MY STORY

During kindergarten and the first-grade, I had teachers who made me feel like I could do anything; they praised my intelligence, fostered a deep passion for learning, kept me busy in and around the classrooms, and did their best to help me socialize without overwhelming my peers with my intense, yet well-meaning energy. Enter the second and third grades, I had teachers, who were much stricter in comparison. Of course, at the time, I was frustrated when it was required that I write my full first and last name on every worksheet- I thought I was cunning to just write my initials- it made sense to me- no one else had my initials and she already knew my handwriting- why did I have to waste my time and effort, I wondered? In the third grade, the teacher called my parents in for a meeting; she wanted to know why I would randomly leave my desk to do cartwheels and would often stare out the window “at the birds” for long periods of time. My parents couldn't seem to understand why I was so “wild” and needed constant stimulation and redirection.

During the fourth and fifth grades, though my awareness of my reduced self-regulation increased, my ability to control my behaviors seemed to progress at a snail's pace. I continued to call out the answer prior to being called on (even if my hand was raised), walk around the room, begin assignments that would never be finished, lose my belongings, speak almost every thought out loud, and demonstrate an intense sense of justice, and my daydreaming seems to occupy my entire brain. Thankfully, my fifth-grade teacher, whom was given a class with several students similar to me, decided to think outside of the box and employed some basic principles of reward and motivation in combination with intellectual stimulation, understanding, and the right amount of difficulty. He would assign elective “challenges”; memorizing the preamble to the constitution, identifying all 206 bones in the body, reciting the capital cities for every state, etc. Now we were talking.

Moreover, around this time, I was invited to be part of the school’s “gifted program.” This was very fortunate for me, not because I was smart or needed praise or an alternate curriculum, but because it allowed my brain and body to be stimulated in a manner that was novel and engaging, as well as to spend time with similar peers from outside my classroom. It wasn’t until much later in life, largely through work within my own profession, that I came to have an understanding of what a ADHD and 2E (twice-exceptional) were, and that I had been living it the whole time. I have always been drawn to others who were “different” and I’ve always had a passion to understand and connect with children.