ADHD Clusters in a classroom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just wish that teachers were taught other methods of getting kids to behave than pairing the misbehaving kids with a kid who behaves. Both of my kids had one teacher who explicitly told us our child was the one pulled away from their friends to sit with the misbehaving kids in hopes that they would help to rein them in. I get it's meant as a compliment but it's really frustrating to have your kids used as a tool to get others to listen.

There's something to be said for having kids helping each other with class material because teaching it to others helps with mastery but my kids should not be responsible for the behavior of others.

Please. Teachers have always tried to separate troublemakers and chatters. There is nothing wrong with this. They do not do that to get your child to make the other child behave. It is not a way of "getting kids to behave."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just wish that teachers were taught other methods of getting kids to behave than pairing the misbehaving kids with a kid who behaves. Both of my kids had one teacher who explicitly told us our child was the one pulled away from their friends to sit with the misbehaving kids in hopes that they would help to rein them in. I get it's meant as a compliment but it's really frustrating to have your kids used as a tool to get others to listen.

There's something to be said for having kids helping each other with class material because teaching it to others helps with mastery but my kids should not be responsible for the behavior of others.

Feel free to list 3-4 ideas for teachers to reference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just wish that teachers were taught other methods of getting kids to behave than pairing the misbehaving kids with a kid who behaves. Both of my kids had one teacher who explicitly told us our child was the one pulled away from their friends to sit with the misbehaving kids in hopes that they would help to rein them in. I get it's meant as a compliment but it's really frustrating to have your kids used as a tool to get others to listen.

There's something to be said for having kids helping each other with class material because teaching it to others helps with mastery but my kids should not be responsible for the behavior of others.

Please. Teachers have always tried to separate troublemakers and chatters. There is nothing wrong with this. They do not do that to get your child to make the other child behave. It is not a way of "getting kids to behave."

This strategy has been used since the beginning of time. Maybe parents can punish their kids when they repeatedly disrupt class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s been our experience that the bad behaved kids are known and equally distributed across the classes because one teacher can’t be saddled with all the bad behavior kids. But bad behaved kids extends far beyond some subset of ADHD kids. The meanness across the board is sad.

My child is in the class with the ADHD cluster and it is so bad that they have a special ed teacher assigned to the classroom to manage them. It's also a class of 28 with only 10 girls. It's a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

My kid is in AAP and there are several kids, specifically boys, every year who are so disruptive. Kids talk and yes they are more open about their diagnosis. One boy in particular, who she has known since second grade and she is friendly with, gets hurt at least once a week because he cannot sit still. The teacher has tried different seating arrangements and options, allowed him to take a quick walk, etc. And he is one of four in the class like this this year. It's a mess.

All of the boys are sweet kids but the chaos is real and frustrating. I volunteer in the classroom from time to time so I've gotten ti know them. Just yesterday one started jumping out of his chair, knocked over his opened water bottle which made a huge watery mess everywhere, and slipped on the water bottle or water and hit his head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whose horrible idea was it to cluster all the ADHD kids together in one classroom? My child has had a HORRIBLE year because of these kids - lots of teachers (not just the homeroom teacher) yelling at the entire class for the behavior of a small group of boys. One or two per room would be fine, but clustering 6-8 ADHD kids together one classroom with a new, young teacher who doesn't know how to manage them is truly cruel to the other students.

INCLUSION: it is the “I” in DEIA.

Now you know whose idea this was.

I am pretty sure that inclusion came from SPED law, which predates todays DEI discussion by 50 years. Go back to the 1970's if you want to better understand IEPs and 504 plans. They come from a time where kids where warehoused if they had learning differences and we figured out that was a bad idea. Kids with LDs were far more likely to end up in prison because they had not received an education and were placed in classes where the message was "You are not able to learn" and "you are lesser."

I would argue that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction now, it is far to hard to discipline kids who are disruptive. We don't do enough to fund programs to support kids with serious emotional and mental issues who still need an education. Inclusion is not the answer for some kids but there are plenty of kids with ADHD and other issues who would be better served if Teachers were allowed to discipline kids and Admin supported them in their efforts.

Agree with all of this. We don't need "DEI" to have "inclusion." It is the law. I agree that they have swung the pendulum too far. I think it is partly due to fear of lawsuits.

For example: RECESS I taught for years. I agree that kids need and deserve recess. However, there are few tools that teachers have to create order and discipline in the class. A short time watching other kids play can do wonders for a disruptive child.

As for no EXCLUSION, it has been taken way too far. I'm pretty sure it was to address kids who were mistreated and that was terrible. However, having to remove a whole class rather than excluding the child that is out of control is just ridiculous. It is upsetting to the whole class and the teachers. And, it prevents educating the students.

I sincerely hope you are not still teaching. All of the research tells us taking away RECESS as punishment is not only cruel, but a terrible idea that backfires. Here’s a nice summary: https://www.additudemag.com/the-right-to-recess/amp/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whose horrible idea was it to cluster all the ADHD kids together in one classroom? My child has had a HORRIBLE year because of these kids - lots of teachers (not just the homeroom teacher) yelling at the entire class for the behavior of a small group of boys. One or two per room would be fine, but clustering 6-8 ADHD kids together one classroom with a new, young teacher who doesn't know how to manage them is truly cruel to the other students.

INCLUSION: it is the “I” in DEIA.

Now you know whose idea this was.

I am pretty sure that inclusion came from SPED law, which predates todays DEI discussion by 50 years. Go back to the 1970's if you want to better understand IEPs and 504 plans. They come from a time where kids where warehoused if they had learning differences and we figured out that was a bad idea. Kids with LDs were far more likely to end up in prison because they had not received an education and were placed in classes where the message was "You are not able to learn" and "you are lesser."

