Younger students get ADHD

From CuriousCat Engineering Blog:
Nearly 1 million Children Potentially Misdiagnosed with ADHD in the USA

Nearly 1 million children in the United States are potentially misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder simply because they are the youngest – and most immature – in their kindergarten class, according to new research by, Todd Elder, a Michigan State University economist.

Some of the numbers:

The youngest kindergartners were 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children in the same grade. Similarly, when that group of classmates reached the fifth and eighth grades, the youngest were more than twice as likely to be prescribed stimulants. Overall, the study found that about 20 percent – or 900,000 – of the 4.5 million children currently identified as having ADHD likely have been misdiagnosed.

Psychiatrists and educators must be more careful. When you're looking for a reason why Johnny can't sit still, you're likely to see the reason you most want to see or the one you're just had hours of inservice about.

Thinking like a Teacher?

How to tell if you think like a teacher?  Read this article on Redskins player Albert Haynesworth then come back here.

Okay. If you're not a teacher, you're probably thinking, "What a dope. Haynesworth should have known better. You just don't mess with the Shanahan. It's all Haynesworth's fault for getting himself into this and it's all on his shoulders for getting himself out of the doghouse and into the position as starter that everyone knows he can do, if he gets his act straight."

If you're a teacher, you were probably thinking, "I wish I could get away with something analogous. The admin response? It would 'obviously' be the teacher's fault that he didn't do the work necessary to succeed. The teacher should be fired - not up to standards."

Oh well.


reposted here, in case it's gone from there by the time you see this:

Redskins’ Haynesworth crossed the wrong guy
Les Carpenter, Les Carpenter, Yahoo! Sports

ASHBURN, Va. – If Albert Haynesworth(notes) believed he could spend seven months challenging the icy will of Redskins coach Mike Shanahan then expect to be forgiven, he learned the futility of that hope halfway through a fitness test he would not pass on Thursday afternoon.

Few men in the NFL can carry a grudge like Shanahan, who harbors resentment behind a forced smile. Valued assistants and longtime colleagues tell of their relationships with the coach in hushed whispers. Some have begged not to be interviewed. They value the coach’s knowledge, admire his obsession for detail. But they also fear him. Even long after they have stopped working with him their words quiver when his name is raised. Some say they fear they might say the wrong thing. They don’t want to cross him.

He is a man who does not forget.

And after Haynesworth used the winter, spring and half the summer to defy Shanahan, refusing to attend his minicamps and OTAs and conditioning sessions because he didn’t want to be a part of Shanahan’s new 3-4 defense, he finally came back to the Redskins this week. Whatever leverage he had was exhausted, his attempts to embarrass his new coach into dealing him had failed. He had no choice but to return to practice.

With one caveat.

“There’s a conditioning test he’ll go through,” Shanahan said on Wednesday, the day before camp started. This was a Shanahan invention, officially administered to Haynesworth because he missed a percentage of the offseason workouts, unofficially because he tried to embarrass Shanahan.

Haynesworth should have understood right then he would not pass the test. Despite Shanahan’s insistence it was a “basic” fitness exam, the test was made to fail.

Shanahan refused to reveal the details of the test but it involved lots and lots of running in temperatures that pushed through the 90s in a sticky, swampy muck. Haynesworth, who supposedly shed 40 pounds in the offseason working out with a personal trainer, had no chance.

So he was banished to a solo workout on a treadmill on Thursday as the rest of the team practiced outside. Later, after practice was over and the fans were heading toward their cars, he was dragged out for a scramble around trash cans on a far-off field. When he was done he was forced to jog a gauntlet of fans, past the media and back into the safety of the locker room.

Predictably, he did not speak to anyone during his walk of shame.

There is a long list of former players and bosses who have endured Shanahan’s wrath, including Raiders owner Al Davis, who fired him, and once-acclaimed receiver Ashley Lelie, who never played well for him in Denver. Then there was one-time Broncos guard Montrae Holland, who rewarded Shanahan for a contract extension by showing up 20 pounds overweight at the start of training camp in 2008.

