Tuesday, October 26, 2004
You know you have ADHD when....
I have one student who simply cannot control his actions. On an average day he will make odd noises like meowing or imitating the bell sound, feel the hair of the girl next to him and say that it is "so soft", sing songs in his native Arabic language, walk around the room and put up post-it notes, tell people that they are in the "puta group", tell students of Hispanic descent to "callate la boca" (he's not Hispanic, mind you), repeat what I say, and just generally cause a disturbance.
Today he outdid himself. He was bothering everyone, as usual, so I asked him to move to the back of the room where there are less people to bother. As he stood he decided it was "disco time", so he danced his way to the back of the room. Then after a few minutes I looked at his desk and he wasn't there. Why wasn't he there, you ask? He wasn't at his desk because he was in the closet. He had gotten up, opened the door, and gotten in the closet. I had to stop class in order to retrieve him from the closet, at which point he begged me not to remove him from class because he had "taken all his notes today," and he "had to finish his work."
Of course, all of the other students did not hesitate to point out that this particular student had finally come out of the closet, which was another disturbance for the class. Awesome.
Today he outdid himself. He was bothering everyone, as usual, so I asked him to move to the back of the room where there are less people to bother. As he stood he decided it was "disco time", so he danced his way to the back of the room. Then after a few minutes I looked at his desk and he wasn't there. Why wasn't he there, you ask? He wasn't at his desk because he was in the closet. He had gotten up, opened the door, and gotten in the closet. I had to stop class in order to retrieve him from the closet, at which point he begged me not to remove him from class because he had "taken all his notes today," and he "had to finish his work."
Of course, all of the other students did not hesitate to point out that this particular student had finally come out of the closet, which was another disturbance for the class. Awesome.