ADHD and Me: A story of predictable and preventable failed schooling (with a silver lining)

As I now stand with quite a substantial career in working in education behind me, I can fully savour the irony that got me here. I doubt Mr Chausseray, the headteacher at Pierre de Fermat, the third best secondary school in France and incidentally my school would ever have seen me in that path. Or any path for that matter.

When anyone from my Terminale class happened to cross his path, what he did see was failure in action: ‘Well well well, and what is la poubelle up to now, I wonder?’. For that’s what we were to him. The Bin.

The school is named after the famed theorem author theorem. Maths is a big deal. And with 12 classes per year group, it's a massive academic churning machine. Add staff and it’s as big as the capital of San Marino. 

In my last year at school, only 35 or 10% of us chose a path of Languages, Literature and Philosophy as our leading lights. And to Mr Chausseray, there could only be one explanation to this baffling and condemning life decision: we were just so useless at maths that this was the only card left in the deck. The bottom of the barrel. To bin or not to bin. That’s not even a question.

I ended up at Fermat by virtue of proximity, living a whole minute away from their front entrance. Not that I was a bad pupil. In fact at primary school, I was in constant competition for first in class with Thé N’Guyen, who had the edge in maths, while I rocked at spelling, reading and writing. And even in my first couple of years in secondary school, I still fared pretty well across all subjects.

But from 4eme (or year 8) things started degrading slowly but very surely for me. English was still my strongest subject and French a close second, but Maths took a proper nosedive, one I never recovered from despite many a tutor’s effort over the following 5 years - a weakling of a horse flogged way beyond death.

Every year, things got worse, as the demands of academic achievement mounted. When I used to get commended for my imaginative French essays, I failed miserably when asked to follow the holy dogma of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

School reports got harsher, even bordering on cruel: ‘mediocre at best’, ‘inconsistent, lazy’, ‘does not even try’, ‘needs to wake up!’. By the time I got to 1ere (Year 13), there was serious talk of ‘redoublement’ - having to take that year again – a common practice in France when you don’t achieve standards required. I somehow scraped through.

In my final year at school, I bunked an impressive amount of classes, became a fixture of the remarkably unsupervised common student room, where Tarot was a high flying sport, something I finally almost excelled at. Mr Chausseray was clearly right. I was clearly, profoundly dim. What else could explain such inadequacy? At least the bar of expectations for my Baccalaureat was comfortably low. Most of my professors made it clear that I wouldn’t pass on the first go, let alone this year. Was that an effort at motivating me? I freely admit it failed.  And yet, I limboed through. My formal education was done. I had survived.

And along with my diploma, I took with me this profound conviction that I would never amount to anything good. And truly, what was there ahead of me? The only career seemingly in reach was teaching English, and that was one irony too far after years of school trauma. I was done.  

In France, if you don’t have at least a degree, you might as well start stacking shelves for a living. So I signed up for English at Université le Mirail like I’d sign on the dole. But whatever glimmers of hope of enjoying my education were fast snuffed out. It was just more of the same: lessons and boffins and even less support and recognition. I hated it. I dropped out within weeks, and spent my year clubbing every night, rather than try to face my non-existent future.

I tried again the next year to try and salvage any hopes of employability and completed my degree by correspondence. I could still dance most nights way, but once again last minute cramming before the exam resulted in a pass.

Then A lifeline: a good friend found me a job as a French Assistant in London– I still didn’t want to be a teacher - but it was a ticket out of my funk, money and access to all the gigs I’d been dreaming of. Life, of a sort, began. I went through jobs like underwear, partied like it was 1999 for at least a decade. I drank quite a lot. I felt quite sorry for myself. I got into bad relationships. But that was still pretty good for someone as dim as me.  

Little by little I started finding myself. My school experience, however limited, was enough to fall into the education revolution of the turn of millennium. I slowly built a career in creating learning experiences anchored in real life and child focussed, leading me to a strong belief that playfulness plays a significant part to transforming the learning experience to a positive one. And with many successes under that hat, plenty of evidence that it works too.

It took me over 20 years to realise I wasn’t dumb. Another 10 to discover that my special flavour of brain was called ADHD. Looking back through that lens, everything fell into place. I was Alice through the enlightening glass. With this understanding came relief, forgiveness and also a good dose of grieving. What if.

What if people had known about ADHD then? Surely I would have been picked up – I am textbook combined after all. What would my life look like now? What would I have achieved with the right support or the right school? Could I have followed my illustrating dreams? Would I have had to wait until my late forties to forgive myself for my failings and flailings, and have the confidence to use my talents? But what an exercise in pointless torture.  

For ADHD is not all about woes. An ever-active brain constantly busy making connections, leads to ideas, solutions, but also deep empathy and care. Hyperfocus is definitely a super power – harnessed well, I can write a book in weeks, become an expert in space science, energy, or… ADHD.

How truly stupid would it be to ignore how my life was shaped by experiences steeped in the challenges and successes of my ADHD? I might have a million hobbies, but the one thing that doesn’t fade is my passion to right the wrongs of my traumatic education.

And while things may have moved on somewhat from the 80s, there is still an awful (in every sense) lot of work to do to support children through the current education system, in France, in the UK and in most places to take education out of the Victorian era into what it must become.

Child-centric, play-based education beyond the age of 7 is still an oddity. The risk is not learning from the past and failing our children’s future. When it comes to my kids, I can tell you – not on my watch. But I want to go further than that and advocate for all kinds of brains. It doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems. It might take all the courage, vision and imagination that this ADHD brain can muster, but it’s within reach. I imagine Mr Chausseray is no longer around. I would have love to show him that there were many treasures in that bin worth uncrumpling.

So here's to you, my very own Trunchbull: We talk a lot of diversity, but neurodiversity is still rarely in that picture. Yet we should celebrate divergent thinking – as the rich untapped resource that it is. Accepting and embracing difference brings creativity, disruption, problem-solving and these are all crucial values we need if we’re to turn this world away from prejudice, small-mindedness and self-destruction. Now that's a programme worth fighting for.