Quoted:
There running out of kids to dope up so the pharmacutical companys need to move on to the adults.
View Quote
no crap. i was reading an article recently that was talking about how there has been a steady climb in the percentage of girls who do well in school while the rate of boys who do well in school has dropped sharply.
why you ask? learning descrimination. girls arent as roudy as boys and can learn perfectly well be sitting in a classroom and reading/listening to the teacher for hours at a time. Whereas boys learn by DOING, we have to experiment, play around with things and let out minds work. I remember having to let my mind wonder to think about how things "worked" in elementry school and it was often trumped as attention disorder by the teachers, all of whom were women and wouldnt "understand."
boys also need a considerable amount of physical exercise especially when they are young, and so become restless in class. letting their minds explore the interworkings of a fort in early america or such stuff combined with being restless for a good run makes boys alot harder to teach with the traditional "glued to the chair, listen for hours and hours, read&write" kind of teaching.
But alas rather than treating the problem at its core, and changing the method of teaching to more "hands on" the teachers just call in the parents, tell them their son has ADD or ADHD and have a doctor prescribe ritelin (sp?) and put them in the "special ed" section of the school.
in fact its estimated that as many as 50% of the kids in special ed do NOT belong there. It may be a "quick fix" for the class but it screws the kids and gives those without any initiative an excuse to be losers and failures for the rest of their lives.
once again another reason to homeschool your kids (at least part way) or at least put em in private school.
Note: for those of you that do homeschool your kids, make sure that they get out and about and participate in activities that allow them to come in contact with other kids, especially those of the opposite sex. otherwise their social skills wont be that great and dating will come VERY hard for them.
just my .02