Across Their Students

Last night and throughout this morning we’ve heard stories of heroic teachers who placed their own bodies as shields across their little students when the killer tornado destroyed Moore, Oklahoma.

Who knows how many young lives were spared because of teachers’ personal sacrifice? Who knows how many of us will continually wipe away tears as we hear these stories repeated?

In my association with ADHD, I often hear the hurts and complaints parents express concerning their children with ADHD. Justifiably, several parents protest that teachers just do not understand ADHD as a disorder, or they do not attempt to accommodate or modify the learning environment for the ADHD student. However, that is not every teacher of students with ADHD, and it is not every parent.

I know many teachers who are heroes every day for students with all types of special-learning needs, including ADHD. I’ve taken part in many conversations with them throughout the past 35 years, and I know the ways in which they lay their lives on the line for their students.

Husband tells me of his own school days when ADHD might have been considered Minimal Brain Dysfunction, but his own parents didn’t know that term, and possibly his teachers didn’t either. He was merely a whinny little boy who did not live up to his apparent potential. As a teen he was the highly-intelligent emerging adult who appeared totally unmotivated and somewhat lazy.

If it hadn’t been for the teachers who laid their lives on the line for him, he wouldn’t have achieved as much as he has as an adult.

For example, he tells of Mrs. Sutley in first grade, “She treated me like my mother. She was a loving and giving adult. She liked to ask questions that helped me stop and think in ways that were very appropriate for the things we studied. I didn’t always have my attention focused on things, but she gently drew me back to my work by talking kindly and touching me on the shoulder.”

Miss Ekert in the second grade provided motivation. “Every week on Friday, Miss Ekert had a prize for students who did well in reading and spelling. She gave me a goal and reason to learn to spell and read. She was also the teacher Mother paid to drive me and my siblings to school each morning, so Mother wouldn’t have to get out that early.”

“In fifth grade I would get up during teaching time and walk around the classroom. The teacher was not hateful to me about getting back to my chair, but she let me return and get seated quietly without drawing negative attention to me. Each day, she chose two or three students to eat lunch with her around her desk. She talked with us about world events; it was like a friendship. She valued my opinion.”

Of course in high school, Sarah Harvey, junior-level English won his heart with her with her kindness and the fact he felt it easy to ask her questions. “If I didn’t get it right away, she patiently explained in two or more ways until I understood. She would stand in the front of the classroom and lecture us about English or a book, and then call on one of us to the blackboard to explain what she had said. Other students would confirm or challenge. It gave me a reason to pay attention in class.”

The stories support the many minute strategies teachers use in classrooms every day across our community schools. They lay groundwork for future ADHD adults who will recall their own school experiences with grateful memories and even hearts. I applaud teachers’ heroic efforts to understand the way students with ADHD function, and to work within their students’ strengths and areas of interest. If you know a teacher who demonstrates extra effort on the part of your student with ADHD, please take time to thank them before the end of this school year.