I have struggled to find the courage to sit down and expel this story from where it lay, lodged deep down under some or other memories that I’m more comfortable with. I have told myself that this story would be difficult to write simply because of how not terrible the experience was as a whole. I believe the truth is that I’m uncertain of how this story will sound when it’s in print. What light may shed on these relics from my past. I sit here now determined to excavate that which I have long sought to inter.
I documented recently that I am a High School dropout, a fact I’ve been rather proud of lately. I especially enjoy flaunting this when someone bewails the matter of their student loans. I actually have a commenter from the other site to thank for this change in my outlook. Previously I carried my status as an embarrassment to myself, my family, and my country. All of which I blame on The Education System, and I’ll tell you why.
The Education System started treating me differently in the third grade. It was determined through basic observation and then confirmed through psychological testing that I have ADHD. I was placed in Behavior Adjustment Classes. BAC consisted of separate, smaller classes of kids with various issues. Take Steven for example: Steven came from a broken home and he had difficulty controlling his temper. His exact diagnoses, if any, I was not privy to. Often Steven would do things like try to slit his wrists with shards of plastic he obtained from smashing his supplies box. Steven always brought the drama; whether in the form of anger or laughter, there was always some excitement with him. He was also my very first crush. I can still remember what his eyelashes look like. That was the fourth grade for me: quietly watching Steven self destruct.
During the 5th grade, things were pretty unstable. We, the BAC class I was in, had difficulty trying to retain a permanent teacher during this year. We actually drove many to break down and quit. I recall one lady trying to regain control of my unruly classmates. She stood in the middle of the room, rotating slowly while expressing a firm “shhhhhhhh.” After inhaling again, she asked the simple question: “Do we know what this means?” Without missing a beat, Wes blurted the retort: “That you have a slow leak?” A hearty laugh was enjoyed by all. To her credit, this woman never ran off. An educator? No, I don’t believe I’d call her that – she was more of a warden.
There was a girl named Lee that also had a rough go at life. Lee had been very quiet for all of the previous two years, but something must have happened, because suddenly, it seemed her meds were no longer working. I’m not sure what her specifics were, only that she spent a great deal of time in “Time Out.” In fact, we all did. We would be sent to sit in “Time Out” for five minutes in response to any number of things we could do to act out. Children with ADD/ADHD are prone to inappropriate outbursts of emotion. It is a part of the gift of impulsivity.
“Time Out” was a three foot by three foot square closet with fire retardant carpeting on the walls and floors, one small square of shatterproof glass situated above eye level for us kids, and no doorknob on the inside. Generally, the sentence of being sent to T.O. would lead to slamming the door to the closet behind you, or knocking your head on the wall when you took a seat on the floor inside which would then add another five or ten minutes to your stay in the closet. I don’t know if this is done any longer. It seemed reasonable to me at the time, but as I sit and write this I begin to wonder how I made it through any of this. The smell of the carpet glue from that enclosed space still returns easily to my mind when I think of it.
I began to be paroled back to regular classes starting in the 4th grade. I was allowed to attend regular classes for History and English first. This process was called “mainstreaming.” When I showed up to normal classes, I was this extra kid that was only there for one period, one class at a time. I had no assigned seat as I was not part of the regular populace. I was the visitor. The outsider. The other kids sat in the middle of the room in cells or rows of desks, depending on which teacher’s room that class was in. I sat at a larger table off to the side, up against the wall, all by myself. I felt on display. The way this worked was that I was always one or two minutes late to class as I had to wait to get permission to leave BAC for mainstream classes, and I think they tried to see to it I wasn’t in the halls when the other kids were.
I didn’t know any of the kids in regular class and I didn’t know how to make friends. Who would I have learned this from? Steven? Lee? Wes? We weren’t friends; we were inmates. Here, I was the outcast.
It was well known that I was from BAC, which they joked stood for Bad Attitude Class. There was some truth to that joke. I wish I had seized upon it and owned it, treating the situation like a prison yard. I would like to say that I sized up who the ringleaders were, that I walked right up to one of them and shanked him in the side with a sharpened spork from the cafeteria. I could have raised my head defiantly and glared around the room with a crazed stare into the eyes of the bewildered and frightened sheep this would have certainly turned the other children into. But I didn’t have those skills, and that’s someone else’s story. I shrank as much as I could, learning to slouch in an attempt to not be noticed. I still catch myself doing this today. I tried to be invisible and got really good at it. This came in handy later when my sexuality began to express itself and I was again set apart.
