I sincerely hope noone finds it particularly odd that my foci in education seem to be moving towards a) ESL, and all of its hope for the future, and b) (near as I can see from that which my own heart is saying,) correctional education. Granted, I haven't had a great number of experiences, only a few days at Court-Involved, but the class sizes are manageable, (at least where I am,) and beleive it or not, I feel perfectly safe. Perhaps it is another manner in which I serve the world. Maybe it's just the fact that class sizes are small, and thus the sense you might actually be able to reach an individual young person increases exponentially. Maybe it's just MY way of doing things. But unless something changes drastically, (and with my track record, God knows ANYTHING is possible,) These two would seem to be my primary intent. I seem to have discovered I'm just NOT that great with kids younger than about middle-school age, and even some of THEM start to work my nerves after a while. In my limited experience, high schoolers, at least for me, do a much better job of staying on task and staying with me, I guess. Perhaps it's even higher levels than that, I'm still not 100% certain.
One of my districts has already released their latest batch of seniors into the world, barring only the formality of commencement. With any luck, I will at least have been some fellow person's favorite substitute. And it is the time of year for that kind of sentimentality. I can only hope that, having been "released" into the world, every one of them "swims" as a person. Maybe some of them WILL get the bright idea to get their Bachelor's Degrees and follow "Mr. K." into the wilds of ESL teaching. I hope they all at least got the idea that they can do this thing called life, even in the toughest of times; like say.....NOW.
What follows just kinda makes me wonder how frequently we're mistaking ADHD and ADD for plain old anxiety--that would make more sense. I hear enough ADULTS talk about the way anxiety is making them crazy, I can't IMAGINE trying to be a kid growing up today. I had it tough, but we all need to find ways to cope. And if that, among other things, means that our lives are simpler, and we are (horror of horrors!) less "connected," couldn't we still benefit from that?!

THE FOLLOWING IS EXCERPTED FROM MSNBC.COM
Kids twice as likely to get Ritalin after divorce
TORONTO - Children from broken marriages are twice as likely to be prescribed attention-deficit drugs as children whose parents stay together, a Canadian researcher said on Monday, and she said the reasons should be investigated.
More than 6 percent of 633 children from divorced families were prescribed Ritalin, compared with 3.3 percent of children whose parents stayed together, University of Alberta professor Lisa Strohschein reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
The study of more than 4,700 children started in 1994, while all the families were intact, Strohschein said. They followed the children’s progress to see what happened to their families and to see what drugs were prescribed.
“It shows clearly that divorce is a risk factor for kids to be prescribed Ritalin,” Strohschein said.
Other studies have shown that children of single parents are more likely to get prescribed drugs such as Ritalin. But is the problem caused by being born to a never-married mother, or some other factor?
“So the question was, ‘is it possible that divorce acts a stressful life event that creates adjustment problems for children, which might increase acting out behavior, leading to a prescription for Ritalin?”’ Strohschein said in a statement.
“On the other hand, there is also the very public perception that divorce is always bad for kids and so when children of divorce come to the attention of the health-care system — possibly because parents anticipate their child must be going through adjustment problems — doctors may be more likely to diagnose a problem and prescribe Ritalin.”
Commonly prescribedRitalin, known generically as methylphenidate, is a psychostimulant drug most commonly prescribed for the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.
There is a big debate in much of the developed world over whether it may be over-prescribed — given to children who do not really need it. In March, a University of California, Berkeley study found that the use of drugs to treat ADHD has more than tripled worldwide since 1993.
Strohschein said it is possible that some mental health problems pre-date the divorce, so “it is possible that these kids had these problems before, but are only being identified afterward.”
Her study was not designed to find out why the children were prescribed the drug.
“I might be finished with the survey, but I am not necessarily finished with the question,” she said in a telephone interview.