Are you left out in class?
I am mostly on my own in class and I don't speak much. Whenever we have a substitute teacher while everyone mucks about defiant of the seating plan, I am always in the correct place, concentrating on my work.
Also, whenever we do a scientific experiment or work in pairs I am normally on my own.
Another thing, nobody in the class thinks the same way as I do (the idiots that they are) and I am often isolated or hated in arguments.
However I like the fact that I am mainly on my own and I have no idiot to distract me. I once did an entire A2 size Plate Tectonic poster in science by myself!
I do feel slightly rejected that nobody agrees with my correct, logical points of view and will only accept whatever they want to think is correct.
_________________
If the phrase "you are what you eat" is correct, technically we must all be cannibals.
Unfortunately, this is a case for many people during the education years. No matter how long you go to school, you will feel isolated more than likely. You could be in a group project with 4 or 5 people and feel either you are doing all the work or no one is listening to your ideas. Neurotypical people tend to notice something in aspies that shocks them. It's like to them we see in black and white and they have color vision. From what I've learned through reading many posts here and research I have done for my own neccessity, it seems pretty obvious most of us aspies like to rely on logic and rational thought. We like to be able to piece things together in order to understand them better. This doesn't have to just relate to mechanical things, in all fashions of life we get obsessed about an intrest to the point where we have to know why or how something is the way it is. I find myself only asking 2 questions compared to NT's 6 questions.I only need/want to know why and how because I know with that information I can make a better assessment of the situation. Im sorry you have to deal with this but its just a fact of life we all must go through.
One thing I can tell you is that improving your social skills is like a full time job and being with people is not as fun as you might think, especially since we dont like the same things they like. It will get easier to relate to them when you get older and more experienced and they become more serious. Im sure you know a lot of ways to have fun on your own.
_________________
"Whatever you do in life will be insignificant but it's very important that you do it because no one else will."
vivreestesperer
Sea Gull
Joined: 25 Jun 2004
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 223
Location: Maine/Baltimore
Yeah, I always had the same trouble in school.
I was never called on and alwyas had trouble in groups
It's interesting you mention science projects in particular. Those were the worst for me. We would always get in groups and I would never have a partner. I hated subs too It wrecked havoc.
Welcome to the club. My teachers always said that I'm "alone in the classroom." Although I knew about taking turns, raising my hand, and other related stuff, I never had friends in the classroom. I would always walk in, take a seat, read quietly until the teacher came in, give all the right answers during class, then walk out. And that was the best case, in classes where no bullying took place.
Group projects were 100 times worse. It often resulted in one of the two opposing scenarios. In the first scenario, I'd have little or no say in the project. People would ignore all my ideas and opinions, do the project their way, making me do what they call "cooperation." The upside, however, is that I'd still get the credit for the project. In the second scenario, I'd be doing almost all the work myself. Others would make it look like they pitched it, but that was mainly for show. In the end, they'd get the credit for it. However, this scenario was the more tolerable one, since I'd get to make all the decisions, and do things the way I want.
I had issues with being the 'odd man out' as well. Most of the time the situation was there was an odd number of people in the class and guess who had to work alone every time? It wasn't because I was disliked/hated, it was just a screwup on the administration's part. Most of the time I didn't mind it, as I generally work better by myself, but last year (my sophmore year of high school) I had a Biology Honors class in which the course material was on a level of a basic college Freshman biology course. We were so very immersed in the material to a point that it drove everyone, including myself, crazy because the material was actually challenging and I, like most of the rest of the kids in that class, were trying to juggle multiple honors classes. For the labs I had to work by myself, though I was almost always on call to the other groups giving them assistance when the teacher was busy. But while the groups were able to get labs done within the specified time frame, I had to come in after school quite frequently to finish them up owing to their being so overly complex I couldn't get them finished in the 90 minute class period (we had a block schedule at my high school) without having another person to do some of the work. And despite the fact that I did twice as much work as any of the other students, the teacher, who I respect a great deal, gave me a B+ two semesters in a row and didn't take into consideration my solo completion of several dozen two person labs when he graded my lab book. I was quite irritated, as I felt I should have been given extra points for managing to get 95% of those labs completed and get A's on most of them in spite of the fact I was working alone. Oh well.
