Quora: How can a teacher help students with ADHD be successful in the classroom?

The most important thing you could ever do for any child that is different is care about them enough to know them and learn how they work.

So what makes them tick? What inspires them? What are they interested in? If you want these kids to be successful allow them to learn to love learning their way. Yes, they have a way. They might not know this but here is your opportunity to help them figure it out. Nurture the seedlings of their passion for learning and creativity. Give them opportunities to explore and latch on to deeper ideas. You just have to point in the right direction. Once they see something they enjoy they will succeed.

I'm reminded of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who said something like if you want to build a ship don’t drum up the men to chop the wood but teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. Show them the majestic sea. Let their desire mature and be harnessed. They will figure it all out thereafter.

Give them purpose and help them find meaning. You can get very creative with this. Enlist their help, let them design their own projects, gamify aspects, use a reward system, and encourage lateral thinking.

ADHD kids are learning machines but their fuel, their energy, comes from imagination and meaningful objectives. So what can you do to increase the chances of providing that energy and harnessing the power of their brain?

When I started this answer I said the most important thing you could do is care. Everything will flow from there. I'm not saying it will be easy but I guarantee you will have a legacy in them. They will never forget you who set them free to be and learn and grow in a natural way.

Expand your perception and world view. For instance human organization results in straight lines and rows. Natural order is a tree full of leaves or fungi beneath the soil. These kids have so much to offer and you could be the first person that believes in them. I can't tell you how valuable that it.

Believe in them. Nurture them and they will grow.

Some specific ideas:

Use stories to explain
Use their senses. Make it an experience.
The curriculum might be too narrow. Let them explore deeper for fun.
Use playful language. Change “study” to maybe “discover” as an example.
Both good emotions and not so good emotions can be useful if they learn how. Information is only a small part. Speak to their emotions for they are beings.
Learning is so much fun. Embed that everywhere. From the teaching aids to the homework which is a terrible word by the way. Who wants to work at home? If you make it a puzzle and leave them wanting to figure it out tomorrow they will have something for you.
Doing words don't work. Focus on who they could be and how the act of doing will make them feel.
Find their role models or heroes and use the idea of them to help encourage the students.

You might surprise yourself about your own learning process through this endeavor. You might love learning about all the different kind of students you have and what you could do, who you would need to be, to bring out the best in them. You might just be the most important person in their life if you do this sincerely.

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