In an English literature course in my second year of college, we were discussing e e cummings anyone lived in a pretty how town. Someone said that there was a sexual overtone to some parts of the poem. “When I thought of that,” I said, ” I figured that I must be crazy.” Without hesitation the professor replied, “Who told you that you were crazy?” At the time I had no response. But I have one now. No one had to tell me I was crazy. I read it on everyone’s face.

The further I went in college, the more I realized that there were others that saw the world the way I did. But despite finding like-minded intellectuals, something was still wrong. Very wrong. It took forty-six years for me to finally figure out why I bounced from career to career like a billiard ball careening off a bumper. I suffer from the holy trinity of self-delusion — intelligence, creativity, and ADHD — giving me the ability to creatively “explain away” my problems instead of confronting them. It did not take long for me to discover fellow sufferers who explain away their problems by claiming to be a DaVinci, a hunter in a society of farmers, or, like Marko Ferek, a hyperactive dreamer. His creation of this unknown personality type is a text-book case of the holy trinity in action.

Ferek writes

I was a below average student. I had a short attention span, I day-dreamed a lot, was fidgety, and no matter how much I tried, I could not focus. Due to this I was often criticized, which lead me to loose all self-confidence. The inability to explain to myself why I had such problems in school, led me to believe that I was stupid.

At the age of 22 I accidentally found out about ADHD. As soon as I read about the symptoms I realized that I had ADHD. This was a big shock for me because I realized that I was not stupid, but that I simply had problems with concentration. I felt a huge urge to understand myself more because I knew I was unknown to myself.

My self-research lead me to an unexpected discovery, something I always felt inside but through the years stopped believing. I found out that I don’t have a deficit, but a gift!” Although I portray the symptoms of ADHD and therefore fall under the ADHD umbrella– I actually don’t have ADHD. Symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity are not the result of my deficit, but a result of my creativity, my gift. I have a healthy and creative mind that creates ADHD-like symptoms.” [Emphasis added]

But wait! There’s more!

Then, out of the blue, I had a vision. I saw my mission – to explain people like me to the world, because this specific spectrum of creativity is still not recognized. I call them “hyperactive dreamers”. Since then I dedicated myself to my mission. [Emphasis added]

Did Marko Ferek really create a new personality type? Of course not. His inability to explain himself to himself led him to believe that he IS stupid. It is likely that the criticism he received never helped him make the distinction between is and like. To tell a child he is acting like he is stupid (which implies that he is not) is not the same thing as saying he is stupid. The former describes a set of actions; the latter describes a state of being, and it is the latter that had a devastating effect on his self-image, something most every ADHDer can relate to. But the label “stupid” left him wondering, how could he be both stupid and creative? That’s when he hit upon his Aha! moment. He is NOT stupid. However, his special type of creativity exhibits characteristics that look LIKE he is stupid. He is hyperactive and impulsive, not because he has ADHD, but because this newly discovered personality type mimics ADHD. In fact, it has all the characteristics of ADHD even though it is NOT ADHD.

I won’t dwell any longer on the twisted logic used to arrive at the concept of “hyperactive dreamer” because I want to address a more fundamental issue, namely that all ADHDers have to grapple with their diagnosis and to figure out what it means for them and what it says about them. Some see it as magical fairy dust while some others see it as a curse that destroys life. Then there are others who just see it as this “thing” they have that sometimes interferes with their life but which is not the sole focus of their life. (This describes my current relationship with my diagnosis. I’ve moved beyond ADHD-as-a-Curse to my Mosquito Theory of ADHD.) Marko Ferek has discovered a brand new way to live with an ADHD diagnosis: acknowledge the obvious, deny the obvious, and give it a new name, such as hyperactive dreaming.

We must admit that for someone to simultaneously acknowledge and deny what is obvious to all, takes enormous courage and creativity, much like that exhibited by Buckminster Fuller, who was a “hopelessly nearsighted child” who “refused to believe that the world was not blurry ” until that fateful moment when he got a pair of glasses. Perhaps Ferek is “psychologically” nearsighted and needs to be fitted with a pair of “psychological” glasses. Then, once he can see what everyone else sees, he can use his formidable talents to help others understand what it is like to be just like Marko Ferek: intelligent, creative and ADHD.

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…we have no clue how to educate people. That’s why star teachers and star principals stand out because we don’t know how to create educators and we don’t know how to educate. The kids go into school dumb…they pick up some basic skills…they come out just as dumb but now they can read the newspaper.

Zoë disagreed with this analysis (you’ll have to read the blogchat for her counterargument). But I ask you, the reader, do you know of any children that went into school with only middling intelligence and then came out of the system a genius? a thinker? If the school system really knew how to educate people, how to make them think, we would not have a world populated with Sarah Palins, Glenn Becks, etc. Our school system currently talks a good game about differentiated curriculum, multiple intelligences and so forth. But how many schools have really implemented change based on this “new think”? The answer is: barely a handful.

Q.E.D.

P.S. Please see my other video supplement for The “Education” of an ADHDer blogchat.

Though a bit outdated, the basic analysis in the book The Great School Legend is still relevant. Our school system is not the magic elixir we like to think it is. The following abstract is from ERIC.

American schools have been credited with building American democracy. This is a myth which has been largely responsible for the resistance of today’s schools to needed change. Exposing this myth are records of several major urban school systems which show the high rate of school failure among the urban poor since before 1900. These statistics have been ignored in the past in favor of maintaining the American dream, and they are particularly significant and relevant for today’s largely black urban poor, who are held responsible for failing to make the same good use of the schools their predecessors did. While professing to ameliorate society’s ills, the American school system has always been conservative and reflexive, serving only to maintain the status quo of American institutions under the guise of progressivism, liberalism and reformism. If the American school system is truly to help the poor and disadvantaged and act as a democratizing agent, and thus facilitate social change, it must first reexamine the historical analysis of American education with a radical rethinking of our contemporary social crisis.

For an interesting book on how education reproduces the power structure (this book is also in need of updating but its general premises are still relevant) see Preparing for Power: America’s Elite Boarding Schools By Peter W. Cookson and Caroline Hodges Persell. The following is from one of the summaries found on the Amazon page for this book:

…the authors visited more than 60 elite prep schools in the United States and England, interviewing administrators, faculty, students, and alumni. Attended by less than one per cent of the high school population, these schools turn out a disporportionate number of business, professional, and government leaders. The authors argue that the philosophies, programs, and lifestyles of boarding schools help transmit the power and privilege of elite families. They show how students are selected and examine the curricula, teaching styles, student underlife, and the link between prep school attendance and admission to the “right”‘ universities and the corporate boardroom.

• He Said / She Said: Examining the ADHD Life – The “Education” of an ADHDer, Part I
• He Said / She Said: Examining the ADHD Life – The “Education” of an ADHDer, Part II

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See:  Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not

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Dr. Sydney Spiesel discusses a potential link between smaller elementary school class sizes and better health, a safer way to give painkillers, and treatments for ADHD.

Smaller class size and health. – By Sydney Spiesel – Slate Magazine

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