Did any people here have a hard time with a teacher?

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gertie1999
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31 Oct 2013, 4:26 pm

I'm in High School and I was diagnosed with Aspergers at age 11. And I was wondering if any other people with Autism in general had a hard/have time getting along with a certain teacher?

It seems that each school year I have at least one teacher I dislike and have a hard time getting along with. I was wondering if this could be a part of my Aspergers or is it just me and my personality?



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31 Oct 2013, 4:44 pm

Yes, and it gets only marginally better in college. While not all teachers are stupid, it is objectively the case that education is a relatively easy major, and tends not to attract the best and brightest. In my not-so-humble opinion, teachers are the best excuse around for being an auto-didact. Having said this, school is part of the game. So, buckle down, and do what it takes to keep your teachers happy.



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31 Oct 2013, 5:03 pm

yes. i try to stay away from any kind of authority figure.


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31 Oct 2013, 5:55 pm

I had trouble with a teacher when I was in grade 2 she used to yell so I was scared of her, another teacher wasn't very understanding that I was slow at learning.



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31 Oct 2013, 6:31 pm

I had an art teacher (I was only one in the class somehow, which only amplified the issue) who expected me to spit out tons of ideas for unique projects to do every day without hesitation and I felt an incredible amount of pressure since I never said much and he seemed agitate often. Had there been two others in there the experience might have been totally different.


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31 Oct 2013, 6:32 pm

I've had several teachers that just hated me, and the feeling was often mutual. It happens to NT's also, but some teachers just can't understand that some of the things Aspies do are expressions of symptoms and not attempts at pissing people off. I've had far too many teachers who intentionally embarrassed me in front of the entire class, gave me lower grades than I deserved, and wrote inappropriate comments on my work. One high school teacher, who I would describe as a bitter old hag, starting giggling like a school girl when she got to accuse me of leaving campus in front of the whole class and filled out a detention slip while everyone watched. She even threatened to schedule my detention during my graduation ceremony. As much as I love education and understand the importance of teachers, for every good K-12 teacher I had there were 9 terrible ones who were either extremely bitter, were trying to relive their school days so they could be popular this time around, were in it for the power trip, or just weren't that bright and weren't particularly good at anything.

I once heard Adam Corolla answer a question like this on Love Line in a beautifully candid way: "Honestly, most teachers are just losers." He got a lot of laughs obviously, but he had a strong argument to support his claim. I think that the higher you go in education, and the more reputable the school, the less of this you encounter, but it's often true.



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31 Oct 2013, 6:43 pm

During elementary school the Math and Speech teacher didn't like me.
In 7th grade the Spanish teacher didn't like me and used to give me low grades because according to her my voice was too monotonic and I don't know why but for some weird reasons to get high grades in Spanish you must have an expressive voice.
In 8th grade I didn't get along with the Math and Literature teachers at the beginning, but then they showeed themselves to be good teachers and I started getting along with them.
In 9th and 10th grades the two different history teachers didn't seem to like me.
Now I am in 11th grade and me and the literature teacher hate each other. A lot.
She called me "child" and she said I am unexpressive, every f*cking time I have class with her she asks me some weird questions and she never likes the way I answer them. At the oral test simulation I was the first in all the class she asked questions to. And my classmates agree on the fact that she gave me a grade lower than what I, and them, expected me to get. Every time she sees me in the halls or school yard she starts staring at me. She thinks I am stupid. But I am not.
Once I asked her if she could bring the corrected classworks since I hadn't seen them yet, she said "you know, I don't use to go around the school with your classwork" and made me go back to my desk. Yesterday a classmate of mine asked her if she could see her classwork and she said she would have brought it to her.



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31 Oct 2013, 6:49 pm

One more thing: Last summer I had a conversation with a man around 50 who I ran into while I was camping, and he told me he was a high school teacher. He then went on about how horrible high school students are and what conditions must be met to legally kick their butts (like in an actual fist fight). He reveled in memories about heated arguments with students that almost led to him being able to legally fight them. What scared me the most was that before he started talking about all this, he reminded me of all the high school teachers I had who were jerks. I honestly think the guy just hated his life, couldn't get a job he liked because he didn't have any other marketable skill sets, and took it out on students. Granted my K-12 education took place in public schools that were not highly esteemed and had lots of gang activity, but still, it's sad that the US public education system doesn't have the funding to be more selective over who they hire.



