Giant Worms

I have a student in my class who has ADHD. Not the trouble-focusing-but-can-still-do-work-given-time ADHD, but the sort of ADHD where he is at his desk one minute and then the next he is walking to the middle of the room, claiming that there could be a giant worm ready to jump up from the ground and eat him. I literally had to hold a package of gum that he was fiddling with instead of doing his assignment: he refused to let it go and I am not one to rip things out of student's hands, so we both just held onto it. Somehow that helped him do a little more of his assignment, that is until he quipped, "You know how teachers say 'I'm not gonna hold your hand in this class,' well, Miss Athy..." The whole class (including me, admittedly) erupted in laughter.

I will admit it can be very frustrating working with him, and today was no exception. He is a very bright young adult, but he has an enormous amount of trouble doing even part of an assignment, let alone all of it. I did not want to send him to the office, because I knew that he would most likely be suspended for "failure to comply with rules." The thing is, I don't like punishing people for who they are. This is not to say that the student doesn't need to change his behavior. He needs to get his work done. However, he needs help in learning strategies to utilize his behavior and ways of thinking. I feel like the strategy of "send them to the office for a punishment" does a disservice to some of our students who do have trouble focusing, or other non-normative ways of thinking and expressing themselves.

Today, I explained this to him. I told him that I wanted him to do well so he could move up in the world, and I didn't want to resort to sending him to the office because then he would be missing out on class activities. I made him a deal: he had been asking me repeatedly as I was starting class what my favorite type of music was--I had asked him to please be quiet while I was talking. Here were the terms: he could complete his assignment and I would tell him what my favorite music was, or he could continue to not do his work and I would have to, as much as I didn't want to, send him to the office.

The next thing he said hit me hard. He looked at me worriedly and said "But they won't have me do my work there! They'll just get me in trouble! [The assistant principal] hates me!"

He wanted to do his work. He just truly has that much of an issue getting it done.

I told him that if I ended up having to send him out, I would write a note for the assistant principal to make sure he could work on his assignment. Thankfully, I didn't end up needing to send him. He completed his work (with several quips between questions, of course) and as I went to collect his work I said: "As promised--my favorite type of music is heavy metal."

"OH! Miss Athy!! You have to see this video!!"

What have I done?