The Procrustean Classroom

One of the subjects they used to teach in schools (and that homeschoolers can still get into) was Greek mythology.

After an exchange of Internet "gunfire" this week, I got to thinking about the old tale of Procrustes.

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MYTHOLOGY RESOURCES

• Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton
• The Greek Myths: Complete Edition by Robert Graves
• Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
• Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were: Creatures, Places and People by Robert Ingpen and Michael Page
• The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

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Procrustes was a son of Poseidon and a bandit who haunted the roads near Athens. He had a particularly nasty reputation because he was in the habit of inviting "guests," his victims, to spend the night on an iron bed he had made. If the guest didn't fit the bed, he was made to fit. If too short, the victim was stretched; if too long, his feet were cut off.

The online firefight was precipitated by a story on NPR's health blog, "ADHD On The Rise: 1 in 10 Kids Now Affected."

According to a 2007 federal survey, the number of diagnosed ADHD cases rose 22 percent from 2003. The reasons are unclear, according to the researchers. (Although the fact that the highest rate of increase was among non-whites and non-English speakers should raise some eyebrows.)

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ADHD RESOURCES

• CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)
  www.chadd.org
• ADDA (Attention Deficit Disorder Association)
  www.add.org
• National Resource Center on AD/HD
  www.help4adhd.org

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The conflict was between those who were adamant that children need to be medicated in order to control them, and my examples of children I've known who were deemed classroom troublemakers but flourished under homeschooling without needing to be put into an induced coma.

Most homeschoolers probably know how this story goes. Once a child is labeled, usually by the first or second grade, that's it. The rest of a public school career will probably be spent living down to expectations.

As with the story of Procrustes, it's not the "guests" who are the problem, it's unyielding perceptions. Too many schools don't listen to the children or have any respect for differences in learning. The results are written in the newspapers every year as more and more children drop out of high school.

Yet we keep throwing tax money at failure.

Don't get me wrong. There are definitely real problems for some students who can benefit from medicine. However, there is also a clear tendency to label and dose children who just learn differently.

If schools ever hope to fulfill their job of educating children, they need to reorient themselves around the children's needs, not the needs of teachers, state education officials, the pharmaceutical industry or self-absorbed parents.