Like Haynesworth, he was quickly banished from practice, forced through a cocktail of punishments including the treadmill, elliptical machine and stairmaster. When he was done, he had to run outside just like Haynesworth. After a few days he was allowed to return to only one of the team’s two daily practices. A starter the previous season, Holland could only play for the scout team during that workout. Later in the day, he was forced to run alone on an empty field.

His exile lasted two weeks. He lost his job and not long after he was traded to the Cowboys.

Late Thursday afternoon, Shanahan seemed to revel in his revenge over Haynesworth. He smiled as he stepped onto an interview stage.

“I bet I can anticipate the first question,” he said.

When that first question was, of course, about Haynesworth, he laughed.

Haynesworth will have to take the test again on Friday, he said. And if he doesn’t pass it – a likely possibility given Thursday’s result – he’ll be shipped off to the treadmill once more.

“It may take two or three days or it might take a week,” Shanahan said.

In the days before he returned to the Redskins, Haynesworth had softened his stance against the team, texting with some of the coaches, trying to catch up on the nuances of a new defense installed in the spring. He expressed a willingness to work and the sense among the assistant coaches was one of optimism.

Jim Haslett, the defensive coordinator, smiled this week as he described a defense designed to take advantage of Haynesworth’s pass-rushing skills, even though his basic position – nose tackle – is one that doesn’t yield the big sack numbers Haynesworth craved. The plan, Haslett said, was to move Haynesworth between nose tackle and defensive end – sometimes even outside linebacker – frequently during games.

“I think he’s really going to like the scheme, I really do,” Haslett said. “There’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of movement.”

Only for seven months Haynesworth wouldn’t listen. As a defensive tackle in a 4-3 scheme he didn’t want to give up the dominance he once enjoyed at the position while with the Tennessee Titans to play a scheme that didn’t seem built for him. When Shanahan arrived, insisting on playing the 3-4, Haynesworth tuned out.

On Thursday he paid the price for his petulance. The coaches say they are excited about nose tackle Maake Kemoeatu, signed in the offseason after missing last year with a heel injury. If healthy he can fill the middle. The idea was Haynesworth could play outside. After receiving $32 million of the $100 million contract he signed before last season, he infuriated most of Washington by appearing out of shape. Shanahan could have provided him a new start.

Yet when asked to adhere to his new coach’s plan for him, Haynesworth refused, choosing to scorch the earth.

And so on Thursday he ran.

And ran.

And ran.

And became just another man who challenged Mike Shanahan and lost.

Don’t expect schools to be cyber-parents

My response is: anything but "F"
But then, I'm a teacher and I don't believe that anything happening outside of the school or non-school related activity or trip is any of the school's business.

Via the Schenectady (NY) Daily Gazette
July 6, 2010, page A5

A boy has apparently sent filthy text messages to your daughter over the weekend. Both are sixth-graders at the same school. You, the girl’s father, coach sports with the boy’s father. What would you do?

a. Disconnect your daughter from all texting services.
b. Talk to the boy’s father, whom you know.
c. If the father refuses to do something about it, stop socializing with him.
d. Call the police.
e. Do some combination of a, b, c and d.
f. Complain to the school principal.

This is a real-life example, and the parents chose only f. The two students attended Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, N.J. The principal, Tony Orsini, asked the girl’s parents whether they had contacted the boy’s family. No. That would upset the coaching arrangement. He asked whether they had called the police. They again said no, making several excuses.

In olden days, the parents probably would have intervened personally. They could have cut off their daughter’s texting capabilities and diplomatically called the other parents. Or they might have gone directly to the door of the offending schoolmate’s house to make their displeasure very clear.

The more aggressive approach is best done with calm. The parents may have had no idea of their child’s activities and would be grateful for the information. Or, the odious messages may have come from someone else who had found the cell phone. That had happened in the above case.

But outsourcing this parenting role to teachers and principals seems to have become the common practice.

