Did you endure teacher bullying?

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Well, I certainly did. Not too much though. Just attitude, pompous attitude, the worst was a high school English teacher. He took out his frustrations on me b/c of my apparent inability to read into characters intentions and get abstract concepts "by now". (no surprise there, huh folks )

I also remember in Grade 8, when I misinterpreted an expectation, the teacher saying "well when you're a patient on the operating table, you'd better hope that Jayo isn't the surgeon." (yeah, you're a real f***ng comedian, a-hole. )

I've read about and seen worse, though. These days, unlike in my day ('80s, '90s), kids can secretly record abuse with their cell phones, and there are such postings on Youtube. Calling kids insults like "fat, ugly worthless, dumb" or even premature homophobic slurs (like with a preteen). Then the parade of follow-up comments from people saying "if that were MY kid, that teacher would be screaming with a bloody nose" and such.

I think it's particularly bad if you've got a younger teacher like in his/her twenties who might be teaching kids with less of an age gap and think it "cool" to go to their level. Or the older teachers who are cynical about you having the "diagnosis du jour" and reluctant bad teachers who just flat-out think "I don't get paid enough for this". However, as I've experienced first hand, it can be a boon to have an ASD kid from the teachers perspective, as I was one of a very few who could converse on English literary greats & their works, or the periodic table, or historical events, or what have you - you're more advanced intellectually in some ways and they appreciate that. I did have more than one teacher tell me that they were glad to have somebody as engaged as I was and that they don't have to drill to get the information in as I lap it up However, best not to get such praise publicly, lest you invoke the social ire of the group

Had a teacher in seventh grade who made me cry three times and never show any remorse (one time scolding me to "wipe those tears up") because everything I did around her was wrong to her and she'd criticize all my work and make me redo it if I had the slightest error (one time there was ERASER DUST on my paper and she made me do it again). She'd mock me in front of the class, and when I begged her to stop doing it, she said she wasn't doing anything and that I was being overdramatic.

I also had a teacher in third grade who would regularly flip over my desk to pour out all the contents because it was messy, and she'd also grab my head and twist it toward her if I wasn't looking at her when she was giving a lesson.

Yeah....there were teachers who "had it in for me."

I got thrown out of class a considerable amount all through my school years.

In high school, a teacher threw a book at me once out frustration, because she thought I was "bizarre."

yes, I had a teacher who had a habit of interpreting her own opinions a fact and thought she had the right to impose them on others. She got angry if anyone bothered to question her or point out the obvious problems with some of the stuff she said. My tendency to want to positively contribute to the class and instances of well intentioned pointing out of issues at what she said, made her particularly antagonistic toward me. On one instance, she cornered me in the hall, shouted at, and threatened me.
And I'm not the only person who saw her as a bully, plenty of other students did to.

Well I hope some of you had the insight to realize this treatment was dead wrong, and reported it to your parents.
But the trouble is, at that impressionable age for us - let alone for NT kids - we're indoctrinated to respect the teacher's words and deeds, they can do no wrong.

I remember one time in preteens telling my father about a teacher who was being unreasonable with me. My dad gave a rather flippant response, to the effect of "well, Jayo, in life you're going to have bosses or people in charge, and you may not agree with what they tell you, but that's why they're in charge and sometimes you just have to go with what they say if you want to get somewhere in life."

Wasn't exactly the best way to explain to his son the concept of "reasonable limits". Later on in my adult years, my father told me this anecdote about how he left his first job for something better (both were in the energy sector), because his old boss at that job was an arrogant jerk who was totally unreasonable. Trouble is, 12-year-old me couldn't just up and find another teacher! ha ha.

Yes, reasonable limits, there's only so much that we should have to put up with, you can't take crap full blast.
After that, I found it quite ironic in hindsight that my father criticized ME for thinking in black-and-white terms!!

Yeah, that'll teach us! After all, you can't be autistic if you're not alive.

By the way, that's how you teach kids that life is unfair: by being unfair to them.

I had a couple of teachers who hated me, which seemed especially unfair as I was a good student. One threw my notebook in the bin because I was taking extra notes, and then told me to dig it out of the bin after class (I made her do it). The same teacher was praising a poem handed in without a name on it, because she thought another girl had written it. When she found out I'd written it, she retracted the idea of taking it to the headteacher for extra housepoints. Oh, and we did a unit on journalism, and she gave a diatribe about size 0 and how it was wrong, how mentally ill and insecure the models were etc., then she said in front of the class that I was an example of that size.

I don't think any of it was because of my AS behaviour; I didn't have a diagnosis then and I was just a quiet, studious child.

Last year, one of my teachers made fun of my IEP accomodations. He nagged me when I wore headphones to block out classroom chatter to focus on what he was saying. He never understood I wasn't listening to music nor ignoring him when I was using them (which is quite ironic). Sadly, he bullied other students. I reported him and he stopped making comments on my accomodations. It wasn't that bad, but he commented my classmates' conditions without their consent. Thinking back, he was kind of cynical and skeptic about anything loosely related to an IEP.

Everybody hates good students and loves seeing them own3d in any possible way

How did you make her do it? If I’d tried anything like that, I’d only expect the teacher to do something to humiliate me even more, so I learned to suck it up and not argue with them.

In my sophomore year of high school, I had it on my IEP that I didn't like sitting on the end of a row of desks (something to do with a sense of balance. I'm better with it now), and when we were moving seats, I got put on the end of a row, so I asked the guy next to me if we could switch. He said that was fine, so I asked the teacher, and she proceeded to call me out in front of the class, saying that of course I could change seats because I could always do whatever I wanted, and that nobody else could do it because they weren't me and couldn't do what they wanted. She eventually apologized to me because I told my dad about it, who teaches at the school, but I haven't forgotten. I NEVER forget.

Yes, numerous teachers, some of them were just that way to everyone, but some of them particularly had it in for me and one or two other targeted unfortunates.

There was one teacher in high school -- one day he said something to me that was so vicious and soul destroying that I have never been able to forget it. I was 14. It stayed with me and made an incredibly negative impact without my even realizing how badly it was doing so.

And no, not making excuses -- this really did impact me in a way I could not shake. It was the kind of thing nobody should say to a young person trying to cope and find their way.

Haha, I have a bit of a way with stuff like this. I don't normally bother with confrontation but when I do, my attitude's been described as 'take no prisoners, take no sh*t' . Part of the impact comes from the fact that I'm usually so quiet and withdrawn, I guess it has the element of surprise!

The worst argument I ever had with a teacher was really bad, in front of my whole year group, so I didn't think they could embarrass me much further. I got random kids coming up to high-five me after that one, and I didn't get into any trouble with the school because when I get angry, it's not over nothing.

It's important to have a dignified way about you. I really didn't, as a student, and I suffered because of it. I let people walk all over me.

Rachel has this down pat. She picks her battles well. She doesn't "cry wolf.'

If you appear like you're "crying wolf," you've lost even before the games begin.

Me, too. While I admit that none of my teachers knew about my autism (neither did I), a few of them set me up in the eyes of my classmates as someone who could be ridiculed and dismissed.

I was constantly kicked out of class in junior high

Sometimes it was my fault; other times, it seemed as if the teachers tried to bait me, and they succeeded.

Teachers always used to bait one of my classmates (he was emotionally volatile, to say the least); it was cruel, such an abuse of power/neglect of care. He was really bright, too, they just decided not to help him for whatever reason.



Yes, picking your battles is key, but it does take confidence. The problem with this topic is that bullying itself, especially from teachers, tends to knock that out of people. I am grateful for my self-assuredness on issues like this, not being able to stand up for yourself is the worst.