Is School Boring Or Is ADHD To Blame? by Jordyn White
School, noun: any institution at which instruction is given in a particular discipline. When asked what school is, high schoolers aren't likely to reply with the Webster-Merriam definition. In fact, many of them might respond with "school is prison" or something along those lines. I, myself, have never encountered this problem but there is a sad truth behind this-many high schoolers see school as something extraneous in the overall process of their education. In an annual survey taken by Indiana University, fewer than two percent of students responded that they never get bored in school. That means that ninety-eight percent of students are bored in class. This brings up a new question-are classes challenging enough or is it just student work ethic?
Another point worth bringing up is the staggering increase in ADHD diagnoses throughout the decades. As shown by the data collected by the Journal of the American Medical Association, ADHD began at roughly six percent prevalence in 1997. This percentage nearly doubles around 2016 and has continually been on the rise. According to the ADD Resource Center, 6.4 million children ages four to seventeen have diagnosed ADHD. This is widely accountable to the forty-two percent rise in diagnoses over the past eight years.
So why exactly is this such a problem? The United States of America has been heading the entire world in the ADHD race-and quite spectacularly I might add. Within our country, there are several forerunners-Kentucky leading the pack at 18.7% ADHD prevalence, followed by Arkansas at 17%, Lousianna in third with 15.8%, and finally, Indiana and South Carolina tied at 15.7%. Now, this data from the Center for Disease Control reveals a slight issue with a previous statement I made. If you remember, I mentioned an annual survey provided by Indiana University. This definitely makes the data skewed, so perhaps our district (New Jersey has a rate of 7.8% ADHD prevalence) is an outlier.
When I first began writing this, I had no idea I would be writing a research-style blog on ADHD levels in America, actually quite the contrary. I had imagined myself authoring a piece regarding the image of American schools in the adolescent eye, but here we are! Perhaps I went off on a tangent.... or maybe it's my own undiagnosed case of ADHD acting up?
Another point worth bringing up is the staggering increase in ADHD diagnoses throughout the decades. As shown by the data collected by the Journal of the American Medical Association, ADHD began at roughly six percent prevalence in 1997. This percentage nearly doubles around 2016 and has continually been on the rise. According to the ADD Resource Center, 6.4 million children ages four to seventeen have diagnosed ADHD. This is widely accountable to the forty-two percent rise in diagnoses over the past eight years.
So why exactly is this such a problem? The United States of America has been heading the entire world in the ADHD race-and quite spectacularly I might add. Within our country, there are several forerunners-Kentucky leading the pack at 18.7% ADHD prevalence, followed by Arkansas at 17%, Lousianna in third with 15.8%, and finally, Indiana and South Carolina tied at 15.7%. Now, this data from the Center for Disease Control reveals a slight issue with a previous statement I made. If you remember, I mentioned an annual survey provided by Indiana University. This definitely makes the data skewed, so perhaps our district (New Jersey has a rate of 7.8% ADHD prevalence) is an outlier.
When I first began writing this, I had no idea I would be writing a research-style blog on ADHD levels in America, actually quite the contrary. I had imagined myself authoring a piece regarding the image of American schools in the adolescent eye, but here we are! Perhaps I went off on a tangent.... or maybe it's my own undiagnosed case of ADHD acting up?
Data courtesy of the Journal of the American Medical Association
Data courtesy of the ADHD Institute
This is fascinating! I've been wondering, myself, about something like this for a while: thanks for sharing!
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ReplyDeleteI love the humor in your ending, I think it helps make the blog more personal. Also, I think you do an impressive job of balancing the use of first person with still maintaining strong credibility.
ReplyDeleteDope! I believe that you get out of public school education what you put into it. Excellent research too!
ReplyDeleteJordyn - This is excellent! A perfect example of a blog post! Well done! - Mrs. Kopp
ReplyDeleteWow! this is so interesting, great work.
ReplyDeleteSuch an interesting post! Love the humor at the end!
ReplyDeleteWow girl...you are such a talented writer! I love the humor. Your statistics just added so much more depth to the paper. Can't wait to see what else you have to write about!
ReplyDeleteI'm so impressed! Look at you doing research! This was such a cool topic to tackle and you did it justice.
ReplyDeleteThat stats are very interesting and I never knew that this was a debate! Great blog post!
ReplyDeleteThis was really intriguing. I feel like I come across information/data/articles connecting mental illnesses like anxiety to school all the time, but I hadn't given as much thought to a correlation between school and ADHD diagnoses.
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting! Great research too! You are an excellent writer!
ReplyDeleteLove the topic and the humor. I think that its a combination of both boredom in class and students not wanting to be in school because as well all know school isn't fun. And for the increasing population of people that have ADHD and need to be interested and moving at all times the school should accommodate that into the average room.
ReplyDeleteLove the humor at the end
ReplyDeleteThis is really cool! I think that there are a ton of reasons that school is boring and ADHD is adding to the issue.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was so interesting, you're such a talented writer!!
ReplyDeleteADHD is such a problem today and yes I do believe that high school is like prison in some ways. I can not believe that you have never felt bored or that you did not want to be in school. Sometimes it astonishes me how much I just don't want to get up and go to school.
ReplyDeleteLove love love this post! At first glance I did not want to read this, but I am glad I did! You research is very helpful to us readers and your humor at the end is hysterical. Good job Jordyn!!
ReplyDeleteI have never thought about school in this way but now after reading this blog it has made me think about school so much differently. ADHD is definetly a problem today and you're totally right about school sometime feeling like prision. Such a cool blog idea!
ReplyDeleteWow! I never even thought to think of ADHD as a reason for why school can be so boring. This is such an interesting perspective on this new debate.
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