“I recall every August as the summer would draw to a close, my happy, upbeat teenage daughter who has ADHD would become miserable and literally cry as she would get her school supplies ready. She dreaded school.”
“Learn everything you can about your child’s learning difficulty. You can’t afford to be ignorant.”
“My son, Simcha, an eighth grader with ADHD, gets extra time when he takes tests. When he was in the sixth grade, he had an amazing rebbi. One time when Simcha was taking a Gemara test, the rebbi realized he would need a different classroom where he could continue taking the test once the rest of the class had finished. The rebbi spent the next twenty minutes going from classroom to classroom to help Simcha find a room where he could concentrate undisturbed. Simcha remembers running up and down the stairs with his rebbi at his side, as they searched for the right spot. It’s been a while, but Simcha can’t forget what his rebbi did for him.”
“At the beginning of every school year, I try to call the teachers and rebbeim and explain that my son, who has an IEP, needs more time when he takes a test. One day, my eleven-year-old son, Aaron, came home from yeshivah grinning from ear to ear. ‘How was your test?’ I asked. He said, ‘It was very good. At the beginning of the test, the teacher told me I can have more time if I need it.’ That reassurance gave him the menuchas hanefesh he needed to complete the test. And he did really well. There are simple accommodations teachers can do that make a huge difference.”
“Every year, it’s the same thing. I speak to the rebbi and the teacher and explain that my son is wired differently. He has ADHD. They are all so surprised. It’s as if they never heard of the term before. Why aren’t schools educating their teachers about this? Why don’t rebbeim and teachers get basic training in dealing with students with learning differences?”
“My junior high school daughter, who has a hard time focusing due to her ADHD, had a Chumash teacher who was rigid and old-school and did not understand learning differences or the idea of rewarding effort. When I told her at parent-teacher conferences that my daughter had spent hours studying for a Chumash test with a tutor and nevertheless failed an exam, she quipped, ‘Well she must have not studied the right way.’
“That same year, though, my daughter’s Navi teacher went out of her way to accommodate and support my daughter. Every day, she would get the notes from one of the best note-takers in the class, make a copy and discreetly slip them into my daughter’s cubby so she would have what to study from. She did this Every. Single. Day. That was extraordinary dedication.”
