Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today

[Anti Federalist]

Why so many kids can’t sit still in school today

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...d=pm_local_pop

By Valerie Strauss July 8

The Centers for Disease Control tells us that in recent years there has been a jump in the percentage of young people diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD: 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and to 11 percent in 2011.

The reasons for the rise are multiple, and include changes in diagnostic criteria, medication treatment and more awareness of the condition.

In the following post, Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist and the founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England, suggests yet another reason more children are being diagnosed with ADHD, whether or not they really have it: the amount of time kids are forced to sit while they are in school.

This appeared on the TimberNook blog.



A perfect stranger pours her heart out to me over the phone. She complains that her 6-year-old son is unable to sit still in the classroom. The school wants to test him for ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder). This sounds familiar, I think to myself.

As a pediatric occupational therapist, I’ve noticed that this is a fairly common problem today.

The mother goes on to explain how her son comes home every day with a yellow smiley face. The rest of his class goes home with green smiley faces for good behavior. Every day this child is reminded that his behavior is unacceptable, simply because he can’t sit still for long periods of time.

The mother starts crying. “He is starting to say things like, ‘I hate myself’ and ‘I’m no good at anything.’” This young boy’s self-esteem is plummeting all because he needs to move more often.

Over the past decade, more and more children are being coded as having attention issues and possibly ADHD. A local elementary teacher tells me that at least eight of her twenty-two students have trouble paying attention on a good day. At the same time, children are expected to sit for longer periods of time. In fact, even kindergarteners are being asked to sit for thirty minutes during circle time at some schools.

The problem: children are constantly in an upright position these days. It is rare to find children rolling down hills, climbing trees, and spinning in circles just for fun. Merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters are a thing of the past. Recess times have shortened due to increasing educational demands, and children rarely play outdoors due to parental fears, liability issues, and the hectic schedules of modern-day society. Lets face it: Children are not nearly moving enough, and it is really starting to become a problem.

I recently observed a fifth grade classroom as a favor to a teacher. I quietly went in and took a seat towards the back of the classroom. The teacher was reading a book to the children and it was towards the end of the day. I’ve never seen anything like it. Kids were tilting back their chairs back at extreme angles, others were rocking their bodies back and forth, a few were chewing on the ends of their pencils, and one child was hitting a water bottle against her forehead in a rhythmic pattern.

This was not a special-needs classroom, but a typical classroom at a popular art-integrated charter school. My first thought was that the children might have been fidgeting because it was the end of the day and they were simply tired. Even though this may have been part of the problem, there was certainly another underlying reason.

We quickly learned after further testing, that most of the children in the classroom had poor core strength and balance. In fact, we tested a few other classrooms and found that when compared to children from the early 1980s, only one out of twelve children had normal strength and balance. Only one! Oh my goodness, I thought to myself. These children need to move!

Ironically, many children are walking around with an underdeveloped vestibular (balance) system today–due to restricted movement. In order to develop a strong balance system, children need to move their body in all directions, for hours at a time. Just like with exercising, they need to do this more than just once-a-week in order to reap the benefits. Therefore, having soccer practice once or twice a week is likely not enough movement for the child to develop a strong sensory system.

Children are going to class with bodies that are less prepared to learn than ever before. With sensory systems not quite working right, they are asked to sit and pay attention. Children naturally start fidgeting in order to get the movement their body so desperately needs and is not getting enough of to “turn their brain on.” What happens when the children start fidgeting? We ask them to sit still and pay attention; therefore, their brain goes back to “sleep.”

Fidgeting is a real problem. It is a strong indicator that children are not getting enough movement throughout the day. We need to fix the underlying issue. Recess times need to be extended and kids should be playing outside as soon as they get home from school. Twenty minutes of movement a day is not enough! They need hours of play outdoors in order to establish a healthy sensory system and to support higher-level attention and learning in the classroom.

In order for children to learn, they need to be able to pay attention. In order to pay attention, we need to let them move.

[phill4paul]

Letting them move may prove dangerous to themselves and others. Best to just sedate them.

[donnay]

They are just preparing the children for their future. No free thought, no critical thinking and no freedom. I weep for the future.

[heavenlyboy34]

They are just preparing the children for their future. No free thought, no critical thinking and no freedom. I weep for the future.

ditto.

[VIDEODROME]

Ha. Just wait till they're in the workplace and more of the same $#@!. Some $#@!wit manager making them sit there in a meeting while they drone on. Also, their small compensation for enduring this is some donuts and coffee.

I think most people are 'Physical' or hands-on learners and we've created many educating environments in both the schools and the workplace. This style of teaching is also very archaic and leftover from the days of Oral Tradition. That is why that teacher is reading a book to the students because way back the teacher had the only book so they read it to the students so they could literally copy the material.

Playing the game of Monopoly is probably more educational than what most schools are doing these days.

[thoughtomator]

fun part comes when the kids finally figure out what is being done to them

[DamianTV]

This is not difficult to figure out.

Take a kid, put them in a classroom, and they wont stop "wiggling around". Plop the same child in front of a TV and you immediately turn the same child into a Zombie.

The problem is that Classrooms are unable to hold the kids attention.

