Sounds like a great topic for your research paper.

Only in hindsight, did I realize how my teaching practicum brought out--as you put it--the worst of my ADHD. The problem back then was that I was still really in denial that ADHD affected me.

I found out that the local CHADD group started meeting again. I plan to attend the next meeting with the expectation that networking is the only real form of support adults can get right now.

Good luck with the writing! FT

Quote

i will post my final paper when it is done for everyone!

Quote

I am 34, and am also facing many of the same issues as the teachers here, although I am a speech therapist. I was "re"-diagnosed about 16 months ago, after "growing out of ADHD" in middle school. My current prinicpal, who is in her 2nd year as a principal, doesn't seem to understand, or care, what I have weaknesses in. I have asked for her help numerous times, only to have those pleas used against me. Tomorrow I go to a meeting with the superintendent to plead my case before they fire me. I have been doing the same job for 10 years, with several different types of adminstrators/bosses...why now is someone micro-managing every single breath I take! It's so frustrating to be stifled to death by administration! Please send me good thoughts tomorrow-if anyone sticks around long enough to read this :) LOL

Quote

I, too, am so excited to find this thread! I'm a former school teacher and now attempting to enter the university teaching field because I miss teaching SOOOOO much. I nearly laughed out loud when I read your posts because I realized that I probably miss how conducive the teaching environment was to my adhd-isms. (And thus, why I want to return!)

I want to encourage your efforts, avaracadavra. Yes, education *especially college education* often communicates "do what we say, not as we do" and developing environments that are more accommodating--or at least beginning the dialogue--is a very important endeavor----go YOU!

Just a little note, "obtaining permission" by a post that assumes if you don't respond you are agreeing, is a little weak and may (should) not pass the muster if it is reviewed by your professor. However, this is a public forum and you may want to consider what permissions you need to obtain (if any) to use quotes from here. I assume you are asking because you want to acknowledge the source and understand it is personal information that is shared. You can also say something like:

"I am considering using quotes from this forum, and believe that because it is open for public view there are no problems with that, as long as I cite the website source properly. If anyone has objections or knows of other permissions I need to obtain, please post a reply."

Hope this doesn't come off sounding picky. I personally hope you pursue this into a research project, so that we can get some great information out of it!

I personally found that "moving up" in my career (continuing my education and transferring into counseling) helps me explain the continual changes in my resume/vita. Don't know if it will continue to work, though, as I have now found the "end of my ability" to cope without medication and professional help. ...and those aren't working too well right now either......I mean, I'm on here and not doing my stuff even now! And I'm really trying NOT to do this!

The dissertation is like a paperwork MegaDemonDeadline that just doesn't go away, and if I miss this deadline I'll have put a financial debt the size of a very nice house on my family with NO reward....and NO HOUSE. It feels like a reverse job threat---if I don't make the deadline, I don't only lose an income I will PAY back for years for screwing it up. I don't even think I'm conveying this correctly--it is just a really bad, yucky, black-hole of a feeling in which I feel that all the years of getting by and "showing my best side" but knowing that I did it all last minute and in 1/2 the time of others, is going to haunt me. A part of me says it's what I deserve, and then I realize --hey, I have not done anything wrong! I am just confounded as to why I am not moving forward in this goal---it has never been this bad before. But then again, it has never been such a heavily paperwork-only goal. ....aughh, I'm sorry for rambling. It does feel good to post it here, in hopes that someone will understand.

;)

Quote:

avracadavra said: Hi Everyone,

I am a B.Ed student at Acadia University. I have ADHD and have been blown away by how there are virtually no resources available to teachers and professionals with ADHD and would like to get real academic dialogue started on this issue.

In my classes we talk about differentiation and how to identify and teach students with ADHD, while the classes I am taking are not differentiated or at all conducive to having ADHD! There are endless resources for teachers about students with ADHD, but nothing, asides from your fabulous forum posts, for us on how to cope in a professional setting with ADHD.

I struggled in my practicum, and watched all of the worst characteristics of me having ADHD come out in the classroom, and found I had nowhere to go for the specific assistance I needed.

I would like to have everyone's permission to use some of your dialogue from the forums in a paper I am writing for a class about this topic.

If you have any opposition, please let me know and I will omit anything I use from your posts.

Thank you.

Quote

Wow-- I'm reading these posts, and they all could have been written by me.

I'm a 13th (?) year teacher in a suburban high school. Started out a star, and still have a rep. as being scholarly and great with kids-- but the organization thing is hitting me where it hurts, and I too find that my job may be in jeopardy if I don't get my act together.

Having ADD has given me lots of things I'm grateful for-- a sense of humor, an offbeat way of seeing the world, wide-ranging curiosity, empathy -- and those are the things that make me a good teacher. But when ADD gives with one hand, it takes away with the other, and that's what's killing me. One day I feel like a champ, the next like an utter fraud. And with education becoming increasingly data-driven and dependent on scrupulous record keeping, well, I just don't know.

I co-teach a class with a good friend, and I know that he finds my disorganization to be a constant and burdensome source of frustration; over the years, it's had a really corrosive effect on our friendship, which breaks my heart.

This summer, I've immersed myself in books on teaching, and I've signed up for a long-term CBT program; hopefully this will give me some traction where I need it.

Glad to find other teachers who understand what I'm gong through.

Quote