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Imagine a classroom teacher who is expected to teach 5 concepts in an hour of class time. This pace is dictated by neurotypical school board administrators and government officials.

The neurotypical students in the class keep up with the teacher’s pace. The neurotypical students are just listening and recording exactly what the teacher is saying, planning to memorize it.

A student in the class has ADHD. This student is unable to keep up because every few minutes, their brain suddenly realizes that what the teacher is saying is connected to something they witnessed/experienced before, and dwells on the memory to analyze all of the ways in which it is similar to the teacher’s concept.

The student with ADHD then zips back to reality, where the teacher is talking about something totally different – the neurodivergent student has no idea how the teacher got here because their brain spaced out for a bit. Even though the ADHD student’s nonlinear thoughts are designed to help them build deep intuition for concepts, the teacher is moving so fast that the ADHD student can’t keep up.

Schools are not made for neurodivergent students. If the teacher could just slow down, the neurodivergent student’s idea would be shareable with the rest of the class. Neurotypical students who wouldn’t make that nonlinear connection themselves would finally have a chance to hear the neurodivergent student explain it. Then all of the students in the class would suddenly have intuition for what the teacher said – not just the student with ADHD.

But instead, the teacher cannot slow down to give the neurodivergent student the time to explain their thoughts to the rest of the class. As a result, neurotypical students understand the bare minimum concept with no intuition. Neurodivergent students understand neither the bare minimum concept nor have had the time to develop their intuition. The teacher has no idea that the neurodivergent student would be able to help the rest of the class understand the topic better. Everyone in the room loses. It’s a real problem.

So, how do we change the game, without having to change the way schools work?

HIGH 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 our daily wake-up and sleep routines, to regulate their nervous system. 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 (e.g. nonlinear thinking, tenacity, dopamine hunting) to their advantage when learning mathematics. For detailed examples of this process – see here.

Important Info:

Students who take AP Physics courses in high school gets ~8 to 9 months to learn the material. If a student instead waits until university to take physics, they are given ~10 to 14 weeks to learn literally the same material. It’s pretty ridiculous.

In addition, the U.S. university academic quarter/semester is ridiculously short – international students from other countries sometimes start learning physics when they are 11. What others sometimes get 10 years to learn, American students sometimes get 10 weeks to learn. The disparity is frustrating.

I often advise students to get coaching on a subject during the previous quarter, and then enroll in the course the next quarter. This way, you stretch the amount of time you have to learn the subject. When the course starts, you are ahead of the professor, and nothing is new, and even if you still have some of the material to learn via coaching, you are always ahead of the course and never behind. Your mental health is preserved, and your GPA stays up. You have time to recover from a cold, or time to rest on your period (I understand this very well).

These are the physics courses usually offered in high school:

Basic Physics
Honors Physics
AP Physics 1
AP Physics 2
AP Physics C (Mechanics)
AP Physics C (Electricity & Magnetism)

In AP Physics C, students learn where all of the formulas in physics even come from. Because they can’t exist by magic – someone a long time ago used logic to figure out these formulas, using calculus and a lot of observations. We call the logical steps that end up in a formula, a derivation.

In AP Physics 1/2, students don’t learn where the formulas come from but they do use the formulas to predict what might physically happen if we push/pull/throw/drop/etc. objects a certain way. Students practice using logic to predict the outcome using a formula that they are given.

In Basic and Honors Physics, the curriculum changes from school to school, depending on what the class teacher wants to do. This lack of consistent teaching strategy (not testing strategy) is usually something that hurts on students and it totally sucks.

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.

In this package, physics coaching starts during the summer break prior to the academic school year with their physics course. Coaching continues into the school year until the course is over, and encompasses all necessary exam preparation.

ADHD Physics Coaching Package

Students with ADHD need extra time to learn physics than neurotypical students do. This is because students with ADHD experience nonlinear thinking patterns that help them to periodically pause and notice similarities between the course concepts and a previous life experience, as a way to build deep intuition about the course concepts. Since physics can be super unintuitive at some moments and then incredibly intuitive at other moments, nonlinear thoughts are extremely useful when learning physics for the first time. However, this means it takes longer for the ADHD student to “finish” understanding an entire lesson.

To manage this, I offer specialized coaching for students with ADHD who plan to take physics courses. Coaching starts either during the school year/quarter/semester, or during the summer beforehand, to help students grapple with the subject earlier on. Students learn the physics material relevant to the course they have chosen. We can discuss this – to schedule a free 20-minute consultation, click here.

Students also 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 our daily wake-up and sleep routines, to regulate their nervous system. Students learn how to embed dopamine-lifting sensory experiences into study habits, to make schoolwork less boring and enable long-term retention. Students learn to leverage neurodivergent brain tendencies (e.g. nonlinear thinking, tenacity, dopamine hunting) to their advantage when learning mathematics. For detailed examples of this process – see here.