Day 3: It's Not Always My Fault

Every day some kid calls me a jerk. Sometimes a kid calls me a jerk like today because I accidentally hit him with my backpack, but I didn't see him...I heard the bell ring for lunch and jumped out of my seat so I could get to the library right away to get one of the computers before they were all taken and when I swung around, the kid was there. Of course, he yelled at me so everyone heard, and the teacher made me sit down for being rude...and so of course I got to the library late...that was okay, though, because the librarian sometimes talks with me and today she let me put books back on the shelves for her...until I forgot that they had to be in order by the number, not just the author's name...and then she got frustrated with me because she says I don't pay attention to details (Friend & Bursuck, p. 282).

At least today wasn't as bad as yesterday. When the counselor, Mrs. Bright, showed mom that graph with all the bars and said that the bars showed all the classes and how much I am failing, I felt like a real jerk then (Collins, p. xii). Mom didn't get mad, though...she told Mrs. Bright about this diary thing I'm doing and some other things that Dr. Baker is doing. Mrs. Bright didn't seem too interested...she doesn't think I can change, I can tell. I hope I can change. I don't like feeling like a jerk. And I don't think I'm really that dumb like some kids think; some stuff in school is really fun like when we got to do reports on marine life. I can tell you everything there is to know about elephant seals, and that's cool, because most kids can only tell you that elephant seals are big and ugly. Dr. Baker says that my elephant seal report shows that I just don't learn the way that some teachers teach and that I might be able to teach the teachers some things (Collins, p. 27). He told my mom that some teachers do what he called "ability profiling," and I heard him tell her that it means that some teachers won't give me a chance. He was just talking to my mom then, and I was in the hall waiting, but I heard and remembered what he said...I liked what he said because it made me feel like it isn't always my fault when I get in trouble...some teachers just think I choose to forget and to be messy and not write like they want me to (Collins, p. 26). 

Day 2: A Normal Beginning

Today started out like any other; mom knocks on the door and wakes me up...then ten minutes later, she comes to my door and finds me sitting on the floor zoning. She yells get going or I won't get breakfast, and I look around me at the pile of clothes on the floor and reach for a shirt and a pair of pants. I know she's going to take one look at me and ask if I'm wearing clean clothes; the fact is, I don't know if they're clean or not...I try to remember to put the clean ones away and the dirty ones in the basket, but most of the time, most of my clothes lay in a heap on my floor. Mom says she has to choose her battles and pretty much leaves my room alone. Sometimes when mom finds me zoning, she just says "focus;" that's kind of been our code word since I was in pre-school. She even taught my teachers to whisper or mouth the word to me if they found me zoning in class. Now that I'm in middle school, though, mom is less patient and just yells.

Anyway, I walk to school and hang out in the library before school; I don't have many friends at school, but a few of them hang out in the library too. Most kids think I get in trouble too much or say I'm dumb and don't want to hang out with me. My friends in the library are okay with me and we usually talk about computer games. If I didn't have to go to school, I would be so high up in WOW (World of Warcraft) by now; on Saturday, I did a three-hour dungeon run with my guild members...we rocked that raid! My guild is so cool; they always say "lol" after everything I say...they're really my real friends. When I told Mr. Roy, my history teacher, about the dungeon run, he looked at me and said how on earth do you play a game for three hours when you can't listen to me for ten minutes! I guess he doesn't get it...WOW is different. Maybe if Mr. Roy would break up his talking with a raid, well, I mean, like a group thing where we talk with people near us and...hey, yeah, I know...like today in class he was talking about the industrial revolution...what if he let us form groups and come up with our own industry and see if we could make it work and how long we could make it work and we had to make sure we were working with the other industries and no one could just sit and everyone had a job...well, I think I wouldn't zone so much if we did stuff like that in class (Weinfeld, Barnes-Robinson, Jeweler & Shevitz, p. 226).

Day 1 - This diary thing

Mom's yelling that I need to turn out the light, but I know I'm supposed to write this diary thing for Dr. Baker. He says that if I write about what was good and what was bad every day, then he can help me more. He says that I'll be able to figure out how to use strategies to help myself during the day (WGBH Educational Foundation). Dr. Baker is a behavioral psychologist; I've been going to Dr. Baker for a while now, ever since I was told that I have ADHD. ADHD means that I have trouble staying focused on the right things at the right times, that I look like I'm not following directions or listening, and that I forget stuff a lot. Every year, it seems, teachers have been telling my parents the same things: "if Jon would just try harder" or "Jon needs to take time to do his work better" or "Jon constantly distracts the class by interrupting" (Friend & Bursuck, p. 282). Dr. Baker told me that I shouldn't feel bad about all those things the teachers have said because it wasn't like I was choosing to act that way. So he told me to do this diary so that he can help me see what happens each day and what I can do to help myself -- he calls it learning coping skills. 

References

Collins, K. M. Ability Profiling and School Failure: One Child's Struggle to be Seen as Competent. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Print.

Friend, M., & Bursuck, W. D. Including Students with Special Needs: A Practical Guide for Classroom Teachers (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill, 2009. Print.

Lovecky, D. V. Different Minds: Gifted Children with Ad/Hd, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits. London: Jessica Kingsley, 2004. Print.

Weinfeld, R., Barnes-Robinson, L., Jeweler, S., & Shevitz, B. "Academic Programs for Gifted and Talented/Learning Disabled Students." Roeper Review 2002: 24(4), 226+. Print.

WGBH Educational Foundation. "Misunderstood minds." PBS.org. WGBH Educational Foundation Retrieved, 2002.  Web. 13 Mar. 2009.  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/misunderstoodminds/index.html  

Zentall, S. S., & Kruczek, T.  The Attraction of Color for Active Attention-Problem Children. Exceptional Children, 1988: 54(4), 357+. Print.