Learning Disabilities at Exeter Explored

After only twenty minutes of history homework, prep Spenser Nuzzo’s attention has drifted to the window. Like some students at Exeter, Nuzzo has Attention Deficit Disorder, a learning difference which affects his ability to pay attention to one specific thing for a long period of time.

ADD is often mentioned alongside other learning disabilities such as ADHD, which includes symptoms of hyperactivity as well as difficulty staying focused, and dyslexia, where the brain has trouble processing certain symbols such as alphabetical letters.

Senior Sam Blank, who has both ADD and ADHD, described his experience in terms of an analogy he came across in an online article that compared ADD and ADHD to a whiteboard with a mental secretary. People without these two disorders have the mental secretary that filters all the sensory input that comes in, and organizes it, Blank explained. On the other hand, people with the disorders have everything that is happening enter their mind, or whiteboard, in red, bold letters without being filtered.

Without the “mental secretary,” Blank finds that he can be easily distracted from his work by incoming sensory information. “When I am reading, every little sound makes me lose focus because that comes in and it doesn’t stop,” he said. “Whereas people can tune in to the reading, they can make themselves have tunnel vision. I can’t at all.”

Like Blank, lower Will Ettinger also has ADD, along with dyslexia. He finds that his two differences will prolong his studying, especially reading assignments. “The dyslexia makes it almost impossible to read,” Ettinger explained. “It takes me about twice as long to read something, and the ADD just makes me not want to do it, so it takes me twice as long to do something again.”

Blank and Ettinger are only two of the numerous Exonians with learning disabilities. But most of these Exonians said that they are learning to cope with their conditions with help from instructors, friends and the Harkness method of learning.

Exeter often offers accommodation to students with learning disorders by offering them extra time on tests. Many instructors also make extra time to meet with students when they are struggling to grasp certain information.

“Most of my teachers are very understanding of my ADHD, especially for classes like English and history where the Harkness discussions get more in depth,” lower Adam MacKay said. “They’re good at noticing when I lose focus and give me a few minutes before drawing me back into the conversation.”

Exeter also provides a large workload and competitive atmosphere that motivates students to overcome learning disabilities. 

“At Exeter, if you are not going at a hundred percent your peers and teachers will know and try to help you,” senior Hojung Kim said in regards to his experience of having ADD at Exeter. “There is motivation to keep up with your peers and to surpass them so that they can surpass you. It’s a sense of competition, but it’s not a bad one. It keeps everybody on task.”

Kim has been able to successfully manage his ADD. When he is able to focus on something, he can finish it swiftly and thoroughly. Homework that used to take him an hour and a half now only takes him thirty minutes.

Last Friday, Dr. Edward Hallowell ‘68, a psychiatrist and author who specialises in ADD and ADHD, visited Exeter to give an assembly on learning disorders. Hallowell said he believed that learning disabilities were not actually disorders, but actually gifts when controlled, like Kim’s ADD.

One of Hallowell’s main points was to highlight students such as Kim who have turned their learning difference into a benefit, by learning to control their “ferrari engine brain[s]” using “bicycle brakes.”

Hallowell went on to explain that in order for students to overcome their difference, they must learn to celebrate it. “To do this, of course, the entire community must learn what these various conditions are, especially the nature of their positive sides,” he said. “Then, they should be able to get help with what they are not good at, just as any other student can get such help.”

Hallowell also explained in earlier visits to the Academy that it is important for students to have emotional bonds with their teachers in order for them to learn better. He believes that this may help students with learning disorders to focus more during class and absorb more information.

Like Hallowell, Pamela Parris, the academic support counselor, understood the importance of student-faculty relationships. She finds that Exeter allows students to create these bonds because of the great number of faculty at the Academy. “Of course, some teachers are more successful at building those emotional connections than others, and no teacher can make an emotional connection with every student,” Parris said. “So we hope that by having a wide variety of teachers at our school there’s a teacher for each student to see as his or her mentor.”

Hallowell celebrated the initiative of faculty in helping students overcome their learning disorders. “Schools, even great schools like Exeter, routinely break students who have ADHD or dyslexia, not to mention depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or any other condition that can camouflage gifts. There is no student at Exeter who is not gifted.  It is time the school took more seriously its responsibility to unwrap each student's gifts.”

Hallowell believes that Exeter has the potential to become a role model for other schools by imparting its knowledge on learning differences in education.

“One of America's most valuable exports is education, not public education, but the kind of education that happens at Exeter,” Hallowell said. “Harkness.  Socrates.  Play.  These are key words.  Exeter could—and should—show the way for all schools, at home and abroad.”