ADHD | SUCCESS | FAMILY | PARENTING | Mentoring

Flunks High School, Goes to Grad School

How to Succeed Despite ADHD

If you’re a smart kid with ADHD, you may get do well in 3rd grade, even 5th grade. Then comes middle school . . . and oops, the trouble starts. It’s harder and takes more concentration of which you have little.

But wait, high school is on the horizon. Now you’re in big trouble. It’s my senior year. I dutifully go off for my scheduled appointment with Mr. Attleboro, the college counselor.

“MaryJo, I’ve been going over your grades and your SAT scores. You did extremely well on the verbal part of the SAT. In fact, your score is one of the highest in your class.”

I smile. Of course, I did well on verbal part of the SAT. Hardly a big deal.

“But your math score is the worst in your class. Very odd that you would do well in one part and not the other.”

“Yeah, Mr. Attleboro, I know.” I’ve never understood math at all. I hate it. I only passed algebra and geometry cause the teachers liked me. Never got above a D in any math class. My parents even got me a tutor. Didn’t help.”

I was the poster child for dyscalculia, a math disorder. But nobody back then had heard of dyscalculia or knew how to help a child who suffered from it. My Father wasn’t worried. After all, back in the 1920s, he’d sweet-talked a dean out of excusing him from freshman math at Harvard.

It’s not unusual for kids with ADHD to have learning disabilities. Some have dyslexia, a reading disorder. Others, like me have dyscalculia or dysgraphia, a writing disorder.

Mr. Attleboro continued, “MaryJo, you know your grades just aren’t very good, except for journalism, and English literature and composition.

“I know.”

“I see you came in second in the Wolcott contest — a speech contest. And I see that you were an assistant editor for the school paper. At least you’ve done well in a couple of things in high school.”

“And isn’t your Mother a French teacher? How could you get nothing but D’s in French?

I answered, “Yup, my Mom teaches French at Smiley Junior High. She majored in French and got straight A’s all through the University of Denver. She was elected to Mortar Board. That was the honor society for women when Phi Beta Kappa was for men only.”

I didn’t tell Mr. Attleboro I rarely went to French class. That I sat around in the office for the school newspaper, writing, editing, and proofreading, instead of parlez-vous-ing.

Luckily for my grade of D versus grade of F, my Mother ran into my French teacher at a monthly meeting of Alliance Francaise. After saying “bon jour” to my Mother, my French Teacher Mr. Garrett, asked, “Mary, did you know MaryJo rarely comes to class? Is something wrong?”

Oops, needless to say, my Mother did not know this . . . and I began going to French class. But it was too late. I couldn’t bring my grade up to a C with so few weeks left in the semester.

Mr. Attleboro continued, “Well bottom line, MaryJo, I just don’t think you should go to college. Perhaps you could work as a secretary. I see you did well in typing.”

I thanked Mr. Attleboro and left his office. Not going to college wasn’t an option. I couldn’t wait to start. I loved learning — everything was interesting. Surely I’d do better in college. And I could get away from home. I WAS going to college.

Getting in was a little iffy. Thankfully my Father knew someone on the Alumni Board and that person knew someone in the Admissions Office at Colorado College, my parents choice of where I was to go to college.

Once at Colorado College I majored in education — the only major that didn’t require math. And besides that’s what my parents had insisted on. They had already decided I’d be a kindergarten teacher.

The struggle I’d had in high school continued. More D’s than any other grade. My father received the letter. “Dear Mr. Wagner, We are sorry to inform you that your daughter, MaryJo, will be dismissed from Colorado College if her grades don’t improve.”

Then I started taking music theory and music history classes. I took every tough class Dr. Albert Seay taught. I’d not only found a passion but I’d also found a mentor. Forget teaching kindergarten. I’d be a musicologist like Dr. Seay.

Renaissance music became my obsession. I mastered transcribing centuries-old musical notation into modern notation. Wrote a senior thesis that involved research at three different university libraries. Now I’d fallen in love with research. And I could write. I got an A+.

It’s not unusual for ADHD kids to find an unusual passion — after all, who’s ever heard of musicology? And whom do you know who sits around blissfully transcribing old music? Who flunked the math portion of every standardized test but got the arithmetical values correct in music that almost no one listens to?

Once having found their passion, many ADHD kids can easily hyperfocus. Distractions melt away. However, I continued to major in education because to major in music required taking math and no amount of hyperfocus would help. Besides nobody flunks education classes!

Thanks to the number of classes I was taking that fed my passion, my grades went up. I graduated from college.

And thanks to Dr. Seay’s caring and encouragement, I went on to graduate school . . . in musicology. I passed both the required French and German reading exams. My parents disapproved of my esoteric passion. My friends thought I’d lost my mind. I didn’t care. I was pursuing something I loved.

My studies in musicology came to an end after a silly argument with my adviser over footnote style. In a fit of anger and impulsivity, I burned the only copy of my master’s thesis and went on to other things. (You can read that sad story here.)

Because I have ADHD, I changed course and universities several times before I ended up in American History, got the degree, and became a college professor.

But the math dysfunction came up again before I could succeed. One didn’t need to take the Graduate Record Exam to go to Ohio State in musicology. However, several years later, history departments were requiring that applicants applying to graduate programs take this test.

And just like the high school SATs, this test has a math component and an English component. Again, I flunked the math part. The exam administrator said he’d never seen anyone flunk the math part and soar in the high 90s percentile in language. I got into a PhD program at Indiana University without math.

Now it’s easy to understand that I went from failing to getting ahead because of my passion. And having a mentor who cared and encouraged me. Even though I went on in history, my musicology professor continued to encourage me.

Dr. Seay died before I finished my PhD dissertation focusing on the history of radical pioneer women in Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. He wasn’t interested in the subject in the least and knew nothing about it, but he was passionate about my success.

I wasn’t sure I could finish. I grieved as if he had been my father. The loss was devastating. But my University of Oregon advisor and my son Stephen, a freshman in high school at the time, never stopped encouraging me.

(Sadly my Mother wasn’t the least encouraging, but that’s a story for another time.)

Without passion and encouragement, I would never have graduated from college. Never have gone to graduate school. Never have gotten a PhD. Your child may not want to get a PhD, but once they discover their passion and you support them, they’ll succeed. Just keep in mind that their passion doesn’t need to be your passion. Or the passion you’d like them to have.

You can also help your child conquer ADHD. Again, it’s about love, support, and helping kiddos find their passion. Giving them permission to find their passion. Read more about ADHD and Kids.

P.S. Actually, it’s a bigger story: Everyone needs love, support, and encouragement in finding and living their passion. It’s not just those of us with ADHD.

Watch for my forthcoming ebook, Oh Look, There’s a Squirrel and Other Stories.

In addition to writing about writing, I offer words of wisdom to adult ADHDers and to folks who are adopted. I am both. (Many adopted folks have ADHD, often caused by trauma at birth.)

You’ll find me at LivingWithAdoption.com. For a list of common adoption challenges, grab my free Adoption Checklist for Women: 25 Life Issues.

Given raging ADHD, it’s no surprise that focus does not come to me easily! In addition to adoption and ADHD, I also write random stories from my life, what I’ve observed, what’s in the news, about writing and editing, anything that tickles my fancy.

For a Black Lives Matter from a white perspective, see my stories For White Folks from an Old Gray-Haired White Woman with Arthritis. And Teaching Kindergarten at an all-Black school.

You might also like musings on Staying at Home because of COVID 19: The Good, The Bad, and the Not So Ugly.