By Henriette Ovidia Sanner, Strategist and Keynote Speaker

They called it a diagnosis. I call it a symptom – of a system that does not understand difference. In today’s school system, order is rewarded more than curiosity, structure more than insight, and compliance more than learning. What people like me lack is measured more heavily than what we actually master. We adapt people to the system, rather than adapting the system to people. The consequences are far greater than we like to acknowledge. The diagnosis that changed everything After many years of repeated crash landings in both school and working life, I was diagnosed with ADHD late in life. The comment was meant as reassurance: “You’re lucky to have managed as well as you have.” I did not feel lucky. I was sitting there exhausted, depressed, and suddenly forced to reinterpret my entire life. First came shame. Then grief – over what life might have looked like if I had known earlier. And finally anger – over how much energy had gone into restraining myself, slowing myself down, and trying to function within frameworks that were never designed for how I actually function. It took time to understand what “lucky” really meant. Not healthy. Not supported. Just sufficiently functional within the system. That insight became painfully clear when I later attended a course for adults who had recently received the same diagnosis. I expected professional exchange: how they navigated working life when everyday life felt like a constant struggle to fit in. Instead, I discovered that none of the other participants were still working. From “disabled” to “functional” Upper secondary school moved painfully slowly. My body was screaming “run,” while the system answered “sit.” When neither fight nor flight is possible, the nervous system enters freeze – not out of laziness, but as a form of protection. They said I was lazy when I collapsed at my desk. I was constantly exhausted, and my grades reflected it. In this system, I was considered disabled. In another, I suddenly became functional. I did not change. The framework did. As Gabor Maté has described, ADHD is not about a lack of willpower. It is about a nervous system that disengages when deprived of meaning and stimulation. This brain is not designed for stillness, repetition, and monotony. It is designed for movement, curiosity, and rapid connections. The ADHD brain does not respond to importance in the way we expect from a “normal” brain. It responds to dopamine. And dopamine is not triggered by good intentions or long-term plans, but by concrete factors: urgency, novelty, interest, and challenge. Everything else becomes background noise. Finally functional The contrast became clear later, when I gained the freedom to create my own frameworks for learning. In higher education, I rarely attended lectures and only opened my books once dopamine kicked in – triggered by urgency one or two weeks before exams. I then read intensely, from cover to cover, and built visual maps of the entire curriculum. Everything was gathered onto a single A4 sheet: arrows, colors, and connections. A visual map I could see when I closed my eyes – and one that allowed the knowledge to truly take hold. This was not a creative study technique. It was a neurological necessity. This is known as associative learning and is typical of neurodivergent brains like mine. The result? Top grades in every subject – while working a 70 percent position. I had never been misprogrammed. I had simply been running on the wrong operating system. And this is not just about me – and not just about ADHD. It is about how today’s education system defines and measures intelligence. The glitch in the operating system School is not only built for linear learning – it is built on constant interruption. Subjects, tasks, and focus shift before the brain has time to engage. For some minds, this is variation. For others, it is friction. We need time to warm up. When we finally get into something, we learn in depth. That is where understanding emerges. When learning is interrupted every 45 minutes, we do not just lose the thread – we lose momentum. Students do not drop out because they lack motivation, but because the system consistently interrupts learning before it has a chance to take hold. The education system is built on an industrial logic: linear progression, repetition, and control. Knowledge is measured by how well information is reproduced, not by how deeply it is understood. The system is not neutral. It is built around specific assumptions about what intelligence looks like, how learning happens, and which expressions of competence are considered valid. When competence becomes invisible A clear example of this was a fellow student I attended music school with. He could hear a piece of music once, leave the classroom, and reproduce it perfectly on the piano – entirely by ear. He was music. He created, improvised, and could play anything, at any time. What he could not do was meet the school’s formal requirement. He could not read sheet music. His skill was rendered irrelevant because the system demanded one specific way of demonstrating competence. In a rigid framework, an extraordinary musician was defined as insufficient. The fact that he could play anything by ear, but could not play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” from sheet music, meant that he did not measure up. He quit. When assessment criteria are rigid, we confuse different forms of competence with lack of ability. Research confirms this. Neuropsychologist Russell Barkley shows that 30–40 percent of young people with ADHD do not complete upper secondary education. Among those who do complete it, many perform far below their actual capacity – not because they lack intelligence, but because the system was never designed for how they learn. When medication becomes the plan that does not deliver We still attempt to solve a structural problem by adjusting the child. We medicate to create calm in the classroom – and call it mastery. But silence at a desk is not the same as learning. Understanding, active thinking, and creative problem-solving are not always measurable – and are therefore often overlooked. Long-term studies show that the effects are limited. Grades, learning outcomes, and completion rates change little. When the same intervention is repeated without effect, it is not the child who should be changed. It is the framework. A living example These assumptions do not stop at the school gate. They follow us into adult life. Increasing numbers of young people fall out of education and work early, and mental health conditions are now among the most common causes of sick leave and disability at a young age. These are not isolated cases. It is a pattern. The cost is rarely paid in the classroom. It is paid later – in the healthcare system, in sick leave, and in long-term exclusion. Not because people lack ability, but because the systems that shaped them never gave them room to develop it – and instead made them feel that something was wrong with them. I am a living example of this. In one system, I was perceived as demanding, restless, and difficult. In another, I am highly competent, value-creating – and, admittedly, still a bit difficult. The difference does not lie in the diagnosis. It lies in what the system has room for. That is where my work begins. Not by repairing people – but by challenging the systems we take for granted, what they reward, and what it costs when competence is mistaken for deviation.