Friday, September 23, 2011

Creativity and Learning Disabled Children

I really am interested in trying to find a better way for mainstream learning disabled children, who sit in a mainstream classroom trying to absorb content, to be able to learn about a subject, but more importantly, to be able to retain the information. Being an adult with ADD, I can sympathize with just how boring most classrooms are. I can't necessarily blame the teacher, because lets face it, they are told to follow a script, and they must comply. I on the other hand, look at the entire education system as being flawed, in that it doesn't make learning fun and creative, which I think is why so many children grow to hate school. Imagine, being a child with ADHD, and you must sit at your seat for a prolong period of time. As an adult with ADD, I can only stay seated for short intervals and if I'm not allowed to get up and move, I feel like I need to crawl out of my own skin. With that said, as an adult, I can coax myself into staying put, but a child is more likely to be impulsive and has a much harder time trying to remain seated. There has to be a better way for a classroom to work so that its not only beneficial for the average student population, but it must also work for those students who have a difficult time concentrating on the task at hand. My biggest gripe is the lecture period. Do teachers really understand how boring they can be. In all honesty, could they actually listen to themselves speak and not be bored by it? These children have attention and concentration issues, and to try and listen to a person speak for a prolonged period of time, well those kids have probably only grasped about the first two sentences, the rest has already been forgotten.

2 comments:

  1. Karen, as someone with adult-onset ADD, and who has recently had a wonderful experience with leading a project for learning- and emotionally-disabled children, I can completely identify with your post. I, too, can't sit still at a table (say, in a board meeting, or a group-meeting on-campus class at ESC/Metro) without feeling, after only 15 or 20 minutes, like I am gonna jump outta my skin ;-)

    You might be interested in the write-up I did of an alternative approach to working with these kids. I made a social-studies inquiry about urban planning and citizenship into a physical art project. The kids responded so well that you wouldn't have known they were "special ed". Only when they were back in their tiny classroom anchored to chairs and desks did the tell-tale behaviors surface: shouting, slapping, not taking direction, emotional withdrawal, you name it.

    I began writing up my reflections on the experience at http://www.unlikelyvoters.com/blog/stealth-teaching-with-a-connectivist-approach

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  2. by the way, as someone who lives with three rescued dogs and two rescued cats, I love your profile :-)

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