What was school like for you? Did your teachers like you?

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This is something I'm kind of curious about. Most of my teachers loved me and thought I was nice and well-behaved. I was very quiet and shy and always followed the rules. I have suspected that I might have Asperger's for a few years now, but I'm still not quite sure. And I do think that if I were diagnosed, some of my former teachers might be pretty surprised if they knew. I am female, and I have read a lot about how AS tends to present itself a lot differently in girls, and how girls are more likely to go undiagnosed (even into adulthood) because a lot of them are so good at masking their symptoms. I do feel like I was really good at "hiding" some things. For example, I always created these complex worlds (kind of like alternate realities) in my head and spent most of my time living in them. I still do it to this day, and no one, not even my parents, has never known that I do this, because even as a child I never told them and just kept my alternate lives inside my head. I've also always done things with my fingers (either shaking, flicking, or just squeezing them together, usually when I'm focusing intently on something that I'm interested in, or when I'm reading), which I think is a form of stimming. I've always kind of realized that other people might find it weird (especially after one time when I was pretty little when my brother and his friends saw me doing it and laughed at me), so I've really only done it in private, and definitely didn't do it at school.

Anyway, this is what I remember about my experiences with school/teachers:

Kindergarten - teacher liked me and thought I was sweet and polite. She got a little frustrated with me sometimes, because I would just stop doing my work and sit there. I'd do this any time that I didn't understand what I was supposed to do or didn't know an answer. I remember being really afraid to and not really knowing how to ask for help. The issues she noted on my report card were that I didn't ask for help when I needed it, and also that I was having some difficulty with motor skills.

1st grade - still had some issues with asking for help and the teacher noted that sometimes I took a long time to finish assignments, and thought that sometimes I was having trouble staying focused. But I was doing pretty well and excelling at reading. One thing that I really remember about this teacher was that she made me feel good by encouraging one of my "special interests"...I've always been very interested in the designs of houses and at that age, I liked to design my own houses and draw pictures of all the individual rooms. Somehow my teacher found out about this, and she was really interested and asked me to bring in my pictures and show her. This of course was a bit of an unusual interest for a kid, so my friends couldn't really relate to it and I never talked about it or showed the pictures to them...so I just remember being really happy that my teacher wanted me to share it with her.

2nd grade - this teacher loved me and had no complaints. I started opening up a little, and was figuring out how to ask for help and wasn't quite as shy and afraid. But by now, I was reading really well (above grade level by this point) and I think that just meant I didn't need as much help on assignments in the first place. Because I've always been pretty bad at following verbal directions (especially if they're complex or if multiple directions are given at once), and of course, when you're little and still can't read well, you have to rely on verbal instructions. I guess by 2nd grade, I was able to just read the written directions on assignments on my own.

3rd grade - this teacher didn't seem to like the fact that I was quiet and didn't like to talk much or "participate" in class. She told my mom, and also noted on my report card, that she thought I didn't pay attention a lot of the time and that I was usually "staring off into space" and often didn't know what was going on when she called on me. Like I said, I have always been a daydreamer and lived in my own world, but it didn't severely impact my ability to function and pay attention in school. Usually, I was pretty focused. But I remember this teacher called on me a lot when I wasn't sure of the answer and wasn't comfortable being called on. When she did that, I'd kind of freeze up and wouldn't say anything because I didn't really know what to say (even though now, I know I probably should have just said, "I'm not sure"). She actually told my mom at a parent-teacher conference that she thought I might be having absence seizures (but I definitely wasn't). I've never really used a lot of facial expression, and I think especially when I was a kid, I wore a pretty blank expression most of the time, and for some reason, this teacher in particular mistook it for me staring off into space.

4th grade and up was, for the most part, smooth sailing. I started struggling with math a bit in 4th grade, and as I got older it got more difficult, but I still managed to always make at least a C in math throughout middle and high school. I remained really good at English/reading and also enjoyed history. In high school, I also discovered that I had a special talent/interest in learning foreign languages, particularly Spanish. I really enjoyed learning the language and about the culture. My only "issues" were auditory processing/following verbal directions (as always) and being a slow test taker, but it wasn't bad enough to where my grades suffered. As for the social aspect, middle school was when I really started to feel like I was kind of socially immature and didn't fit in well with the other kids, but it wasn't a major issue. I really was never bullied. Most kids were just indifferent to me and ignored me. Throughout middle and high school, I just had maybe 2-3 friends that I stuck with and hung out with all the time, and I didn't really socialize much with anyone else.

