The Daily Riff - BE SMARTER. ABOUT EDUCATION.

I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but I have always had trouble paying attention. When my basketball coach would explain a play in the huddle, I would continually tell myself to pay attention. Then the time-out would be over and I would realize that I was trying to pay attention so hard that I didn't pay attention. In college, it takes everything I've got to stay awake in class and even though I love physics and math, I haven't been able to learn in lectures for three years because I am always thinking about other things. I refused to see a doctor when I was younger because I am very competitive and thought that taking drugs would be cheating. Now, as an executive manager for an entrepreneurial development company, my abilities to work in a chaotic environment and multi-task sales, marketing and management are my greatest skills.

In my opinion, it is the people like me that ADHD meds would have ruined.

Apparently if all non-educators can be experts in education then education reformers can be experts in neurology. There is a convincing amount (and quality) of research to show ADHD is real. There is no "epidemic" fake or otherwise. I found this portion of the talk flawed in a number of important respects at best and irrelevant and intellectually dishonest at worst.

ADHD meds don't anesthetize or make students do anything against their will. They do allow one to focus attention as one intends. Being in control of attention is a critical learning tool whether a student is listening to a teacher drone on or following his bliss at the Summerhill School. The implication that ADHD is somehow good for or related to divergent thinking is also deeply questionable. What saved Apollo 13 was divergent thinking and focus. What sorted the Challenger disaster was divergent thinking and focus on the simplest facts of the case (ok well maybe Feynman had ADHD...)

Where did he get the ADHD map?