The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children

by Alison Gopnik

School requires even more extreme forms of focused attention than ordinary adult life. Many children are able to develop that kind of attention as they get older. But many more continue to have difficulty focusing even well into the school-age years. In particular, there is a close connection between the rise of schools and the development of attention deficit disorder. In the past two decades, the number of children who are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has nearly doubled. One in five American boys receives a diagnosis by age seventeen. More than 70 percent of those who are diagnosed—millions of children—get drugs. Many people have suspected that there is a relationship between the ADHD explosion and the increasing emphasis on school performance. In the same two decades that saw a precipitous rise in diagnoses, more states began to evaluate schools and teachers based on test scores.