Teacher needs help!!
My name is Shawna and I am teacher in Ontario. I am doing some research on life as an adolescent with ASD. If anyone would like to share their experiences with me, I would greatly appreciate it. Please feel free to b***h, I am sure many of you have had pretty crappy experiences at school.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
My adolesence (20 years ago) wasn't pure hell but school was generally a misery for me. I was considered "strange", read constantly as a defense from talking to people and as an escape, and was frequently teased. (Teasing, of course, started long before adolesence.) However I had several good friends who were a few years older than I was -- my junior year was painful because they all graduated and went on to college. I found a few more friends my own age with the other "misfits" and in the drama group. Still, I probably skipped more of my senior year than I attended and my very existence embarassed my younger (and cooler) brother no end. Oh, and depression became a pretty large factor in my life by the time I was 16. I knew something was "wrong" with me but not what. (I remember in the 9th grade telling a guidance counselor that I wasn't a human being because humans were just too mean.)
Now, looking back, I'd say what would have helped me the most would be for people to have clearly and concisely explained what the "rules" were and when I was breaking them. Even little things like "It isn't okay to casually discuss the fact that your father beats you black and blue. You only discuss things like that with close friends or professionals if you're asking for help." would have clarified things. If you want to learn about things like that I understand that there are actually computer programs for teaching social skills to people with autism and Asperger's and at least one is supposed to be free. As for helping the other kids to be more understanding and less obnoxious, I think parents should do that but as a teacher it wouldn't hurt to work on some sort of sensitivity training you might be able to work in. Something along the lines of "everyone is different in their own way and the kinder you are to others the kinder they tend to be back".
Is that what you're looking for?
_________________
The question is this: given that God is infinite and that the universe is also infinite, would you like a toasted tea-cake? Talkie the Toaster (Red Dwarf)
in middle school i was made fun of all the time for being "ret*d" i had a few "friends" well at least i thought they were my friends but they really only hung around to be dicks and make fun of me for fun, by 8th grade i hated school so much they were forced to send me to an special placement school (e.d.) because i wouldnt do any work and would yell at someone or ditch school if they tried to make me leave the learning center (the place i stayed because they let me) but now in high school (i have mostly special ed/e.d. classes but i still eat lunch around general ed kids, and i have 1 general ed class (2cnd semester started today) i eat with some of my friends from my classes, that dont seem to make fun of me because weve been in the same e.d. classes since last year (im a sophmore currently), and all the kids who you too torture me in middle school dont even care anymore, because everyones starting to grow up (it seems, but not everyone is cause there are still a few mean kids)
hope i helped
Okay, let's see:
I wasn't yet diagnosed in highschool, so none of the teachers would do anything to help me. My mother explained to them I more than likely have aspergers (AS) but they wouldn't listen or begin to understand (I refused and was in denial, refused to learn about AS or get evaluated). So I was constantly being yelled at and getting in trouble at school for being "lazy". The kids mistreated me and made fun of me. A lot of the time I wasn't aware if I was being made fun of or not, everyone confused me. Eventually it got so bad I refused to go to school and had these bad shudowns before school so I skipped weeks of school. So the principal suggests that I go to an alternative school, because he told me my social skills were not good enough and that I was going to fail. Depression was a huge problem and that consumed my life.
At alternative school-- that turned out to be worse in some ways. Although the school only consisted of 20 students, it was not structured at all and I was completely lost without some kind of plan or schedule. All I heard was "look at me when you talk! get your hand away from your mouth!" etc etc all day long. They didn't know how to handle me-- they thought my behavior was odd and they didn't like it. They were informed about me possibly having AS but again they refused to help me in anyway. The teachers made fun of me and bothered me all day. Since they didn't want to deal with me they called my mother and told her I was acting out, which wasn't the case (what happened was someone took "my" seat, I was confused and just stood there lost because I didn't know what to do. Someone offered the seat back to me and I said that was alright, sat somewhere else for a change. The teachers made a big deal out of it and when I gave them a "bad look" which I honestly can't help or control.) So my mother had to take me out of the school.
Now I'm being home schooled and going through the process of trying to go back to the highschool with an IEP and hopefully have better success (homeschooling is boring me).
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
As an adolescent in middle school, I've been mocked my entire life, which sucks.
Thank you for trying to understand us! That's so nice of you, I wished my teachers researched AS
_________________
~Donna Lawliet
No one's going to take me alive,
The time has come to make things right,
You and I must fight for our rights,
You and I must fight to survive.
I'm an adolescent that goes to a scottish high school. I wonder if thats different?
I remember being tormented throughout highscool. I was taken out of my peer group from primary and placed in an entire new enviroment where nobody knew me. They soon realised I was an outcast and immeadiatly preyed on my weaknesses.
I'll write more soon, I have to leave now.
_________________
I'm a girl people!
"Do or do not; there is no try." -Yoda
Your Aspie score: 157 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 65 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
I remember being tormented throughout highscool. I was taken out of my peer group from primary and placed in an entire new enviroment where nobody knew me. They soon realised I was an outcast and immeadiatly preyed on my weaknesses.
I'll write more soon, I have to leave now.
Don't they all?
Ah, humans, always the same! Stupid humans.
_________________
~Donna Lawliet
No one's going to take me alive,
The time has come to make things right,
You and I must fight for our rights,
You and I must fight to survive.
I am barely being made fun of in my adolescence. I have a very small group of close friends, but I have tons of acquaintances and mostly everyone is nice to me, as I'm very kind and gentle to everybody except for the handful that hate me. The ones that hate me, well.....I'll just say they hate me 'cause I'm weird and wild, but they don't dare insult me or anything because of what me and my friends could do to them.
In other words, I love middle school.
I feel like a great study of Asperger's because I have so many symptoms of it, you should read some of the topics I started about myself.
_________________
I'm an aspie and wouldn't have it any other way.
- My own words.
I have an addiction to my affliction. - My own words
I Want To Become Stronger...
... Than I Was Yesterday!! !! - The words in my avatar picture.
Thanks to everyone who chose to share their middleschool and highschool experiences. For those interested, I posted my question on this website because I wanted to get the opinions of people who are actually experiencing middleschool right now. I have read tons of books, most of which talk about how awful school is (hence the reference to crappy school experiences) for ASD students. I wanted to know if this was accurate and if so why. I am a Spec. Ed. teacher and your opinions will help to shape how I teach my students in the future. So again, thank you for your suggestions and for sharing your experiences.
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