I seem to be an enigmatic oddity in this forum as usually when it comes to group work, people are always fighting over me to get me in their group since I'm the class brain. Especially when it comes to history, science or english. Of course, 98% of the time I wind up doing the majority of the brainstorming/work on the project, while the other group members take credit for my work. There have been a few exceptions to this general pattern but overall that is the recurrent trend, which is why I'm not terribly fond of group work. When it comes to being called on, I've taken up the habit of waiting until everyone has had a chance to guess the answer. More often than not my classmates either have no clue and throw out answers which often have nothing to do with the question or they have the right idea but the wrong details. When everyone else has fallen silent the teacher usually asks me, and I almost always have the correct answer. Sometimes my classmates volunteer me to the teacher first thing (Mark knows! Why don't you ask him?) and sometimes the teacher asks me the question directly, completely bypassing the other students. My 'waiting to be called on' habit has diffused some of the typical jealousy and hatred directed toward the student who is the class brain by allowing my peers an oppurtunity to answer the question as well and not coming across as a complete and utter know-it-all. I also tend to dominate class discussions, as I am a very outspoken person, but unless everyone else is struggling to find things to discuss, I try to keep my thoughts short and succinct and let everyone else have a chance to bring things up before I throw my whole two cents worth into the class discussion pot. More often than not though, the fuel for discussion is there but my classmates can't seem to get the fire started, so I usually get to present my points of view, logic and opinions right up front in the discussion. And to my great satisfaction my POV/logic/opionins often are the spark which kindles the flames of intensely heated discussion in whatever class the discussion is in, whether it be english, math, science or history.
When it comes to explaining my points of view or logic, I always tend to go WELL over my classmate's heads. They usually ask me to explain it to them in simpler terms in varying degrees of politeness. A crucial lesson that I've learned is that sometimes you have to make certain concessions so that you don't come across as unwilling to explain your logic; I can say from experience there is nothing an NT hates worse than having some explanation or logic of mine be beyond their comprehension and then having me refuse or forget to explain it to them in terminology they can understand. This makes them either feel I regard them as 'inferior' by keeping them in the dark as to the actual meaning of my explanation/logic, or that I'm 'bullying' them with my intellect. (Believe it or not I have been accused of this by teachers and school administrators in the past. Not kidding here, it's absolutely ludicrous. ) It can get exasperating at times, but if you dumb it down for the NT's, they will respect you a considerable amount more than if you didn't dumb it down.
And yes, I have had my logic or point of view called into question or mocked by my fellow classmates on countless occasions throughout these last ten years. I've dealt with this in these ways: I have simplified my POV and explained it in a way that they could grasp at least the core concepts of what I was talking about, or I just cooly told them that just because they were ignorant of my POV/logic did not mean it was flawed or incorrect, which usually caused them to shut up.
I highly suggest this strategy for Aspie use in any argument/discussion with an NT, but especially for when it gets very heated or ugly. By using this method every time, I don't have to struggle to come up with ways to handle the situation in an appropriate manner. And it works (to some degree or another) every time.
Sorry for such a long and complicated post, but it got a few things off my chest. Hopefully everyone else will enjoy reading thorugh my experiences and hopefully all you other Wrong Planet dwellers will take away something positive from it.
I'm looking forward to hear more from others about their experiences with this particular aspect of school life.
SolaCatella
Veteran
Joined: 24 Nov 2005
Gender: Female
Posts: 662
Location: [insert creative, funny declaration of location here]
Photomaniac: Nah, I often get the 'people fight to have me in a group' too, since apparantly I know everything. (Who knew?) Personally, I prefer to work alone whenever possible, because I don't like feeling like I'm doing all the work and I tend to start snapping at anyone who looks like they're not pulling their share of the weight.
Actually, my strategy is a lot like yours, mainly because after years of teachers telling me to give other kids a chance to answer, I've started leaving a five-second waiting period before I raise my hand--if no one raises their hand by then, I figure it's a fair go to answer. Most of the time, my logic matches up neatly with what the teacher is trying to say, but I'm in the habit of trying to poke holes in ANY statement anyone uses in an argument, so I've started some interesting debates. My teacher made the mistake of telling us to look for holes in our classmate's presentations on Brave New World last semester, and I was constantly picking arguments--I actually had a lot of fun. Generally, I'm able to present my arguments in ways that most people can understand, due to a long history of arguing sociopolitical theories with my father (who is right up beside me in intellect).
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cogito, ergo sum.
non cogitas, ergo non es.
I feel for you I know what thats like.
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