Most teachers in middle and high school really liked me...but the one that I had issues with was my 7th grade home ec teacher. Because we had to sew tote bags in that class, which I had A LOT of trouble doing. I could never even learn how to set up the sewing machine, let alone actually sew. This was when I realized that whenever I'm learning to do something that involves a lot of steps and doing things with my hands, I need to be walked through it at least five times before I'll get it and be able to do it on my own. But of course, the teacher would just show us one time and then we'd be expected to complete that step before moving on to the next. We had a list of written directions, but without me actually being able to see someone doing it, they were pretty useless. I had no idea what I was doing, and I had never been accused by a teacher of "not listening" and "not following directions" so much before in my life. None of the other kids in the class struggled as much as I did, and I just remember feeling so helpless and stupid, and the teacher wasn't helping at all. She got so exasperated with me. I took forever to finish the stupid tote bag, and I only did because finally, I stayed after school and had my friend help me and basically walk me through everything in baby steps.

And also, one class that I hated with a passion throughout school was P.E.! Especially as I got to upper elementary and middle school and they made us play actual sports games. I guess this ties into me always having a bit of trouble with motor skills. I remmeber being embarrassed in front of everyone when they made us play softball and I had to bat...the pitcher literally kept throwing the ball to me over and over again and I'd keep missing it. I also just had the hardest time remembering and understanding all the specific rules in the different types of games so I really never knew what I was doing or understood what the heck was ever going on in our soccer/basketball/softball games. Half the time I didn't even really know which team won. At least most of my P.E. teachers were nice to me because I guess they could see that I was trying and struggling, not just "not listening".

So, if you don't mind sharing, what were your experiences in school? How did your teachers like you? I'm just interested to see if my experiences were similar to people (especially girls) with AS.

I'm pretty sure that most of my teachers hated my guts. My Kindergarten and 4th grade teacher were extremely abusive to me. Other teachers mostly just ignored me. There were a few exceptions. My 6th grade teacher was pretty nice. I also had one special ed teacher in Jr. High School who I got along with and was very helpful. And the teachers at the alternative high school I graduated from, I got along good with. Aside from those teachers and one summer school teacher I had in elementary school, my teachers were mostly worthless at best.

Most of my teachers liked me and why wouldn't they have as I was quiet, cooperative and got good marks. One thing they did note literally every year was that I need to "pay attention", probably because my head was in the clouds and I was light years ahead of the other children in elementary school. Still, it was usually overwhelmingly positive comments made.

That changed once I got to High School as my Grade 10 English teacher absolutely detested me. She was one of those man-hating feminists and for some reason she had it out for me. I finally swallowed my pride, 'apologized' to her and told her I wanted to be on good terms and never had a problem with her afterwards. She wrote on the report card that once I "started trying" I did well even though I literally never changed anything other than my "apology".

I should mention that I now know my Junior High teachers knew I was being physically bullied and emotionally tortured and turned a blind eye to it to protect their jobs. I would like to raise my middle finger to them for that.

I suppose most of them have liked me. I think I have been a good student in class and not given them any unnecessary problems or trouble. I pretty much managed to fly under the radar most of the time.

I've always been in a private special ed school for autism, so that made it easier I'm sure than if I had been in public school.

Most teachers couldn't stand my guts LOL

Until I got to high school. Then a couple of teachers out of many liked me. There were still some who would throw me out at the drop of a hat. I was one of those who was "quiet" in his rebellion---but they sensed the rebellion all right.

I was a good kid....really I was! They just didn't know it LOL

Most of my teachers liked me, because I was a good student, particularly in English and languages. Academically, I did well. My greatest problems were with the other kids. I learned, years later, that some people did want to be my friends, but I was too dumb to notice. I'm making up for that now.

My teachers liked me for the most part, except when I had meltdowns.

I don't have many earlier memories but I know that I was universally hated by any teacher I had at high school. I was just so incredibly bored and a public school teacher has no interest in dealing with anyone who doesn't fit into their regular bell curve. People I've spoken to more recently often have stories of how their teacher's would give them additional responsibilities (like asking them to help some of the other students). I was told delightful things like "Put your head on the desk and keep quiet for the rest of the semester (15 weeks)". Of course I was unable to follow this instruction and was quickly ejected from the class. I barely lasted a week in chemistry and spend the rest of the 2 years working from a desk in the foyer just writing down how any experiments would have gone had I been allowed to participate in them.

