Last week, this NEW YORK TIMES article—“Attention Disorder or Not, Children Prescribed Pills to Help in School”— caught my eye. In it, we read of Dr. Michael Anderson, a pediatrician from near Atlanta, who treats his young patients for ADD/ADHD despite regarding the diagnosis as “made up.” He says he does it for their well-being, because they are poor and the schools don’t cope well with them. Instead of relying on school resources, he will treat the students by boosting their focusing power with Adderall.

At first I was flabbergasted to think these powerful meds would be prescribed to kids on such a questionable basis, but then remembered the fame of the book LISTENING TO PROZAC, by Peter D. Kramer, in the mid-1990s. He asked "if it is ethically defensible to treat a healthy individual to, for instance, help him climb a career, or on the other hand, if it is ethically defensible to deny him that possibility." I’d argue we still have no answer to this—and here we have another case with Anderson’s treatment recommendations.

In his book, Kramer stresses a patient would take a mood enhancer such as Prozac combined with talk therapy. The patient gets off the medication maybe a year later. Sometime later still he comes back to the doc saying, "We're going into negotiations and I'm on the bargaining team; I need a boost." In other words, he wants to be back on the meds.

Others told Kramer they wanted to be put back on meds "to feel more like themselves," and to feel more relaxed in social encounters. At this point, what does “feeling like yourself” even mean? Foods have effects, too—along with beverages, whether alcoholic or not, they could be argued to work along this continuum as to how we feel each day. Prescription meds are arguably just the more extreme end.

Photo: hipsxxhearts via photopin cc

As to school promotion of Ritalin or Adderall, I have occasionally been consulted by friends who are asking me my opinion as a teacher, because the school wants their child on Ritalin and there's the one doctor in town we know for sure will prescribe it. We're told here in British Columbia that the numbers of kids on ADD medications are way up—unreasonably up. Only twice in my career in the regular classroom did I agree more serious measures were needed and urge that medication should be used. Even so, in both cases I recommended prescription drugs because I gave up on trying to influence the family to improve their diet.

But that was before I entered the Learning Assistance side of our profession. Then I came upon many students who were already part of the medicated system, and some truly physiologically disadvantaged individuals (to judge by their actions on days the meds were forgotten). We know that other fields have struggled with the place of enhancement drugs. Sports has had some of its more notable cases lately—Lance Armstrong comes to mind. But have we completely concluded that personal enhancement is a negative? And where do we draw the line?

I read about the “smart drugs” such as Modafinil (perhaps better known by its brand name, Provigil). I honestly think they aren't more widely used just because of their expense. After all, supplements shops thrive selling bottles claiming to boost brain power, even though we are told again and again that exercise is a cheap and robust alternative.

Culturally we seem ambivalent about all the alterations people do, whether it be for stamina, brains, or looks. Even Botox injections and the like are more common now; some say they are necessary if you work in certain fields. Is this a good direction to pursue? And what about youngsters—should they, too, be part of this ongoing pursuit of improvements by artificial means?

There is no easy answer—but certainly at the very least we wish for equal efforts in nutrition and exercise, and skillful means on the teacher’s end of the equation.

[The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the International Reading Association or its Board of Directors.]

Linda Rightmire delivers workshops and individual mentoring sessions on a structured partner reading approach she developed. She is also a teacher on call in the Kamloops-Thompson School District in British Columbia where she has published dozens of articles in the district’s annual newspaper inserts.



Member of the Month—September 2012: Linda Rightmire