Living with ADHD: how I learned to make distraction work for me

I disagree with some of Sarah's takes on how education should change, e.g:

>Most curricula lack a preliminary phase of collectively exploring students’ existing interests, before introducing them to material in a way that will be relevant to what they already care about.

>But why, in an age where we know that learning can be made nearly addictive, is [gamification] not one of the standard ways we engage young (and older) minds?

>Redesigning curricula is a relatively inexpensive educational intervention

(This last one made me laugh, cause my dad has been intimately involved in curriculum redesign, and it mostly seems to involve every single teacher complaining that you are making their jobs harder and threatening to quit)

I think the ability to focus on something "uninteresting":

• Probably requires some kind of willpower

• Is deeply useful and occasionally necessary (e.g doing my friggin taxes)

• Seems to vary innately from person to person (which is unfair)

• But seems to be something we can improve at (relatable if you've ever tried to have a meditation practice)

• And something we can actually get worse at (e.g building a dependence on social-network dopamine)

So I'm not sure that removing opportunities to practice this is going to help anyone in the long term. I guess you could turn "learning" into "addictive games" and try make sure everyone has a motivating, personal connection to the material before it's taught, but I'm not sure how this doesn't produce a whole generation of people who can't focus on anything except Candy Crush.