Darius Siljee remembers working in a resource cupboard as a child, because of his inattention in class. His inability to focus and self-motivate stayed with him right through school and even dogged him as a young man when he joined the army. It was there that he finally sought medical help, believing his inattentiveness might be caused by a hearing loss. It wasn’t, but in his mid-twenties Darius finally received a diagnosis that explained the issues that had troubled him all his life.
“I was diagnosed with an auditory processing issue associated with inattentive type ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder]. Suddenly I was able to start unpacking all the difficulties that had affected my learning. I realised the struggles that had seen me labelled as lazy and other things were all part of my neurodiversity.”
At last, Darius had a name for the issues that had always seemed like immutable character flaws. He was able to put down the burden of guilt and self-hatred he had been carrying most of his life and begin finding solutions.
At last, Darius had a name for the issues that had always seemed like immutable character flaws. He was able to put down the burden of guilt and self-hatred he had been carrying most of his life and begin finding solutions.
“Now I’m on medication,” says the 28-year-old. “It took a couple months to find the right type and dosage for me, but I can now complete tasks that in the past I couldn’t. A lot of mental barriers have been removed. It’s been life-changing, as though I’ve been given a prosthetic leg when I had no idea that I was an amputee.”
With a new confidence and a growing toolbox of life hacks. Darius is now training to become a teacher. He chose a course at University of Waikato weighted toward practical time in classrooms working with tamariki, and he is really enjoying it.
“Of course, working in a classroom with ADHD has some downsides, but I’m discovering ways of overcoming those and at the same time I’m finding there are a lot of positives in being a neurodivergent teacher who struggled at school.”
Darius says his personal experience of schooling gives him an empathy for students who find the classroom challenging. It also provides him with insight into the learning difficulties neurodivergent students wrestle with, and the strategies that might help them overcome those barriers. He describes an experience of helping a student demonstrate his exceptional mathematical ability by having him verbalise his workings and writing them down for him.
“This was a student in a lower maths group. But by removing the physical part of the process, we were able to unlock his talent.”
***
While Darius realised in early adulthood that there might be a medical explanation for his struggles, Dianne Khan, a teacher at Newlands Primary in Wellington, never suspected she might be neurodivergent until her late forties.
“I’d never considered it because my concept of what it was to be ADHD had been shaped by years of teaching bouncy boys. I mean, I’m a woman of a certain figure, and beyond sedentary.”
It took her 11-year-old son, who was himself undergoing tests for ADHD and ASD (autism spectrum disorder), to suggest to Dianne that she might want to consider getting diagnosed herself.
“We were driving somewhere, and he said, ‘Mum, do you not think you might be ADHD?’ and then he listed all the things I do that are typically ADHD.”
She recognised herself in the list, but it took some time for Dianne to get an assessment and when she did, she was surprised.
“The assessor was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re a poster child for ADHD! How did you not know?’
“Looking back, I think of all those ADHD kids who aren’t the stereotype of ‘bouncy kid on the mat who can’t focus on anything’, and I think that’s why I didn’t recognise ADHD in myself. But yes, it’s laughable because all those memes and cartoons on the internet about ADHD are like a camera on my former life.”
“Looking back, I think of all those ADHD kids who aren’t the stereotype of ‘bouncy kid on the mat who can’t focus on anything’, and I think that’s why I didn’t recognise ADHD in myself.”
Reflecting on that past life was important for Dianne in the months following her diagnosis.
“There’s been a grieving process about how much better life could have been had I known years ago, but it’s also been hugely positive being able to forgive myself, because I’m not just rubbish. Before it was like, ‘How can I be so clever and so efficient in some things and an absolute, complete womble at these other things?’”
Dianne recognises that throughout her career, a number of traits that could be attributed to her neurodivergence have been helpful. Her boundless enthusiasm and energy have always made her classroom an enjoyable place.
“No topic, no matter how often I teach it, is boring. I’m hyper-focussed and excited, and kids and parents often comment on the levels of excitement and joy in the classroom.”
Part of that is because Dianne’s ADHD brain allows her to act spontaneously. She describes it as “having all the tabs open at once.”
“I make connections all over the place just like kids do, and so I get excited like kids do. I model wonder and excitement as though I’ve never taught the topic before.”
In a classroom of diverse learners this changing of lenses is especially helpful, but before she began a course of medication, Dianne often found it exhausting.
“My mind was busy all the time. Medication has calmed things a bit and given me a pause. I’m more attentive and so individual students are getting, let’s call it, ‘typical’ teacher levels of attention, as opposed to the percentage of my brain that was going ‘what about this and what about that?’”
One of the great stressors for Dianne has always been time management.
“I never finished any groups on time. Not ever! It was an issue for me and the students, and they were keen to help me solve the problem. It became a project.”