Whenever I see any of them in the street now (when I'm visiting my hometown) they'll cross the street to avoid me. I think your experience depends a lot on the school, their resources and the teachers.

It was a mixed experience. Generally, it was good and the teachers liked me when I performed well, and when I couldn't do the work they disliked me and the school experience was painful. I started out doing very well, and then gradually sank, though I managed to turn the situation round towards the end when the most crucial exams were looming up. In those days there was very little of this politically-correct stuff, if you got the work right and didn't make any trouble, they loved you, if you couldn't keep up or you were unruly, they hated you. All the responsibility was on the pupil, it was tacitly assumed that the teaching and the studying conditions were perfect.

Socially it was a bit different. I started to notice the Aspie problems over running with the pack, though I didn't know about autism. I noticed that some kids liked me more when I didn't perform well academically and when I clowned about instead of doing the work. But towards the end I did well with kids who took a more balanced view. They more admired those who, while being against the Establishment, were still bright enough to get through the exams, and smart enough to realise that qualifications were important. I guess we were maturing.

I too was quiet, shy, well behaved (model behavior in fact) and academically good grades, but I grew up in a time when many teachers were hateful toward students almost in a compelled way.

In the 1960s in the UK, our teachers shouted at us, said hateful things, and were fully permitted by the system to physically hit us. We got hard, prolonged slapping of our bare legs, and "the cane" -- people doing something really rule-breaking got sent to the principal's office and got beaten with a cane. I'm serious. We got hit.

Even I got hit by teachers, as well behaved as I was. There were numerous occasions, but one memorable one was when I got some math sums wrong over and over because I severely struggled with that subject, my ONE and only poor subject, I started to get the trembling lip as my teacher chastized me for it and then she, a Miss Wright, hit me hard on the backs of my legs about ten time times in front of the whole classroom while I was trying to keep from crying. State-approved physical knocking around, people. My teachers were hateful.

There were only two that were "nicer" and for those we were overly grateful. But even they got nasty when they grew impatient. No teachers back then were held to higher standards of care of their students mentally and physically.

I never had a teacher who disliked me.

Kindergarten and first grade: I had the same teacher and she was a special ed teacher because I was in a self contained room. We did the same school work over and over and I never learned any science or history in that class or any of the things other kids my age were learning. They had me do the same work I already knew how to do and it was lots of field trips and gathering time and doing activities and watching movies and we had our own parties and did our own Thanksgiving and see Santa every year in a mall and we played games that involved learning and we did toy time and story time. I didn't know any different and thought that was how school was for everyone. But there was a classroom aide in that class and she called me a liar several times like the time I couldn't tie my shoes in PE so I tried on my own to fix it and she thought I was playing in PE and skipped out and called me a liar when I explained it to her and also another time when she accused me of throwing a lollipop wrapper out the bus window on the field trip and also saying I was pounding the glue and wouldn't tell me what I did and called me a liar again. I always got back at her and one time she made me come back to class just to pick up the mess I made with her desk and all the items I threw off her desk. Natural consequence she gave me and she never knew why I did it.


I had other teachers who were good and none of mine hit because public schools here don't have that discipline. I had ones who knew how to control their class and keep their students attention but I had one student teacher who was so disorganized she would lose our school work and over explain things she couldn't keep her audience so my class would get wild with her especially in math. Worst of all she wouldn't admit to her losing our school work and would just mark it as missing. I wrote a mean story about her in my journal and shared it with other kids and I also would have meltdowns and say I wish I could throw her off a cliff or say I wanted to kill her figuratively. My mom also noticed I was doing the same math assignments again so she started to make copies of it with my dad's copier machine so I wouldn't have to do it all over again and have it be a battle to get me to do it and me having meltdowns.

In Junior high I was mostly in the resource room and I got along with the teachers there and I was the only kid in that class who always did their school work while the rest would refuse and get bad grades and get letters sent home to their parents about it and i even helped put those together and in the envelopes for them to be mailed out

High school I was in all my classes again and only in the resource room for two and I was mostly behaved and didn't go copying other kids to be normal and I had one English teacher who was tough about getting her assignments on time and there were literally no excuses so that meant to turn in your work before the due date when you are finished.

