An alumnus from 2012 wants Noble students to know a few important lessons he learned as a Knight. Most of those lessons have to do with not being too hard on yourself. Shawn Harden has ADHD. He also has been following an exciting and fulfilling path. Share this episode with a student you know who can gain from Shawn’s advice to, “Be yourself!”
Gayle:
Today’s guest on the Blue and Gold Chat podcast graduated in 2012, and came back on campus recently to record this message to current Noble Academy students. If you are not a current Noble student, you are welcome also, of course! Just maybe consider sharing today’s message from Shawn. Without spoiling his whole story, I want you to know this: Shawn still has the same ADHD that brought him to Noble Academy, and he’s not at all shy about sharing his journey, his successes, his Noble pride, or his belief that people with ADHD should BE THEMSELVES. It is an important message, and there is a lot more to it, so I will turn it over to Shawn.
Shawn:
My name is Shawn Harden. I was here from 02/2006 to 02/2012.
I got a full academic scholarship and went to UNCG, studying theater and Spanish.
I recall even from this day, being in banking, going back to school for a master's, having come out of school and finished my bachelor's, having traveled around the country and seen everything and done the things I'm supposed to do, like pay my taxes, to doing the things I wanna do, like going to the national park with nobody there but me. All of these things, I'm still able to look back at Noble Academy and say, that was important for me.
And you're like, well, how is that important to paying your taxes or important to running around to national parks having fun? Well, the most important thing about Noble is that the teachers were able to teach us how to organize ourselves, manage ourselves, and be ourselves. And there were lots of moments that were highlights, lots of things that were archetypes and typical of the school of my school years here but the real thing that I always can reflect on, reflect on Noble about and think and just glow inside from is that the teachers really cared.
I never got criticisms. I got constructive criticism but not not criticism and one of the things that I recall is I'll have things, I'll have tough times as an adult or I'll have like a bad experience and I'll remember, “Oh, it's not that bad,” and I'll remember times that my teachers told me, you know, “This isn't the end, it's not the, this isn't the last, everyone makes mistakes, you are so much smarter than this. Don't put yourself down. I have seen your potential, and I know that you can do better than this. And even if you think you can't, you can because I've I know you can, and I've seen it.”
Those sorts of things always fostered a sense of, ‘Wow, I am smart. Wow, I'm not incompetent.’ Well, I can always, I you know, if I mess up, can I can make up for it? It's never too late to make up for it. And sometimes on grades and and when you're in school, it can seem like, uh-oh. It's too late.
I already you know, it's done. This is my average. But in life, when you go on and you leave school, in life, it's never too late to do anything. And if you get hung up on any single defeat or any little problem or some time you mess up, no matter what it is, if you let that define you, it will define you. But if you know that you have potential and that you can go on to laugh, even if something bad happens. If you get a criticism today, you'll laugh about it tomorrow.
I myself had ADHD, and it was very difficult for me to keep track of myself. Transitioning was always a problem from one class to another to another, moving from one project into another when I hadn't finished the first and keeping my thought processes later when I had to come back to it. I processed later when I had to come back to it.
And also my thought processes during classes a lot of times, I struggled with, okay, we were just talking about this but now, we're moving on. Well, my mind is still on about the first thing. We're not done with that or we would move on and I would get into that and then suddenly my brain would make a conclusion, make a jump from the second thing to the first thing and other people would not understand. Well, how did you get from here to there? Where did that come from? My brain, obvious connection.
The links, the neural pathways we were taught about, the way that the brain kind of the neurons are processed in an ADHD brain and the way that they aren't, that they're more direct in a neurotypical brain. That sort of class was taught to us between classes by some of the guidance counselors at the school, and the teachers were very much aware of it. So they were able to really work with me as a student. When I came into this school, I struggled with paying attention, starting the book we were supposed to read in class when I was still reading a book that I had been reading between classes.
