Don't just label, ask why

I want to draw attention to students who felt that labels were another way that they were silenced and made to feel different, without diminishing in any way the importance of recognizing learning disabilities and mental health conditions that can get in the way of learning. It is possible that labelling a learning disability or a disorder can become a way of deepening the silence about the impact of violence on learning by diverting attention from the origin of the behaviour and steering attention instead to diagnosis and treatment. One student described his experience:

[When violence started at home is] about when I was first diagnosed with ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder]. I was hyper a lot, bullying others and not paying attention in class... you know. I don't believe I have ADHD. I don't believe I ever did... Interviewer: Did you feel it was a reaction to what was happening at home?
Yes.

If I get bored enough, I just get really fidgety and agitated. 'Cause I'm so bored... [I was stuck in my room at home] You sit there doing nothing. There was no books, no TV, no computer. I didn't have anything in my room - just my bed and four walls. I slept. It's like being in jail with no TV. To be honest with you, maximum security prison would probably be nothing for me. I'd get a TV!

My teacher would give us work, and I wouldn't want to do it. I would basically sit there fiddling around, and basically that's when my teacher would tell me to go on the computer. And then when I started beating people up, that's when I actually got diagnosed. It wasn't actually when I started fidgeting, it was more when I started fighting. (Andrew)

In spite of his diagnosis, fighting still led to him being moved from school to school as each new school expelled him for violent, disruptive behaviour - one after only three days. Would a different response - rather than drugs and expulsion - have had more effect on changing his behaviour? Perhaps if he had felt less silenced about his home experience, been offered more constructive ways to get attention and to escape from boredom, been helped to build the sense of self-worth so badly eroded in the home, he might have been able to attend and learn.