Teacher ADD

Our Mental Struggles, Day 5

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. Psalm 119:15 (ESV)

              She was known as the teacher whose classroom was always fun. Everyday was exciting, filled with laughter, and steeped with hands on projects. She utilized songs and dances for brain breaks when her students needed a change of pace and her timer was her saving grace and steady pace. Lesson plans were time consuming. Thankfully she was single and her children were grown, because it took every spare minute to make successful plans. Everything in her classroom was perfect. Until it wasn’t.

              A health crisis hit her mom, and she was thrown into a caregiver role. Now there were two mouths to feed and a mom who was constantly in need. She tried to plan like she always had, but she ran out of time and began “shooting from the hip” instead of planning with precision and detail. Her mother’s appointments pulled her out of the classroom more and more. The lessons weren’t structured. The activities weren’t fun. And she became irritable and angry with her students. Interactions with parents were unprofessional and the principal had to confront her about how her classroom was going. How could the star teacher become the worst teacher over such a short time?

              This teacher had Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. The same struggle many of our kids face follow them into adulthood. ADD in teachers, as we saw in the beginning of this story can create a learning environment rich in educational experiences. Fun, excitement, experiments, and movement are all incorporated because the teacher is sensitive to those things. But when change comes quickly, adults with ADD don’t maneuver well. Structure, routine, and predictable patterns help them control their rapid firing brain and emotions, and when that structure and consistency is broken, creating a new routine is next to impossible.

              Teachers with ADD may also struggle with paying attention and proper time management. They are known for chronically losing things and often late. Sometimes they are riddled moments of impulsivity and fail to fully listen to or follow directions. Prioritizing tasks, remembering key details, and issues with communication abound along with restlessness and irritability expressed as emotional outbursts. Hyper-focus or hyper-ignoring are legit battles too. It’s possible to retrain our brains in areas of structure, time management, and task priority, but it requires the teacher with ADD to override the distraction of the moment and complete the task at hand.

              Do you see yourself in this list? Have you or do you struggle with these areas? Maybe it’s time to do some research and see if you are scatter brained or affected by ADD. Therapy and medication can help those adults who suffer from ADD. At times is can seem like you just can’t get a grip, but in reality, it could be a bigger problem that has fixable solutions.

Do the Heart Work

1.      Do you have ADD or do you see yourself in the descriptions from today’s lesson?

2.      How can ADD in adults be a positive thing? How about a negative thing?

3.      Why would God allow ADD to be something that affects people?

Digging Deeper

1.       “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy^[a] that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV)

2.      Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 (ESV)

3.      No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. 2 Timothy 2:4 (ESV)

4.      Making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Proverbs 2:2-5 (ESV)

All of these verses have one thing in common, staying focused on what matters. When ADD hits full force, we can forget why we even started and drop whole projects in the middle and never come back to them. We must not forget that Jesus can never be dropped. He must be the one anchor that keeps us tethered to reality no matter what.

If You Get Spare Time

              Think back over your life span and recall any teachers who may have had ADD tendencies. Now think about what they would have been like as students back in the day. We are more aware of ADD and how to help students who exhibit those behaviors, but they were not tolerated or accepted back then. What happens when we shut students down and they aren’t allowed to be themselves? Has this ever happened to you? Talk to God about ways to make sure you don’t do that to a student in your classroom.