So one of the things we were taught a lot was note taking and time management. If we have a thought, write it down. Make sure that you know what you wanted to say and you can come back to it later, but not every time is the time and the place. That has been very instrumental because as I went forward in life, you know, during meetings, when we leave and we grow up, jobs, you have, you know, thoughts you wanna share. You have ideas, and if you don't, you know, share them right then and there, you might forget them, and then not be able to remember what you thought of.
The ADHD thought that formed the connection that formed that thought in the first place, the synapse that fired and formed that is not always saved the way that some people save those ideas. So you have to write them down or you will not remember your own ideas and thoughts. So I have learned to take notes. The same with calendars. We were taught to follow our activities and daily homework assignments. The teachers always gave us a lot of work, I felt, and they always made sure that we wrote it down so we wouldn't forget what we had to do. And also during classes, if we had anything else that we needed to do for the class, managing that, writing it down.
Visual visual learning is also a big part of my personality in a lot of people with ADHD. So having something concrete that we can see, and when we can't remember but we can see it, the connection reforms and we're like, oh, yeah. I had to do this. So being taught to do that helped us manage helped me and others manage our thoughts and our activities and our tasks and duties in a way that was very important for us, going forward leaving the school even after I left the school.
They also gave us more time to work on our essay questions. They gave us extended time. I got I think 50% extended time on my tests. I would sometimes go out into a separate classroom to finish if I was still writing. These sorts of making sure my idea is flushed out and fully shared instead of worrying about, oh, am I saying it quick enough or am I getting the answer right? Being able to write that all out, really helped us to not only feel more confident because we were able to complete our thoughts and share them and see that we had a correct thought, a correct response, that we were independent thinkers but also it helped us to make sure that we weren't holding back because the norm and the expectation was you only have this much time to do it or you're you're failing. You failed. You didn't finish the question. Sorry. It's wrong.
And just knowing that you can take your time and think out your thoughts when your thought processes are a little slower, are a little more atypical, knowing that there's that grace period, definitely lets you be yourself and reach your full potential in a way that otherwise students just can't. And I was able to have a lot of success in college. I think I had a 3.65 GPA, and that was with all of the classes I didn't wanna take. So, we definitely stood up for ourselves by the time we got to college because we were taught that we are smart.
We were taught critical thinking. We were taught to ask for help when we needed it, by the school. And that was instrumental into making sure that I got my degree, completed my classes, went on to be successful. I have done education, to accounting, to banking, since then. I'm also writing and I've done Spanish translation.
So I've done a lot of things and all of that came from the success I was able to find at Noble Academy and knowing that I have value to bring and that making sure I advocate for myself is not a bad thing but is what's necessary for me to achieve my success.
The other thing that I was taught though, at the school, was how to be yourself and how to be independent. Really nurture yourself, believe in yourself. Don't change for the system. The system is not designed for you. And if you change, you will not succeed.
Set yourself up for success. Believe in yourself. Seek the assistance you need to succeed and also pursue the things that you want to pursue because with ADHD, one of the things about ADHD is it's very easy to do what you want to do. Now obviously in life, you have to do things you don't wanna do but if you can find the things in life that you're good at, that you like, that drive you, it's gonna be much easier to go that route and doubling down on that is gonna be beneficial to you. I was able to go into school and to leave the school with an understanding that being myself was a good thing.
Learning with these other kids and who all had different disabilities than myself. We had dysgraphia, dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, and a couple other learning differences as well. But when we came every morning to school and the way that teachers taught all of us and the way that we were taught to think about each other fostered a sense of community instead of a different sense of divisiveness.
We very much got an idea of “I don't have to get along with everyone. I don't have to be just like everyone. I can be myself and these people will still accept me even if they're completely different.” That was very beneficial as well in addition to the academic reasons that we were prepared for college, that idea that you don't have to fit into a clique when you get to college. You're your own person. I saw a lot of people come to college and they were rushing to assume their new per their new identity, just like they had in high school and sometimes it would be a whole new identity but it was still a false identity and I was able to just be myself because I had not really ever been forced to be anything else to get by.