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31 Oct 2013, 6:52 pm

I am a teacher, by main profession. How ironic that I tend to dislike authority figures myself.

A lot of the criticisms of certain teachers are true, but on the other hand, it's very easy criticising until you've tried it.

Teachers are human, and have faults, just like all us posters here. No excuses.

I don't know what experiences thelibrarian is on about, but in the UK, a pgce or a B.ed is far from easy. One in three teachers leave the job with mental health issues - try it and you'll understand why.

It's inevitable that people will like some teachers more than others. If I have a team of ten in any job, one is going to be the best, and one the worst, no matter what. That's the way it is. But it's funny - people tend to remember the really bad ones, and it's like this colours their view of all teachers.

Oh, and here's the flip side. Some students aren't that easy to get along with, and they expect the earth, and give little in return but grief - and their parents support them in their stupidity. In many countries, people are delighted to get an education, and don't moan about it, and don't think they're entitled to it by birth. Of course, the school environment isn't for everyone.

Tell me why, in many classes, one or two children are allowed to disrupt life for everyone else, and lower the quality of learning. This despite often the lion's share of support, resources and attention. Tell me why often secondary teachers are assaulted and bullied - do they all deserve this?

Just putting the flip side. As I say - you try it :D



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31 Oct 2013, 7:25 pm

octobertiger wrote:
I am a teacher, by main profession. How ironic that I tend to dislike authority figures myself.

A lot of the criticisms of certain teachers are true, but on the other hand, it's very easy criticising until you've tried it.

Teachers are human, and have faults, just like all us posters here. No excuses.

I don't know what experiences thelibrarian is on about, but in the UK, a pgce or a B.ed is far from easy. One in three teachers leave the job with mental health issues - try it and you'll understand why.

It's inevitable that people will like some teachers more than others. If I have a team of ten in any job, one is going to be the best, and one the worst, no matter what. That's the way it is. But it's funny - people tend to remember the really bad ones, and it's like this colours their view of all teachers.

Oh, and here's the flip side. Some students aren't that easy to get along with, and they expect the earth, and give little in return but grief - and their parents support them in their stupidity. In many countries, people are delighted to get an education, and don't moan about it, and don't think they're entitled to it by birth. Of course, the school environment isn't for everyone.

Tell me why, in many classes, one or two children are allowed to disrupt life for everyone else, and lower the quality of learning. This despite often the lion's share of support, resources and attention. Tell me why often secondary teachers are assaulted and bullied - do they all deserve this?

Just putting the flip side. As I say - you try it :D


Tiger, the problems you discuss are very real, and apart from the issues I discuss. There is a fairly recent book on just this subject I can highly recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Students-Not- ... ad+schools

My problem with teachers is that I have found many of them have a poor mastery of the subject matter they are charged with instructing others in. But, again, that doesn't apply to all teachers. Some of them are very good. But there are some real stinkers too.



gertie1999
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31 Oct 2013, 7:31 pm

octobertiger wrote:
I am a teacher, by main profession. How ironic that I tend to dislike authority figures myself.

A lot of the criticisms of certain teachers are true, but on the other hand, it's very easy criticising until you've tried it.

Teachers are human, and have faults, just like all us posters here. No excuses.

I don't know what experiences thelibrarian is on about, but in the UK, a pgce or a B.ed is far from easy. One in three teachers leave the job with mental health issues - try it and you'll understand why.

It's inevitable that people will like some teachers more than others. If I have a team of ten in any job, one is going to be the best, and one the worst, no matter what. That's the way it is. But it's funny - people tend to remember the really bad ones, and it's like this colours their view of all teachers.

