ADHD and Mastery

More on goals and intents. You have to do enough research to ask intelligent questions, and develop a perspective. I saw that there were many opinions about ADHD, but the ones I found the most agreeable is that there are multiple learning styles, and modern classrooms specialize in just a couple of them.

“Hunters in a world full of Farmers” (a phrase from the book THE EDISON GENE by Thom Hartman) made sense to me–not enough physical motion. Jason, I reasoned, was a Hunter/Warrior child. He should have been out running, jumping, and wrestling rather than sitting passively. He seemed to function much better when he had a chance to burn off that energy.

The first question I asked was that if ADHD means lack of capacity to focus, to apply attention, this was on a continuum with the more “normal” problem almost EVERYONE has with focusing attention on the RIGHT things long enough to really achieve excellence. I don’t believe in innate talent (not 100% true, but as a starting point…yeah, I don’t think much of it) as opposed to “being able to focus your attention and energy on a problem until it is solved, or a skill until it is mastered.”

That question: what creates MASTERY, was discussed in George Leonard’s book of that title. He said that the average person never achieves an unusual level of skill at anything much NOT because they lack the “talent” but because they cannot do the same basic things day after day, week after week, wiring the basics in TIGHTLY, because they can’t emotionally handle the “fallow” periods where it seems they…