Yes it used to happen. I was caned for:
1. Laughing too long at a teacher's sarcastic comment (one hard stroke on the hand)
2. Failing to do a piece of homework on time (3 very hard strokes on the bum)
3. Using the newly-plastered corridor wall as a dartboard (2 moderate strokes on the bum)

I was smacked quite hard for:
1. Pushing a girl off a table during the enactment of "Three Billy Goats Gruff" while playing the part of the Wolf
2. Serial cheating during the self-assessment of my maths homework, by awarding myself marks for what turned out to be a completely blank exercise book
3. Sticking to a largely true but disbelieved excuse for spitting out a mouthful of pop in the playground

I also received a "thick ear" for jokingly threatening to sue my Latin teacher for confiscating a toy

Both my parents had teachers that hit and my dad had a school principal that hit students. My dad remembers seeing another little boy walking down the stairs holding his butt crying because he got spanked by the principal when he was in the second grade. This was the 1950's.

My aide in high school also had teachers that hit too and she had a teacher that would toss a eraser at students and also flick their ears and do it quickly it was like a stinging tug on your ear.

My mom told me this was all very common back in her days and that all changed in the 1970's when parents figured out there were better ways to discipline students. But I hear today there are still schools out there that still hit kids. I assume they are all private school. It's called corporal punishment. I read on here by another member it's more common down south. My parents tried putting me in a private school when I was 12 but it turned out they hit students and my mom didn't feel comfortable with it because she imagined me being hit on a daily basis and I then start hitting other kids and my brothers and going into the kitchen and taking a wooden spoon from the drawer and hitting my brothers with it. She was like "Oh no you will not hit my daughter" and it turns out they wouldn't have taken me anyway because of my IEP. So I stayed in public school and my dad thought it was just as good as private school.

My teachers loved me when I was in elementary school because I was so quiet and well behaved. I was also extremely bright as well as a complete bookworm and teacher's pet. The only complaints I ever received on report cards were that I didn't play with other kids and I didn't participate in class.

In middle school, I think my teachers were indifferent to me because I was so quiet that none of them knew me. I still excelled at all of my work but I had no personality and basically just sat in a corner and kept my head down in class.

Once high school hit, I basically had a mental breakdown and my work started to crash. I was almost completely mute at this time and would barely speak at all unless I was angry. My teachers did not like me and I did not like them. I was a total trainwreck and a bit of a jerk. I would ace tests but barely do any homework. I intentionally failed a literature class because I didn't like the teacher. I'd also get in arguments with administrators over rules that I thought were stupid and I eventually started skipping a ton of school because it stressed me out so much. High school was a bit of a disaster.

My teachers liked me. They were well aware of my diagnosis.

Most of the other pupils were either unaware of my diagnosis or knew and thought it'd be fun to pick on the "different" kid.

school was hell from year 3 onwards or when proper education starts

[preschool] year 0: from what i can remember was obviously relaxed and everyone treated each other the same pretty much and nearly everyday was playtime and learning up to 5x tables and even remember being taught chinese by a supply teacher.

[primary] year 1-2: i might have had shutdowns (not meltdowns) and this led to being excused from the class most days usually to the lower year group class

[primary] year 3-6: didn't get along with people, decline in friends was noticeable, traits were considered a turn-off for most people and was bullied 3 out of 5 days and tried to stay indoors during lunch hours, feared going home as well as the state of things weren't too good either, parents separated and very uncertain future ahead

[secondary] year 7-9: there seemed to be a conspiracy against me, i was really intelligent but teachers wouldn't take me seriously even though I had a teaching assistant in nearly every class, never able to focus on homework (moved house but still couldn't focus, had a difficult childhood with parent etc) so every teacher was furious every Friday it had to be handed in.

[secondary] year 10-13: teachers made me do all subjects at the lowest paper only to be able to achieve the bare minimum required for college, some subjects like english required copious amounts of social interaction I kept failing the subject I had to do a retake year which wasted a year I could have done working or gone to college earlier.

[college+university] college: was able to cope without a helper but still received minor bullying but I took it as friendly banter and moved on, which I was able to achieve what I wanted in the end.
university: I was immediately thrown into the deep end and the only way to cope was to play games and stay isolated in my dorm room with limited support in place and ended up wasting 2 years

and that was just 3 years ago and now stuck in a loop of unemployment with no way out