Supporting ADHD learners with strategies that actually work

My Story

I was always good at math, but school never felt like a place built for me. I grew up in the No Child Left Behind era, where success was defined by test scores and compliance, not by understanding or humanity. I was a student who could perform, but not always behave the way the system expected. I struggled with attention, organization, and constant cognitive overload, even when I understood the material deeply. Because I wasn’t failing, my needs were overlooked. Instead, my mom was called in for parent-teacher conferences, not to talk about how I learned, but to talk about my behavior. I was told that my medication could “fix” my ADHD, that it was something to manage or correct, rather than understand or embrace as a different way of thinking. I didn’t receive a 504 plan until my senior year, because I wasn’t seen as “struggling enough.” That experience taught me something early: our education system is not built to notice every kind of struggle, only the ones it already knows how to measure.

Now, as a math teacher with ADHD, I carry that experience with me into my classroom every day. I see the students who are capable but misunderstood. I see the ones who are labeled as disruptive, unmotivated, or careless when they are actually overwhelmed, unsupported, or unseen. And I know that these patterns don’t affect all students equally; students of color, girls, and students from under-resourced communities are even more likely to be disciplined instead of supported. That is not accidental; it is systemic. The photo above reflects part of that reality. It shows what a government-funded, direct instruction classroom can look like: highly controlled, rigid, and focused on compliance over connection. This space exists because I believe we can do better. Equity is not just about giving students access to education; it’s about transforming classrooms so they actually work for the students in them. My goal is to help teachers recognize what ADHD really looks like, question the systems we’ve normalized, and build classrooms where students don’t have to shrink themselves to succeed, but are instead supported to fully be who they are.