A Student with ADHD Starts Crying in Front of Me

The day I had to google “What is ADHD”?

A woman crying
Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

I’m interviewing an Italian learner of English on Zoom. She looks anxious and keeps apologising because she can’t understand my questions.

“Did you learn English in high school?”

“Yeah, but I don’t love English.”

“Oh, why?”

“Because I had a bad teacher.”

She starts crying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says sobbing.

“That’s okay. No worries. Would you like to tell me what happened?

“I have ADHD. I have a certificate. But my teacher didn’t know. It was traumatic.”

I don’t know what that teacher did to this girl. But a few questions came to mind:

  1. What is ADHD exactly?
  2. Why didn’t the teacher know?
  3. I’ve been a teacher since 2015. How many students with ADHD have I had without knowing? And what did my teaching do to them?
  4. How many students are victims of education?

I googled ADHD.

[blink blink]

Do I have it too?!

Fabio Cerpelloni is an English language teacher, writer, author, and podcaster from Italy. You can find out more about him and his work by clicking on his glass of beer in the photo.