I had to return to my BAC classes for various periods during the day. The last class I had in BAC was during the 5th grade and it was Math. One day, our determined “teacher” came to me and struck a bargain. She said “If you will just not cause me any problems while you’re in here, I’ll give you a good grade in Math.” I thought this to be an excellent bargain and accepted with haste. I proceeded to play nice and did not one single page of math that year. I felt like I was on top of the world. I would sit as quietly as I could, drawing swords and things on graph paper, wishing for class to be over so I could go. Sitting still was a chore and it remained so for quite a long time in my life. Had I but known that actually doing the math might have passed the time faster. Had I but also known that being able to do long division would come in handy one day. I am still embarrassed when I have to use my fingers to figure out the tip and total at dinner. I often just “overtip,” as if there is such a thing.
You know all the jokes about the short bus? I rode it. The reason was that my local elementary school wasn’t equipped to handle a child with such “special needs” as I with my ADHD. The short bus drove the circuitous route that took me and my peers from school to our homes, which were littered all about the North Dallas suburbs of Carrollton and Farmers Branch. This is why, in the 6th grade, when I was thrown into regular classes entirely, I knew none of the kids with whom I was in class. I had not grown up in neighborhoods with them. I was again this sort-of transfer student coming from somewhere else.
All throughout those years, I had regular scheduled testing with some psychiatrist-type person that would only appear at random times and summon me into the side room. He’d have me arrange these blocks with triangle patterns on them to try to match the same blocks with patterns that he had placed out on the desk in front of me. There were flash cards that had pictures on them. I recall one was a table that was missing a leg. Given the perspective of the picture, which was drawn in line art, it took me a good while to determine that there was a leg missing. Well, they say it had less to do with the perspective and more to do with my attention deficit. In any case, I had to be prompted to see that there was indeed something missing in that picture. He never indicated it was an issue, but he was always making notes and this led to more noting. This was all going in my file.
I’ve mentioned before that I was on Ritalin. I believe I was a part of the Original Ritalin Generation. My dosage was increased steadily throughout those years. I took a dose at night (if you have ADHD this isn’t an issue for sleeping), another in the mid-morning during school, and, at some point, another later in the day at school. I recall the seemingly long, quiet walks across the school to the nurse’s office where some lady would ask my name and come back with the nasty tasting little yellowish pill and a paper cup of water. This seemed completely natural to me and I don’t recall ever being upset about it.
In the 6th grade, I was taken off Ritalin entirely. My mother says it was because I didn’t want to be on it. I remember when I was acting up I would be told I’d “have to take my medicine.” I don’t recall why this was ever a problem for me, and I don’t recall insisting that I come off the pills. Later in life, I certainly found and administered my own medicine “as needed.”
When they took me off Ritalin my grades plummeted like a Cessna off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. I suddenly had four times as many kids in the classroom with me, none of whom I knew or was friendly with. The rules were entirely different, and I was expected to be just one of the many. Somehow I made it through the 6th grade. I believe there were quite a few meetings about how to handle me. I don’t remember that I was a part of any of them.
Looking back, I have to say that my education had become secondary to discipline. I know I am now and always have been a very bright young boy. I wish that my energy and enthusiasm could have been engaged into learning and activities. School was more about managing my peers and fitting me into a system than it ever was about learning or discovery. Why was it so vital that I had to sit so damn still all the time? Can’t a boy fidget quietly?
A co-worker has confided in me that his son was recently diagnosed and treated for ADD. I was taken aback that this didn’t mean his entire course of education was changing, rather that he went in for some treatment sessions and now “he’s fine.” They no longer head straight to the pill cabinet these days. There are computer games with head gear using neurofeedback to teach youngsters how to develop the skills for focus and control. It lifts my spirits to hear his son is doing well and goes to regular classes with all the other kids. I ask about him often and tell myself that the world is changing and that’s going to be ok.
