*!"What Kind of Schooling Did You Get?"!*

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I was thinking about the role that discrimination against children on the basis of age might play in the creation of the phenomenon of increasing numbers of diagnosis of Aspergers/HFAS, and i suddenly realised that the official criteria for diagnosing these was actually an almost perfect description of how teachers behave in classrooms.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp1098992.html#1098992

Is it possible that Aspergers/HFASDs are actually the result of introvert/highly sensitive childrens perfectly natural and instinctive copying of the most important adults in their lives after their parents?

That the most sensitive learn the following "social skills" at school ;

"Inability" to know when to shut up or when listeners are bored
Intolerance of interruptions
Having to start all over again after being interrupted
To pay no attention to others contributions to "conversation"unless " on topic" ( disinterest in/dismissal of anything not on the "syllabus")
Data dumping
"Obsessive" interests
Always talking about the same subjects
Impaired use of body language to regulate communication ( who else usually needs people to stick their hands up before listening to them?!)
Staring into space/over peoples heads while talking to them ( little or no eye contact)
Frequent repetition, of phrases, last words, key words
Interrupting people
Correcting peoples mistakes
Placing great importance on precise if often time-consuming and even pointless rituals and routines.
..........................................etc etc etc

NB: The reason that teachers are allowed to get away with behaving like this is that adults have power over children. And behaving in this insensitive way with "inferiors" (who can not walk out on you or protest without being labelled ADHD!) for years on end is considered acceptable, even normal.

Does school produce Aspergers/HFAS in introvert/highly sensitive children? What do you think?

I think it fits. What has changed is imprinting. Children no longer seek their level of input, nor are they in one room schools that have a divirsity of age and education to model from.

I have dealt with teachers outside the classroom, they talk to everyone like third graders, and think we should put up our hands before they reconise us. They have no idea how to behave in a business meeting. They are programed to where they spend most of their time.

Putting children with other children, same age, often same sex, narrows what they could imprint on, and teachers are just the big kid who runs things.

I find I am rather subject to imprinting. It came out when I was working horses. It was not long before I took on the body language, and started speaking horse. The horses thought I was smart, for a human.

A class of first graders, and half chickens, would produce chicken behavior. Children who grow up with several dogs are different. Dogs will accept children into the pack.

Autism could be called imprinting on self. We do act like teachers.

The Post War Educational System, consolidating many small schools into one, and the war babies, being herded through in large groups, does fit with the rise of Autism, and other behaviors, that intelligent observers did not mention in earlier times.

All we have to go on is a lack of information from earlier periods. Humans did not get suddenly smarter and more observent, any reading of technical works of a hundred years ago will show great observers, and writers who could convey. If anything there has been a decline.

For all our modern improvments, great books were written with pen and ink. The typewriter did not bring a flood of quality writing, nor has the word processor.

The stand alone originals, Poe, Jane Austin, Mary Shelley, The Bronte Sisters, were not a product of schools, but of imprinting on the full range of life in their times.

It has been shown with other animals that imprinting happens only during a limited period.

How much of our vital nature is being destroyed by progress?

Does an enforced childhood produce people incapable of growing up, as needed steps were missed?

Teaching was rarely a life long job, it was a step. Now it is being shut away from life to teach, to isolated little people.

In the good old days, children were run wild, then hunted down, scrubbed, dressed, shod, and sent to a mixed group in a little school. They were not removed from life, they knew the big kids who a year later were parents, working in the village, and it was all one big flow.

The current system rose with the need for factory hands, and cannon fodder.

Uniformity is not a natural human trait.

We no longer have a thousand people working in a factory, or millions marching into machine guns, but the old system continues, producing what?

Children imprinting on children grow up to be children.

Just changed thread title and added a poll because i suddenly wondered whether there might be any interesting educational patterns amongst the WP members. Please poll, thanks!
I went to ordinary school for the ordinary length of time.

But am still very interested in responses to my first post!

Standard school, 6-18, dropped out, actually, pushed out.

Standard school....had alot of difficulties...they sorta shuttled me through...even though my grades were bad and i missed too many days. I hated school. School hated me....I wanted so badly to go to a special school...I constantly daydreamed about it.

Can't respond in a poll that makes it either/or like that.

I mostly went to public school. Also went to private Christian ACE schools for a few years.

My path of education was pretty standard - 8 years of elementary school and 4 years of high school. I regret I was forced to attend public schools instead of homeschooling - in my country there's literally only a handful of homeschooled kids who don't suffer from any physical nor mental disabilities, anyway my mother (single mother who had to work and couldn't afford to resign from work to sit at home with me) wouldn't have time nor intellectual capabilities making her a good teacher of mine. I learn things on my own and always did so.

Standard public school my whole life.

I am still trying to write about my school days.
I was at normal primary school until age 11 and then to a special boarding school but I cannot tick the box

i'm not really sure how to respond in the poll.. my education has been as such:
age 7-8: started 1st grade at a little private k-8th grade school. (there were 2 classrooms, and 2 teachers. never more than 30 students total in the school)
age 8-9: started 3rd grade, after completing both first and second grade the previous school year. (fast learner)
age 9 - 13: 4th-7th grade. my 7th grade year, i fell into a deep depression and stopped doing my homework... i don't remember much about that time, but i remember my teacher telling me i never smiled anymore. she couldn't bare to give me really bad grades, though, and i ended up with C's. (which is the lowest grade i've ever recieved.)
age 13-14: moved to a different state and i restarted 7th grade at a different little private 1st-8th grade school. (one classroom, one teacher, never more than 25 students total.)
age 14-15: graduated 8th grade (there were 3 of us that graduated that year.)
age 15-16: moved here to Tennessee. i didn't go to school that year.
age 16-17: started the 9th grade at a public high school with more than 2,000 students. best thing that ever happened to me.
age 17-20: attended that high school all 4 years, and graduated with a 4.0 GPA, ranked #7 out of 368.
age 20-present: started college at a university with over 2,500 students. i'm majoring in Animation. (i have most of my classes with all the same people (fellow animation majors), a group of about 30 or so, that i've become good friends with.) i'm a sophmore right now, and will probably graduate in 2010 or 2011.