Now we can dig deeper. Lets plop YOU, as an adult, in front of a two hour speech by a Congressman that does nothing but talk in Doublespeak, and youre gonna be just as "wiggly butt" as a child. So you must have Adult ADD right? Or could it be that there is no relevant information, and your attention goes elsewhere. Its no different than a kid. The information is not relevant enough to their situation to hold their attention. It should be clearly obvious to everyone that Public Schools dont teach kids jack $#@!. But during the course of teaching Jack $#@! to the kids, if the kid doesnt not focus on what he or she is told to focus on, its definitely the kids falut and not the Schools?

People quickly start ignoring information that is not relevant to them. There was a volcanic eruption on Venus a couple weeks ago. No one was hurt cuz no one lives on Venus. The landscape sort of changed a bit, but its hard to tell because of all the clouds on Venus. So lets show you a bunch of pictures of those clouds on Venus, then blather on about this for the next eight $#@!ing hours. Its not gonna hold your attetion because it has zero relevance to anything. Naa, $#@! that, eight hours isnt enough. Lets do it for the next eight years. Hmm, that still might not be enough. Okay, lets make it mandatory for the entirety of ones childhood, then charge them a $#@!load of money to do it for another eight years! Its irrelevant, and cheap for us, expensive for them, its perfect! If information itself is not relevant, attention on that information is lost. And that is exactly what School is. Eight hours a day of information that has such little relevance that upon completion of said Schooling, the Schooled individual is still not able to apply most things theyve been taught to the real world. High School grads are unable to balance a checkbook, and roughly 25% (another thread on this) think the Sun revolves around the Earth!

What is taught in Schools has absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter.

The first thing that is taught in Schools is OBEDIENCE. Then there is a bunch of other $#@!. It isnt Math, its about Obedience to the way the teacher tells the student to do the Math. It isnt about reading, it is about Obedience of WHAT to read. It isnt about Thinking, as it is about Obedience of WHAT to Think. A plethora of other things is also taught. Emotional Dependancy, Intellectual Dependancy, love your Assigned Group over Natural Groups, etc. Mostly already covered in other threads. But by making the information presented in Schools so irrelevant, a person has no choice but to go severely into debt in an effort to acquire the information needed to function in a non school enviornment. These people are becoming Debt Slaves for LIFE. Again, mostly already covered.

Anyone have a Dog?

How would your dog behave if they had absolutely no outlet for all their pent up energy? Might they become destructive and chew furniture? Would they spend countless hours pestering you for attention? Maybe they try to door dash or dig out of your yard so they can explore their enviornment in a very unstructured way at their own pace? Perhaps youve already 'broken' your dogs will and they do nothing but laze around the house, and resemble the zombielike state of many people? What if we went to the other extreme and gave your dog Eight Hours a Day of structured Training? Would the dog get bored? Would they be able to handle Eight Solid Hours of repeatedly being told to Sit and Stay? How would your dog behave if the only thing this Structured Training was to Sit, Stay, and Obey with zero outlet for pent up energy and frustration? Anyone who has a dog with a 'normal level' of energy understands to some degree that the dog needs Unstructured Training that provides a balance between what is needed and what the dog is interested at the time that interest is expressed. The dog tells you it wants to go for a walk so it can learn about what is relevant to it. The smells of their enviornment. Who is that other dog. Who is that guy walking with the other dog. Can I go play with that other dog. Uh oh, that other dog is a threat, I better attack it. Oh, my pack leader says I shouldnt attack everyone that approaches. Its all very Unstructured because it needs to be Unstructured. Things can still be learned. This cat does not like me chasing it or sniffing its $#@!. You dont need to schedule a specific time on a specific day at a specific age for the dog to learn cats have claws, or a certain plant makes it sneeze, or this tastes bad, or that kid will throw a ball for it.

The loss of interest kids have comes from Over Structurization providing irrelevant data when interest is at its lowest. Schools have degraded into nothing more than Warehouses for Children, just as Nursing Homes have become Warehouses for the Elderly.

Of course, it could also be that having been Warehoused for so long with so many Structured Rules of "no running", "no talking", "no physical contact", and "no horseplay" is actually intended to "break a child's spirit". It makes them so dependant that if the Parent / Teacher / Owner is not around, the child feels completely and hopelessly lost without them.

There have been numerous tests involving Drugs and Mice. But what is not considered is the Test itself. Mice that are able to be addicted to drugs are having a negative response to an abhorrent enviornment. But given a sufficient enviornment, the mice show almost zero interest in the drugs offered. Push button, receive drug. Try running that test in the middle of an open field and shockingly enough, the mouse just tries to run off and ignores the test completely. Abhorrent Enviornment. That is exactly what Schools have become. Kids do not have experience, it doesnt mean they are stupid. And like the mice, when trapped in that Abhorrent Enviornment, they want nothing more than to get the $#@! out of there.

Another completely off topic stat is that we have 5% of the worlds population, but 25% of the worlds Prison Population. Ever seen the stats compared with other countries on how many of our kids are Medicated for Behavioral Control? 50% We have 5% of the worlds population, but 50% of the worlds medicated children. What the $#@! are we doing? Actions follow Thought. So what the $#@! were we thinking? Medicate to forcefully Educate?

I could continue with a School Rant for hours, so I'll just stop here as I've probably already lost the attention of anyone willing to try to read this vent of frustration.

[kcchiefs6465]

Evil.