The Choice

It’s unfair.

The tribunal, in its infinite wisdom, has given us a choice.

Either my son is guilty-as-charged and must be returned to his "zone" school, which they know can’t teach him anything, or he must prove not only that he has ADHD but that the ADHD caused the incident in question.

To stay in school, he must be branded.

It’s unfair.

For folks like me, whose ADHD comes with anxiety, depression and
oppositional disorder, there are no more important words than these.
Fair is something we take personally. Fair is something we get upset
about. Fair is something we demand — if you’re to get consideration I
demand the same.

It’s unfair.

This was my own mantra growing up, and I’m certain it’s my son’s as
well. After all, he wants to be the Mr.  District Attorney, and put the
unfair people away. Yet to get there, suddenly, he must accept this
terrible unfairness. In the case at issue, he’s convinced, he’s
innocent. I’m convinced of that as well. The "victim" in this case
deliberately wound him up, whether out of ignorance or willfully we
can’t say, and my son defended himself. That’s his story, and he’s
sticking with it. That’s what he told the tribunal.

Yet to stay on the path toward becoming Mr. District Attorney, he must
be branded, after 9 years of hard work against the side effects of his ADHD, at a time when he had finally
made his behavior conform, in all outward appearances, to what every
school wants. He sits on the bus, he goes straight to class. He sits quietly, waiting for class to begin. And he participates — my God does
he participate. He wears teachers out. His hand is always up. He’s
always asking questions, demanding answers. It’s exhausting. One
teacher who has had him for two years has a strategy — she says "you
can only ask 5 questions for the rest of the class period" — and he
has to think before raising his hand. Another says, "you have to be
quiet for five minutes" and he’ll sit there quietly for one minute, two
minutes. Then he starts to bring his hand up, and it’s by a visible act of
will he will bring it down. Then start scribbling questions furiously in a notepad.

This is the kind of kid our schools claim they want to serve. The
hardest curriculum in the district isn’t hard enough for him — he has
to add Arabic and Chinese.  He never misses a day,  and if he can help it never misses a class period.

But he does miss class periods.  Because they demand he seek
psychiatric help, and counseling for his "disability." Because they
want to test him, during class time — during biochemistry (which is
a cool class) — to prove his disability.

It’s unfair.

I agree. But what can you do, I say. You need this protection so other
teachers will know what they’re facing, Super Student. You must handle
him carefully, you must not be unfair. Don’t wind him up, he’ll defend
himself, with words and if you lose your temper, with karate. As he did in
this case.

I am not a hero in my own home. I’m the villain. Get away from me, he
demands. I have homework. Yeah, right, I think, you have homework.
You’re avoiding the reality. I saved your butt, you ingrate!

It’s
unfair.

Yes it is unfair. Because, it turns out later, he did have homework. A
ton of it. Some teachers gave paper deadlines a few weeks ahead of
time, during hours when he was out, forced out by therapy, by demands
he prove himself disabled in order to continue. So two papers are due
tomorrow, along with homework from two other teachers who both decided
now was a good time for it.

It all gets done. Somehow. He’s still printing out stuff just before school. But it’s done. It’s good. It’s very good. It’s exceptional.

Sometimes, his teachers say, he writes an essay that has nothing to do
with what was assigned. They asked one question, he answered another.
But it’s very, very good. And the teachers who understand him grade it.

Is this a disability? Is this something that must be branded on him? Is
he an "exceptional" child, like the autistics and the illiterates and
the other "speds," those who require special ed?

It’s unfair.

Life is unfair. Bureaucracies are often unfair. They grind slowly, they
leave you hanging. They do everything in their own time, on their own
schedule, leaving us wallowing in uncertainty, unable to eat, to sleep,
able only to walk disconsolately on empty streets, worried, or brooding
(as my son does) on our porch swing (looking so much like his
grandfather), staring out into nothingness, unspeaking, refusing to
speak, to answer, to give his father peace.

And this is unfair. But what’s fair got to do with it, I ask. For those
who suffer from an attention surplus, people who must dot each i and cross each t
methodically, those who must draw the lines and insist no one color
outside them, what’s fair? What’s fair is what’s fair to them, fair to
the system, fair to the "others," fair to the teachers, fair to
society. Fair to you, that’s something else entirely, and this
compromise is, to them, infinitely fair.

It’s unfair.

But what can you do?