One to one ed. in special [all age] school,quit at fifteen,neither aspie nor HF though.
Later did several ASDAN courses at a community/FE college-courses for people with moderate to severe autism and/or LD,completed one of them.

I had the standard, public education from 4-17. I was sent to kindergarten early with the intention of going twice. But the teachers told my folks to keep me with that class. REcently my parents said it was a mistake because I was socially behind my peers (but nothing's wrong with me). I had the added problem of developing early so I was "adult sized" at 11.

As far as the description of teachers goes, I think that is a gross generalization and misrepresentation of teachers. Some are like that, in my experience, not most. I had some excellent teachers.

I certainly don't think that autistic traits are the result of imprinting on egoistic and rude people. I think they are "missed milestones" that may be visible as early as infancy and as late as teen years. I didn't stick out until I was about 7, around the age that children make their choices about friends, after school activities and there some level of independence from parents.
My son was obviously different at birth but no one freaked out until he missed milestones at 18 months and then at 2 1/2 years.
My husband was completely overlooked because he was neglected at home.

k-6th was special ed school operated by county, then took 6th grade again due to transferring to local municipality operated school system(my grandmother didnt want to see me being held behind with a bunch of people who didnt teach or was meant fr people who have severe problems in learning) the 6 to 12 education was middle school and high school (skipped 7th grade because gpa was too high and i did 6th the first time the previous year in county school) it was a public school system with mainstream classes and i was put in special ed in both middle and high schools,

i feel i was misplaced and not givin chance to show my academical abilities, when i felt i was ready i would help my friends who were in regular education with their vocabulary and other subjects, i would try to throw a hint to special ed chairperson and was told that the curriculum or content was too hard, i really wanted to try something other then sit and watch the teachers socialising in back of classroom with thieir classroom aide or just teaching stuff thats not up to the grade level that should be taught. bad enough embarrassing having some of your classes in the hallway desingated as special resources. with that one i had to kinda lie and say ohh just getting some tools to work on a door(custodian's office and also woodshop were down that same hall) or if i was seen near custodian office just i claim that the custodian is a relative.

i mean big deal, i like and fix door parts, that dont mean that its taking over my thinking and slowing down or halting the learning process or not letting me able to learn normally other then my handwriting SUCKS!

there are workarounds, more extensive testing in areas, and i could have made off (and learned more) with a 504 plan to allow computer or adaptive device for writing or note taking

Mine was something like (these are American grade systems):

Age 4: Catholic preschool
Age 5: Public school grade K
Age 6: Public school grade 1
Age 7: Public school grade 3
Age 8: Public school grade 4
Age 9: Private school grade 4
Age 10 Private school grade 5
Age 11: Private school grade 6
Age 12: Private school grade 7, individualized program towards the end
Age 13: Private school grade 9 for 3 months, individualized program at home the rest of the year
Age 14: College, freshman year
Age 15: No school and/or institution school, listed as 9th grade on IEP
Age 16: No school and/or institution school, then more formal special ed
Age 17: Special ed
Age 18: Community college
Age 19: Attempt at university (never really made it to class, so don't know if it counts)

Meanwhile, throughout pretty much this entire time I was almost entirely self-educated or I would never have been able to get any education at all (because school doesn't educate me in much).

Nicky's started out similar to mine, so I based mine on hers!

i'm not really sure how to respond in the poll.. my education has been as such:

age 5-8: did kindergarten to 2nd in a private school.
age 8-9: did 3rd grade, in a regular public school, due to a move. The "teacher" was a new one, and not very good, by her OWN estimation. My grades dropped from all As to some Bs. I think this is really when I started getting bullied.
age 9 - 10: did 4th grade in the private school I was at for kg-3rd
age 10-12: did 5th-6th grade. My 6th grade year, I was depressed, and stopped really doing homework again(I didn't do any prior to the third grade, and they passed me because I got 100% on all the tests.). and stopped doing my homework... I ended up with some C's. (which is the lowest grade I received to that point.)
age 12-15: 7th-9th grade, Again in a normal public school.
age 15-16: 10th grade in another public school
16-17: 11th grade in a private military school. It was by my own volition. I was tricked. 8-( Anyway, I made the honor roll due to a wager, and was high up on the list. I really wasn't interested where I was at, but it was close to a 4.0. The last was also pretty small.
age 17-18: graduated 12th grade
age 19: started college majoring in Computers and minoring in business. Frankly, I learned more on my own. Other disciplines included German, Accounting, Sales, and even trying some social studies, etc...

There were about 3 times I was going to go to a better school, or a school for gifted people, but there was always some obstacle.(One was a catholic school, and I wasn't religious, and one was just a LITTLE out of our area, for example. Another was one I think we just found out about too late, and there was a problem with location. Only the catholic school was private, and money was a concern there as well.) At one point I was given the option to skip grades but, with the bullying and series showing kids that did it, I decided against it. 8-(