A different perspective

Ken Robinson on education’s struggle to modernise

On education

I like Ken a lot. I think what he has to say about education is spot on. But I’m troubled by how he refers to ADHD, he’s a little too dismissive and political. I agree that society itself is responsible in main part for the growth of ADHD diagnosis. But we are undoubtedly different from the norm and need some help with that. We demand that five year old children sit on hard chairs and pay attention to a single person all day. Would any adult you know want that?

In our quest to measure children we miss the point. We miss the hard to numerically assess areas like independent thinking, team work, problem solving, creativity, presentation and verbal skills in our education and evaluation systems. We disregard skills in which ADHD kids may excel, instead we measure memory and adherence to process. Sad for children, sadder still for the health of society at large.

Andrew Lewis

Andrew Lewis is an ADHD Coach, writer and founder of SimplyWellbeing. He has over 10,000 hours and 15 years of experience in coaching hundreds of ADHD executives, business professionals and creatives, and previously running a large ADHD support group and an ADHD diagnostic clinic. His business expertise comes from a twenty years career in software, from programming, through marketing, sales and running a few start-ups. His ADHD insight is personal, with decades understanding his own ADHD experience and in bringing up his ADHD daughter. He has published his writing primarily via this website, with interactive ADHD courses in development.