Dianne describes trialling various strategies, including one involving two separate alarms employed to move her along. On the day she first successfully completed all groups on time, the class spontaneously stood in applause. Today she still uses the alarm system, but with medication, time management has become less of an issue.
(Darius describes a similar relationship with time, labelling it “time blindness.” He finds it very difficult to track time, and at home he uses a visual prompter similar to an hourglass. It is something he is keen to trial in his classroom.)
Medication isn’t the only thing that has helped Dianne change her life. An ADHD counsellor has been critical to the journey.
“She is gold! She’s helped me gain insights into my classroom interactions as well as my relationships with colleagues. From the start she encouraged me to be open with them, and one of the things I did right away was apologise to them for being a pain over the years, constantly ‘correcting’ shared documents. It hadn’t occurred to me that my behaviour was rude, and my colleagues were honest, saying I’d been driving them mad.”
***
Like Dianne, Loutje le Grand, a teacher at Paekākāriki School, had a late diagnosis of ADHD. She was in her forties and, again, was prompted by her neurodivergent child who recognised her own characteristics in her mum. But, in truth, Loutje had been aware of her difference from the time she was a young woman.
“I always felt that my brain worked like a fast train – just non-stop. And people did say to me, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re so busy! You bounce around like Tigger.”
Loutje would occasionally joke about her “ADHD brain” and says that she was often made aware by others that she was “a bit much”.
“I definitely saw it as negative sometimes,” she says.
Alongside the racing brain and impulsiveness, Loutje also had other issues that the literature identifies as executive dysfunction: she found difficulty moving from one focus to another and struggled to start tasks she deemed difficult or uninteresting.
“As a kid I was often told I was lazy, and it was a comment that continued at high school and university. Also from my ex-husband,” she adds with a chuckle. “You see, for us ADHDers, boring tasks don’t give any dopamine, so we avoid those things.”
“As a kid I was often told I was lazy, and it was a comment that continued at high school and university. Also from my ex-husband,” she adds with a chuckle.
The literature refers to this behaviour as ADHD paralysis, and Loutje describes how for her, doing the dishes, the washing or the cooking only becomes possible when she turns up the music and dances.
“Otherwise, it is too boring,” she explains. “So, I can understand how the kids in class become fidgety during the boring tasks. Their brains are somewhere else.”
“I also see it when it’s cleaning up time. Most of the neurodivergent children will not know where to start. It’s just too daunting. But if you tell them to pick up five things and put them where they belong, that really helps. Breaking down things makes the task more achievable.”
Loutje had already figured out hacks for many of her problems long before she received a diagnosis, but learning she was ADHD gave her a greater focus. She read voraciously on the topic and found new insights.
“I realised how much I’d managed to mask my ADHD and how the hacks I’d employed were part of that. I also started to forgive myself. I wasn’t lazy. I had a problem with dopamine release.”
It took a while, but she eventually found medication that suited and a psychiatrist who himself has ADHD. Loutje felt understood.
Since her diagnosis, little has changed in her classroom. She is still the fun teacher she always was, and she continues to make sure all students feel engaged and welcome.
“I work to make the classroom a place where they want to be. I want them to like school. I know that many of the neurodivergent kids haven’t enjoyed school a lot of the time.”
“I work to make the classroom a place where they want to be. I want them to like school. I know that many of the neurodivergent kids haven’t enjoyed school a lot of the time.”
All three teachers see themselves as role models for their neurodiverse students. Loutje wishes that all neurodivergent teachers felt able to be open about their difference. She doesn’t advertise it, but she doesn’t hide her ADHD.
“Most of the whānau and tamariki in my class know,” she says. “I want them to be able to see that ADHD tamariki can grow up to be a teacher, or anything really. They can be a rock star or a ‘Michael Phelps’ swimmer. Sure, there is still a lot of stigma around being neurodivergent, but just because a child struggles in class doesn’t mean they aren’t smart. Neurodivergent people develop differently and have different interests.”
Loutje comments that, in the same way we focus on the strengths of students and enable their success, schools ought to recognise the needs and talents of neurodivergent staff.
Dianne agrees and has advice for senior staff and Boards of Trustees.
“It’s important that you know if you’ve got teachers with dyslexia, ADHD or whatever. It’s important that you use their expertise and lived experience, to grow your staff’s understanding of neurodiversity in adults and children. It’s also critical that your policies and practices support neurodivergent staff, because it’s not my experience that many schools do that.”
Darius, who is navigating his way into the profession, also has some advice.
“I feel like teaching is one of those skills that’s quite practical and exists in the everyday world, but the process of becoming a teacher is quite heavily academic. Academic study can be quite difficult for neurodivergent people and so we often struggle to make it through the process. That’s a pity, because there are a lot of people with ADHD that would make brilliant teachers, but that hurdle of study might be just too high for them.”
