response to Austin

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2001 : November : 15

response to Austin
By anon

I want you to know that I agree very strongly with you on many points. I am a huge advocate of parent's rights. I also hold them highly responsible. I also think ADD is way over diagnosed. (However, I think we need to
also be careful to not blur true ADD as merely the behavior of children -- there is a huge difference between ADD and childish behavior.) I also think it is the teacher's job to find a way to help every child learn and that takes a major emphasis on classroom management and even thinking outside the box. Absolutely, we are in this for the kids. I am not looking for "easy" answers.
However,

I am a teacher with many years of experience and I did notice some things in the original post that directed my response. (Maybe I read between the lines too much, but I was only raising possible issues, not giving definitive advice.) What I noticed was that the child was on 2 meds prescribed by a psychiatrist. The fact that there are 2 and they were prescribed by a psyc. made me consider that this is probably an issue other than ADD -- Tourettes, perhaps? I also read the teacher's comment about classroom mangagement and trying to create a community for her students, so I did not assume she was looking for an easy way out.

Frankly, I think your response was kind of pious and accusing. I totally understand that you think I gave a canned, anti-parent answer. I think my response was given while assuming good things about the original teacher. Yours assumed the worst and was blaming rather than trying to be helpful. Did you offer any management techniques? I encourage you to get specific with constructive suggestions rather than sweeping blame and gross generalizations around.