I would argue that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction now, it is far to hard to discipline kids who are disruptive. We don't do enough to fund programs to support kids with serious emotional and mental issues who still need an education. Inclusion is not the answer for some kids but there are plenty of kids with ADHD and other issues who would be better served if Teachers were allowed to discipline kids and Admin supported them in their efforts.

Agree with all of this. We don't need "DEI" to have "inclusion." It is the law. I agree that they have swung the pendulum too far. I think it is partly due to fear of lawsuits.

For example: RECESS I taught for years. I agree that kids need and deserve recess. However, there are few tools that teachers have to create order and discipline in the class. A short time watching other kids play can do wonders for a disruptive child.

As for no EXCLUSION, it has been taken way too far. I'm pretty sure it was to address kids who were mistreated and that was terrible. However, having to remove a whole class rather than excluding the child that is out of control is just ridiculous. It is upsetting to the whole class and the teachers. And, it prevents educating the students.

I sincerely hope you are not still teaching. All of the research tells us taking away RECESS as punishment is not only cruel, but a terrible idea that backfires. Here’s a nice summary: https://www.additudemag.com/the-right-to-recess/amp/

Please read the bolded. You sound like someone who has never taught. I said I agree that all kids need recess. But, holding a kid for a few minutes while the others play is effective and helps him understand that his behavior is important. I never kept a child in from recess.

Teachers need tools.

[Anonymous]

If a kid really has impulsivity issues, not much will help except medication. No incentives or consequences. Kids need a lot more recess than they get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If a kid really has impulsivity issues, not much will help except medication. No incentives or consequences. Kids need a lot more recess than they get.

This. It's really bad by MS and HS. Some of these kids cannot focus and it's caused them to miss huge chunks of material. Many read on a K-3 level and are still counting on their fingers. The ones who have the academic chops are also not performing as well as they should. Some of them could handle Honors level classes but aren't doing well because parents refuse to address the issue, so instead they play around in class and get in trouble.

If you look at which kids are chronically in trouble in grades 7-12 it tracks very closely with the ones who have problems with impulsivity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a kid really has impulsivity issues, not much will help except medication. No incentives or consequences. Kids need a lot more recess than they get.

This. It's really bad by MS and HS. Some of these kids cannot focus and it's caused them to miss huge chunks of material. Many read on a K-3 level and are still counting on their fingers. The ones who have the academic chops are also not performing as well as they should. Some of them could handle Honors level classes but aren't doing well because parents refuse to address the issue, so instead they play around in class and get in trouble.

If you look at which kids are chronically in trouble in grades 7-12 it tracks very closely with the ones who have problems with impulsivity.

And, everyone thinks that medication is the only answer. Scary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a kid really has impulsivity issues, not much will help except medication. No incentives or consequences. Kids need a lot more recess than they get.

This. It's really bad by MS and HS. Some of these kids cannot focus and it's caused them to miss huge chunks of material. Many read on a K-3 level and are still counting on their fingers. The ones who have the academic chops are also not performing as well as they should. Some of them could handle Honors level classes but aren't doing well because parents refuse to address the issue, so instead they play around in class and get in trouble.

If you look at which kids are chronically in trouble in grades 7-12 it tracks very closely with the ones who have problems with impulsivity.

And, everyone thinks that medication is the only answer. Scary.

If you want your kid to succeed but don’t want to do “medication,” the only real solution other than that is some kind of extremely non traditional track through adolescence. Something like reduced hour homeschooling, combined with lots of working/labor to burn off energy. Which you could only really get on a large tract of land. And then maybe they could go back and finish their schooling once they hit 25+ and the hormone levels start to even out. This would have been viable throughout human history btw, a high energy kid probably would have just been a laborer or a farmer and been perfectly happy. But it won’t work today because they’ll end up committing crimes on the streets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a disaster. My kid's 504 plan stipulates that he'll get preferential seating next to high-achieving kids. Seating him next to other ADHD kids would be a nightmare.

Wait, what??? Come back to that accommodation: preferential seating next to high achieving kids.

I do not believe this. How could you enforce this without revealing protected information about another student? Let’s say you go to the school to say the 504 is not being followed because your little Pierpont has been seated next to Larlo who you think is not very bright. Are you expecting the school to prove that Larlo really is high achieving to defend themselves against your accusation of not following the 504???

Preferential seating near the teacher is an accommodation. But preferential seating near a particular student? Yeah, no.

I think PP is lying about the accommodation.

I doubt PP is lying.

I teach 7th grade math. I have three students who all had this accommodation when they started seventh grade. We very quickly had these accommodations changed, but it's clear that one of our feeder elementary schools thinks this is an appropriate accommodation. It is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a disaster. My kid's 504 plan stipulates that he'll get preferential seating next to high-achieving kids. Seating him next to other ADHD kids would be a nightmare.

Wait, what??? Come back to that accommodation: preferential seating next to high achieving kids.

I do not believe this. How could you enforce this without revealing protected information about another student? Let’s say you go to the school to say the 504 is not being followed because your little Pierpont has been seated next to Larlo who you think is not very bright. Are you expecting the school to prove that Larlo really is high achieving to defend themselves against your accusation of not following the 504???

Preferential seating near the teacher is an accommodation. But preferential seating near a particular student? Yeah, no.

Well, this really is not enforceable. It’s a 504 for one, which have been abused so much (case in point) that they’re functionally useless. But also, there is no legal standing for ANOTHER student to be the source of the accommodation to support a student. None. As a teacher, I would not absolutely have pushed back on this in the team meeting. As it is, I doubt many of the teachers are actually following it as it’s not ethical.

How are 504s being abused? People are faking it?

[Anonymous]

In general, what % of kids have ADHD nowadays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In general, what % of kids have ADHD nowadays?

CDC says 11%