The Art of Looking Engaged While Your Brain Slowly Leaves the Building

By Jane Sorensen

Jane Sorensen is a writer and educator who currently lives in NJ. Her voracious appetite for books and podcasts has helped her gain substantial insight into the science and historical treatment of neurodivergence and trauma and develop the coping skills necessary to manage her ADHD and CPTSD. In her spare time she is also an avid music fan and plays keys.

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I knew it was going to be an extra long professional development day when the speaker started by saying “let's make some noise” and was met with the sound of creaking chairs. There were six hours remaining.

The topic for the day was “Fostering Resiliency.” The speaker was wearing a polo shirt and had definitely used at least one paycheck to attend Tony Robinson seminars.

So began a day of education assistants being lectured by a man who, by his own admission, doesn't actually have any classroom experience.

Some highlights:

-Him saying that reality is 95 percent created in your head. I want to know where he got that number.

-Him talking about himself. A lot.

-Recycled PowerPoint slides about classroom management being mansplained by someone who, again, does not work in a classroom.

But the one that really got me was when he described ADHD as a “stress response.”

As someone who was late-diagnosed with ADHD, it took me years to understand that a lot of my trauma, particularly within the United States education system, was the result of having a neurodevelopmental disorder. Countless peer-reviewed studies have shown there's a strong genetic component.

Obviously I'm not saying there's no relationship between environmental factors and ADHD, but calling it a “stress response” is a huge oversimplification. Hearing someone who was being paid by the school district spouting something that has been debunked for decades literally made me want to pull my hair out (I also have trichotillomania, which, fun fact, often co-occurs with ADHD). Adding to the absurdity was the fact that he was undoubtedly getting paid way more for spouting this nonsense than assistant teachers get for being required to sit through it.

The question of how to properly help kids with ADHD within the public education system is extremely complicated. As a part-time musician who works as an education assistant by day, I can safely say that question is way above my pay grade.

However I do have some thoughts on how to take an axe to the format of professional development seminars to make them actually helpful.

First, I'd make them way shorter. I know I know, it's not shocking for someone with ADHD to just want the highlights, but this recent seminar in particular dragged on way past what even a neurotypical attention span could bear. I could almost hear the sound of everyone in the room questioning their life choices and thinking about how much lesson planning they could be doing instead.

Second, any seminar meant to help educators should be focused on the students. Presumably this “Fostering Resiliency” seminar was meant to benefit kids in the classroom, but instead it became a long, misguided speech about self care. If the intention was genuinely to benefit the mental health of the people in the room, a day of sitting in wildly uncomfortable chairs and being lectured is not the way. I definitely wouldn't complain if the district had a professional development that included small groups facilitated by a therapist (preferably with cushioned seats) but that probably won't happen. The next best thing would be to succinctly learn the new “classroom strategies” jargon and then be released to go catch up on laundry that is probably covered in glitter and glue from, you know, actually working in a classroom.

If you've ever worked in public education you know that it's not exactly a hot take to have some notes about professional developments. If my proposal of making them shorter and more focused isn't doable for whatever reason, the least the district could do is make sure the speaker has accurate, up-to-date information.

Then again, reality is 95 percent all in your head so I guess teachers and their assistants could always just pretend to be somewhere else.