teachers and ASD

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Many teachers, I am mostly refering to private teachers, have said to me that they can teach a beginner but having me finding out that they could not teach me. Perhaps they lied to me.
It's like the teacher did not even meet me where I was. Sometimes I wonder if it's not much like this: the teacher just gives a beginner an exercices that he/she decided should work miracles. The student should just accept this exercices and treat repeat untill it just works.
This way of teaching has always failed me. Most teachers, in different subjects, I have been to have never really tried to assess what my real big issues are/were. I have better teachers now so I am not talking about all teachers (only mostly teachers).
I should never have trusted these teachers. My conscience tells me that.

I guess people like me, people with ASD issues, find it extremely difficult to just take any exerices whatsoever and just repeat it untill it works. I think we need more steps like starting exteremly simple and then maybe at step three be given that particular exercise. We often need simple exercices it seems. The exercices could be in music, language, acting, maths or whatever.
I feel like I am that child who cannot focus on many things at once. It's like I never grew up and learne to focus on many things at once. Many NTs can be given more difficult exercices than Aspies it seems. I mean, it's like they start on step three at once. When you are given a more difficult exercise you have to focus on more things at once. It has a lot to do with central coherence, I think. Then maybe you don't even have the same goal in mind as the teacher.
What are you experiences?

I get what you are saying.

Some people learn differently to how the majority learn. Unformost teachers are only capable of teaching in one way as well so the minority of those who learn differently fall behind and in some cases fail altogether.

It's the way it has been since time began.

Why do they say that they can teach all kinds of people? But I have even heard that the majority hate how most teachers teach. It's just that they happen to be able to learn more from teachers they don't like.
I am learning to sing and I can honestly say that even just a what they call a simple scale require you to focus on at least 6 things at once. I wish I had been more aware of that before or had been more willing to tell how much to focus it is.

Hello Dandansson,

I am a teacher, been doing this for 16 years now, also a late diagnosed Aspie with similar struggles as you describe with school.

I just thought I'd come in and offer some insight into teaching and teachers. Maybe it could help you? Most teachers I have met are fiercely NT. They teach how they like to learn and get frustrated if anyone can't read their minds, thus their favorite, look at the page, what do you see? Questions, and somehow students need to magically read their minds for the answer...sigh. You are right, it doesn't work for students and students don't like it. And honestly, it is crap teaching.

The worksheet thing you describe- again, lazy teaching.

You are going to keep finding over and over again that teachers simply don't get people like us. They may try, but they just can't. There's a youtuber Abe Abelson who discusses this topic, maybe check him out. He does a great job describing this stuff.

As for your learning- if you like something, you are going to have to learn it in your way. Some teachers can help a bit, but from my experience, they can only help so much because our brains are very different and school isn't set up for people like us. From my experience, we have to become self-guided learners.
I am sorry it isn't different, and this certainly isn't fair, but this is our reality. It is the biggest reason I became a teacher. Maybe one day there will be more of us on the inside.

I've had many crap teachers myself. Most were more into discipline than actually teaching. Though there were some that were good.

I spent hours and hours reading the encyclopedia and other books. I didn't learn much from school until I got to high school. I used to call out the answers in class when I was in elementary and junior high school---and that got me kicked out of class. I would call myself a "semi auto-didact".

Not "since time began." Since mass education began.

Problem is, when a teacher is teaching a class with 30 or more students at once, it's just not physically possible to cater to each individual student.

In my opinion the educational system needs a radical overhaul, which is only now possible in the computer age. Hopefully there will soon be a sufficiently wide variety of online tutorial material that will be far better than standard classroom teaching and varied enough to accommodate as many students as possible. Different students would get different tutorial material, tailored to their abilities and interests.

Hopefully, traditional classrooms will soon be deemed obsolete.

Human teachers will still be needed, but with a radically different role. Instead of lecturing a class, they would become more like tutors, supplementing the online educational material to help individual students.

We need someone to start a professional association of neurodivergent special ed teachers.

Only thus can the educational establishment be effectively pressured to recognize the insights of ND teachers and thus better understand the needs of ND kids .

^^ Like

I remember the teachers asking me a question and when my answer was missing or insufficient they'd say "think about it". I'd already thought about it. There was no new input, so why would my answer change? I was a blank.

Along the lines of what you mention, people note that I start with details (first steps) and then slowly build to the big picture ("step 3") --- when I do get further along, I have achieved a degree of excellence. This applies to physical tasks also, like dance routines. As you mentioned many NTs jump ahead or jump to conclusions, which are too often faulty or thinly justified or unsustainable or sloppy.

Today I am a guest teacher and my style is VERY, VERY different than most NT teachers. There are a couple ND teachers I click with and they have similar styles: supportive learning environment. Respectfully working with students. You'd think schools would be all for that, but practically they are not supportive and mutual respect is lacking. For example: A student is highly energetic and causing disruption so (+) let's find a productive activity for her rather than (-) taking away recess. Is the latter consequence a teacher's laziness, ignorance or a power play?

"Is the latter consequence a teacher's laziness, ignorance or a power play?"

Any or all of the above, including pressure from outside authorities to maintain at least an illusion of an orderly classroom. (Of course, even some of the ND kids can't learn so well if other kids are expressing their energetic selves, so the teachers may be trying to help them, too.)

Smaller classes would make a large difference, and a lot of teachers know it. They've been advocating for it, demanding it, even begging for it, but in most districts/counties, it's not likely to happen any time soon.