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Imagine a 5-year old 1st grader with ADHD, sitting in class. The teacher is explaining something to the class, and mentions a concept/idea. The ADHD student’s brain immediately goes ” oh yeah, it’s like that thing I saw when I was on the train with my parents to Mount Shasta two years ago!” Since the 5-year-old is excited that what the teacher is talking about makes sense, they want to share and so they blurt out their whole thought.

The immediate reaction from the teacher is, “Why are you disrupting the class? You are distracting the other students. Are you paying attention? What are we talking about right now? Did you hear what I just said? What did I just say? You need to concentrate on what we are doing right now. Please raise your hand to speak.”

Students with ADHD are treated this way time and time again by teachers who do not have the bandwidth or patience to engage with a student’s seemingly-random thoughts. These thoughts, formally called nonlinear thoughts, help humans relate new concepts to previously-understood ideas.

This helps humans to develop intuition towards new concepts and embed the new knowledge into life in an intuitive way. Humans with ADHD are really good at nonlinear thinking.

There are a couple of automatic things that a small child learns from this teacher response.

1. “Nobody likes it when I talk.”
2. “Nobody wants to hear my ideas.”
3. “My teacher doesn’t like it when I talk.”
4. “My ideas are annoying.”
5. “My ideas are garbage.”
6. “People get mad at me when I tell them what I am thinking.”
7. “I should stay quiet – maybe that will make people like me.”
   

Of course, different kids will respond differently. Some students may not think any of this until 5th grade or much older while other students may start to think this the first day it happens to them. Regardless of the intensity with which a student feels this, my goal is to intentionally teach them that they have specific, neurological strengths and they can leverage those strengths to their advantage in school and in life.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PACKAGES

ADHD Coaching Package

Students learn about dopamine deficit and how it regulates ADHD neurochemistry. Students learn to list sensory experiences that help us feel dopamine influx in our body and our brain. Students learn how to embed dopamine-lifting sensory experiences into study habits, to make schoolwork less boring. For detailed examples of this process – see here.

ADHD Math Coaching Package

Students learn how to practice math in a way that is not only neurodivergent-friendly, but is also applicable for neurotypical days filled with exhaustion, distraction, or boredom. Students learn how to embed dopamine-lifting sensory experiences into study strategies, to make schoolwork less boring and enable long-term retention. Students learn to leverage neurodivergent brain tendencies to their advantage when learning mathematics. For detailed examples of this process – see here.

Early-Riser Physics Coaching Package

In the U.S. physics is typically taught only in high school. But in many other countries, the foundations of physics are taught much earlier on, starting at age 11. Students in those countries therefore learn physics over the course of ~9 years before university – here in the U.S. students get ~1 to 2 years discontinuously before college. The disparity is frustrating.

To solve this problem, I am developing an elementary/middle school physics curriculum. It is entirely non-math based because a LOT of physics deals with visualization, illustration, and description. As a physicist I can quite confidently say that I think math is just a language that we use to describe how nature works. But so is English, or Spanish, or any mother tongue. And so is drawing out what is happening in a physical situation, or creating an animation to show what’s happening.

Each physics problem involves drawing the scenario, explaining what is going on in the drawing, and then identifying which equations are needed to translate the explanation into math language. Only then do you perform steps of algebra or calculus to solve the problem. My aim is to help middle-school students confidence and comfort with the first two steps (drawing and describing) that come before the math. These two steps are never explicitly taught to students in high school or even college physics courses, but they are necessary skills in order to do physics. Then, when they take their first physics class in high school they will have seen all of those physical situations before and it’s not nearly as scary.

Examples of the types of problems that will encompass an elementary/middle school physics curriculum will be uploaded to this website soon.