I'm one of the kids who made the riot

[Anonymous]

You are wierd ::

[Anonymous]

On 2005-06-16 08:48:00, Anonymous wrote:

"You are wierd :: "

Yeah, but that doesn't mean I'm not right.

And *you* are really rude.  Not so much to me, as to the person whose writing you made assumptions about (if you're the same anon).

A lot of the kids who get sent to Programs have ADHD.  ADHD is almost universally associated with a lesion on the specific part of the patient's frontal lobe.

Frequently that lesion is not the only lesion, or extends beyond the specific area that appears to be instrumental in the development of ADHD.

Since many learning disabilities also involve abnormalities of the frontal lobe, it isn't suprising at all that people diagnosed ADHD have a very high rate of comorbid learning disabilities.

That means that it's much more likely that the kid who posted about the riot has a learning disability, whether it's been diagnosed or not, than a random teenager picked out of your local high school.

I know all this because I have a degree in Psychology, focused on research, from a top ten public engineering and sciences university.  I also have a child with special needs.  So I keep up with the research a lot more than the vast majority of people.

So your particular problem is not my "weirdness" (by the way, you misspelled "weird"), it's that I know a lot more about writing than you do, and I know a lot more about learning disabilities than you do, and (as a homeschooling mom) I know a lot more about education than you do.

Your problem is not my "weirdness" but that you just happened to pick subjects I'm expert on, and were probably overwhelmed by the information.

Any time you see someone with really bad writing or spelling, especially if you see it on the internet, it's really rude to start criticizing them without finding out whether the person either has a learning disability, or has learned English as a second language.

In this case, a learning disability is a lot more likely than English as a second language.

You should have asked first instead of jumping to conclusions.

I'd rather be weird than rude.

Timoclea
(Not that I'm always polite, but I usually try to be.)

[Anonymous]

I know the kid who made the post personally. I KNOW he is BEHIND in school (if I could write it with bigger letters, I would have). And no - he does not have learning disabilities, English is his second language.

[Anonymous]

Well, if he's English as a second language, then you knew before you said it that his post *didn't* prove being "behind"---except in the sense that his English isn't perfect.

If you knew he was behind not from his post but because you know him, you could have avoided the whole thing just by *saying* you know him.  Or did I miss something?

It's really hard to tell who knows who when everyone is anonymous.  Pick a screen name, for goodness' sakes.

Out of the kids I went to school with, being "behind" in school was not what made them or sunk them.  It was whether they kept trying, or gave up.  The only way to fail in this life is to quit.  Life isn't a race to see who can get the most toys or credits the fastest.

I knew kids who didn't do so well in school who played to their strengths and their own special talents and did fairly well in life.

This hits me personally because my kid has special needs and a lot of kids with the same thing she's got get "behind" in school.

So what if it takes them two extra years to finish their high school material?  If they're doing their best, at least they've learned it.

I don't know if Evegeni (sp?) is doing his best in his schoolwork or not.  I know a lot of times a kid *is* doing his best, and the adults around him think he's not because they don't have to walk in his shoes.

Your post came across as snippy, and it punched my buttons.  Maybe that's just the internet and if I'd been talking to you in person where I could see facial cues you would have come across differently.  I don't know.

I think being "behind" or "ahead" doesn't matter as much as whether you're doing your best now, and will continue to do your best tomorrow.

Getting where you want to go in life is all about never giving up.

Timoclea