Gener and Medication in Schools

It has been a few weeks since we discussed this topic in class, but I did want to make sure and blog about it because of the interesting conversation that we had. The topic at hand was gendered education. Now after a hospital, a school is the earliest gendered institution that we as 1st world children are introduced to. There, kids are expected to act a certain way, use certain bathrooms, and are subject to being criticized by peers by the way they act. A big thing that has come up in schools in the last 10 years or so though has been the use of medications for children who have A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. Some of us in the class had taken medications such as Ritalin before and some of us still take them. Personally, I had been on them for about 8 years from 5th grade till my sophomore year in college. One of our supplemental materials was talking about the increase in diagnosis of children specifically young boys. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated in 2007 that boys were about twice as likely to be diagnosed for either of these disorders. I'm surprised that the number isn't higher. So why is it that boys are more likely to be diagnosed? Well young boys are more likely to be active and rowdy in school. I think most people can agree with that. Public education is just not tailored for that kind of behavior. In class, we debated whether this was an institution problem, or if students really have this disorder. Does it make sense to drug our children in order to make them conform to public education? It certainly is the easy way out. In my opinion I think we need to work towards alternate education that will keep kids interested. Public education has been so generalized it's no wonder it doesn't work for everyone. Medication should be a last resort but instead it's being used as an easy way out. There's a reason that boys are being diagnosed more then girls and it's because sitting quietly at a desk for 6 hours is not what little boys want to do. There is much more that goes into this discussion but unfortunately this is all the time that I have. It is not only about gender but also of our society as a whole.
Here's the the information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention if your interested in more scientific data: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html