Most schools understandably don’t have the time or desire to monitor their charges’ electronic communications. And what’s a school to do when one student sends obscene texts to another from home on a weekend? Obtain a search warrant?

Suppose the principal confiscates a cell phone and finds provocative photos of the owner on it, not uncommon for those who do “sexting.” The educator risks having an unhinged parent retaliate by charging him (or her) of trafficking in child pornography.

Schools have come up with varied responses to the cyber-bully problem. A Seattle middle school suspended 28 students who ganged up on a classmate on Facebook. By contrast, a mother asked a school in Fairfax, Va., to punish students involved in a Facebook pile-up on her son and was told there was nothing it could do.

My favorite response was Principal Orsini’s. He sent an e-mail to all parents that described their responsibilities.

“There is absolutely NO reason for any middle school student to be part of a social networking site,” Orsini wrote. He noted that cruel 12-year-olds pose more a threat to their middle-schoolers’s well-being than the adult predators of parental nightmares. And he told parents whose children were attacked through networking sites or messages: “IMMEDIATELY GO TO THE POLICE!”

Typing these words, I feel like reaching for the hand sanitizer. You who have hung in this far may feel similar revulsion. You wonder why any sixth-grader has texting privileges at all. Why parents let their tender-age teens do social networking. Why Facebook opens its service to people as young as 13.

There are ways to pressure Facebook. Parents, meanwhile, must do their job. They must confront the parents of their children’s assailants, contain their kids’ computer use and, if necessary, call the police.

The Highly Ineffective Principal is Usurped.

There are so many things wrong here, I just don't know what to say. Hold on, I DO know what to say. I think these folk have usurped the title of Most Highly Ineffective Principal. If you can't teach 'em, suspend 'em!

• School Officials: Grow Up. If this is the extent of his "intimidation," then you need to seriously reconsider your actions. If he made other students uncomfortable, then you need to talk to him and to them and help everyone understand the meaning of "Play" and appropriate things. If this is too complicated for you adults, then you should quit your position and get a job you can handle. Like maybe at Burger King.
  
• Momma: Grow Up. You're the Adult. Teach your son how to behave. If they've complained about this behavior for several months and you've ignored it, then you have also failed as a parent. You have to realize the school is unwilling to do (or incapable of doing) this. Teach him proper behavior. Nobody cares if your son isn't violent at home - we all know what a special little snowflake he is, unique and wonderful.

Say it with me again, "Zero Tolerance means Zero Intelligence."

---

Ionia kindergartner suspended for making gun with hand
By Brian McVicar The Grand Rapids Press
March 04, 2010, 10:39PM
IONIA -- To the little boy's mother, it was just a 6-year-old boy playing around.
But when Mason Jammer, a kindergarten student at Jefferson Elementary in Ionia, curled his fist into the shape of a gun Wednesday and pointed it at another student, school officials said it was no laughing matter. They suspended Mason until Friday, saying the behavior made other students uncomfortable, said Erin Jammer, Mason's mother. School officials allege Mason had displayed this kind of behavior for several months, despite numerous warnings. "I do think it's too harsh for a six-year-old," said Jammer, who was previously warned that if Mason continued the practice he would be suspended. "He's six and he just likes to play." Jammer says her son isn't violent, and there are other, more effective ways of teaching him not to make a gun with his hand. "Maybe what you could do is take his recess away," suggested Jammer, adding her son doesn't have toy guns at home. "He's only six and he doesn't understand any of this."

Now you know why it's called Generation Y

Thanks to
Buckhorn Road for reminding me that I had these buried in the academic folder. and to Darren for the link to Buckhorn. Note: that second is sourced Flint (MI) Police Department and comes courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. For some reason, the kids don't think it's appropriate. I merely say, "At some point, the powers that be will decide that your 'funny' and 'no big deal' are not and are, respectively. You're nearly adults and people will expect you to behave as such." Not sure it sticks, but it's fun to say.