While I still stand by my big idea of eye candy being a contributing factor to ADHD, I’m tweaking my talk just a bit. I still intend to use this theory as one of my points, but bottom line, as a teacher, I don’t care what causes it, I just care how to DEAL with it in the classroom. I’m leaning toward how the ADHD student has improved my teaching practice, and forced me to step away from the lectern, get the chairs out of rows, and shred the workbook pages. The ADHD student simply cannot conform to the stringent “old-school” way of teaching. Over the years, as I found techniques that were effective (some more than others) for ADHD children, I discovered my “regular” students responded with more enthusiasm as well. I had to look myself in the mirror and realize my techniques were CONTRIBUTING to the attention problems. I was not teaching to the needs of the child. The majority of my talk will be about the successes, and failures as I stepped out of the box to teach to the individual, and how ADHD children led the way.
I remember you were talking about the cause of ADHD in the early part of the semester and I am very interested in watching your TED talk!
Teachers did to focus on “what works/what doesn’t,” but I’d like to push you beyond this idea, and look to find out why something works. There’s not much time in regular ed teaching to do that, but that’s one of the purposes for graduate education. You have the opportunity to look behind why something works or find out about teaching options, and that there’s a lot out there (we’re talking about the research – teaching connection or disconnect).
I may need to tweak my TED Talk a bit.