Stop Penalizing Boys for Not Being Able to Sit Still at School (2013)

Public education in its present shape was created during XIX century industrialization with a purpose of freeing parents from having to take care of kids and go work in a factory, and producing next generation of obedient workers, that industrial economy needs.<p>For some reason despite most of western economies heavily de-industrialized, and economy shifted to more creative and free-spirited arrangements, we never reformed education system. Anyone that does not fit the &quot;obedient worker&quot; is penalized by the system, and for decades we are shown plenty of high impact &quot;geniuses&quot; who in their childhood struggled in schools.<p>Out of time to look for better sources: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;qz.com&#x2F;1314814&#x2F;universal-education-was-first-promoted-by-industrialists-who-wanted-docile-factory-workers&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;qz.com&#x2F;1314814&#x2F;universal-education-was-first-promote...</a>

Many moons ago in K-12 (80&#x27;s-90&#x27;s) in California public schools, I had really bad ADHD (undiagnosed until 35, often labeled &quot;weird&quot;) with ASD, anxiety with stuttering, depression, and emotional disturbances. The schools basically put up with me because I was in a gifted program, though I must&#x27;ve been an annoying AF over-eager hand-raiser and a weird, nerdy kid.<p>My family wouldn&#x27;t allow psychological or psychiatric intervention because they believed it was a conspiracy against children.<p>25 years later, I&#x27;ve tried the main classes of AD(H)D medications and cannot tolerate them even though I need them to function in society. (On benefits at present, looking to start a 3D printed custom parts business.)<p>Antidepressants: I wish there one that worked, but I&#x27;ve tried 14 of them; I&#x27;m looking at the dissociatives, psychedelics, TMS, medical implants, and surgical options.

A friend and neighbor sent her son through The German School in Potomac, Maryland, through eighth grade. She said that in the earlier years, most of what the kids did seemed to be to run around outside. Obviously, this did not go on all the way through, and got into the magnet school of their choice for high school.

How about this: stop penalizing kids who can’t sit still in school. Statistics show that the “sit still and listen” model doesn’t work for many boys, but the stats show that the model doesn’t work for many girls either.<p>The recommendations in this article are solid, but apply to all kids.

The school&#x27;s fix for my boy&#x27;s ADD? Give him more time on tests. Make him sit <i>longer</i>. Of course it was pointless and cruel.<p>A working solution would have been, to break the test up into smaller pieces.

This article is focused more on boys due to the greater harm received in that environment. It&#x27;s important to recognise the disparity as we have in other issues such as wages.<p>Sitting on your desk for hours without taking a walk or stretch is harmful to your body, no matter what gender.<p>In Indian schools, teachers switch classrooms instead of kids during periods. Often they come early and stand at the door for the current teacher to finish and leave. This doesn&#x27;t give any time to the students to stand up and cool off. There are also security cameras to punish students who start playing in the classroom between periods if the teacher is late.<p>Of course, some kids will still end up goofing around and sometimes take the punishment.<p>This ignores that there are kids with anxiety, disability and other problems which make them less likely to ignore the rules and risk getting punished.<p>This skews the data and people make incorrect assessment about the impact. There are many factors to consider here. <i>I turn out fine</i> is falling into that trap. You probably just goofed around and ignored the norms.<p>I wonder how much obesity rates in young people are influenced by the current schools.

As a man I can confidently say we do just fine and the system teats us very well thank you very much. Rather than stopping the &quot;penalization&quot; of boys, we need to stop making excuses for and accepting their (our) poor social behavior. Lord of the Flies is basically a middle school boys documentary IMHO.<p>Alternatively, if you <i>really</i> feel like this is a problem, then recognize and speak up about the negative impacts that this behavior has on everyone else in the system, particularly girls.<p>I speak from the perspective of the head coach for multiple elite &quot;travel teams&quot; for both girls and boys in the middle school age range, as the father of many daughters, and as a former boy.