Oh, and here's the flip side. Some students aren't that easy to get along with, and they expect the earth, and give little in return but grief - and their parents support them in their stupidity. In many countries, people are delighted to get an education, and don't moan about it, and don't think they're entitled to it by birth. Of course, the school environment isn't for everyone.

Tell me why, in many classes, one or two children are allowed to disrupt life for everyone else, and lower the quality of learning. This despite often the lion's share of support, resources and attention. Tell me why often secondary teachers are assaulted and bullied - do they all deserve this?

Just putting the flip side. As I say - you try it :D


I agree with the above post. I've had some excellent teachers that taught me well. But some, well are just hard to get along with and understand. Some I learned to like some I didn't. It all depends for me.



JitakuKeibiinB
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31 Oct 2013, 8:23 pm

In 6th grade my teacher was always screaming at me at the top of his lungs, providing absurd, exaggerated stories about how I was going to ruin my life and end up in prison because I did some minor stupid thing with my friends. In 7th grade I had a teacher who made me sit in the dark in the other room by myself for most of the course because I laughed at her a few times. The administration and janitors in my junior high generally didn't like me. They posted my mugshot on the wall at one point.



IntellectualCat
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31 Oct 2013, 8:34 pm

That's pretty much why I go to a private school now.

My teachers in public school often went too fast and gave me homework assignments that pretty much involved copying things out of the textbook. Shouldn't putting the text from the textbook into my own words work better?



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31 Oct 2013, 8:55 pm

I was caught up in, what is thankfully the end of now teachers, hitting students. We were kicked around from year to year. My first mixed school there were only about 3 or 4 teachers who hit students. So if you got one you had them for the whole year. When I was 6 my teacher used to make me stand outside the class when I started developing vocal ticks. This was late 70's early 80's so something like tourettes wasn't really common. Our last teacher in that school was a real piece of work, he even hit a girl once who he was bullying.

My next school was all boys and there was a whole lot of teachers who still hit. And as we were rotating subjects you would have many different teachers in a day. I was on the receiving end of a many a campaign but no more than any of the others in the class. All sorts of sly punches, sucker punches, edges of rulers to the head. Seen a guy literally getting swung round by his hair in a full blown fight, fighting a teacher back. A nasty air of intimidation about the place. Some great teachers and great times too though.

Nowadays it seems it's the students intimidating the teachers.

Edit: That is to say my experiences are from growing up in Ireland



Last edited by Cartoon on 31 Oct 2013, 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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31 Oct 2013, 9:46 pm

Everything I say has to do with my (limited) personal experience with the US education system only, and not even with the best schools in it either. I have read that the US is far behind most other developed countries in this department, so I won't say any of this applies elsewhere.

I won't deny that some teachers I had were absolutely wonderful, and I won't ever forget them. I also won't pretend like teaching is easy--it takes a certain kind of person, and in the US at least, I believe that training should be better and the pay should be higher. Too many people go into teaching because it pays higher than anything else they are qualified to do, but doesn't pay enough to attract many of the people who would be wonderful teachers.

I think that what upset me the most was many teachers picked on me not because I ever did anything wrong, but because I either couldn't do things the same way as other students, or because I was already unpopular. Several teachers refused to accommodate any of my unique learning styles, even if it meant writing homework assignments on the board instead of just telling the class verbally. I had teachers who also got caught up in the cliquey nature of many of the students, and acted very inappropriately towards students in certain cliques.

While teaching is hard, so is being an Aspie, and I think that makes me a little less sympathetic towards people who are jerks because of the many negative interactions they have with others. Maybe I'm just not empathizing well because of my condition, but honestly, I feel like being picked on and bullied makes me even more empathetic. I've put up with jerks and bullies my whole life, but I never turned into one. Few people are more important to society than civil servants, and the "us vs. them" mentality that develops in many of them is counter to the nature of the job.

In college, this changed quite a bit. The salaries are much higher, the jobs are much more competitive, and the professors are there because they want to be, with the exception of a few who are just there for research opportunities.



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31 Oct 2013, 9:56 pm

Yes, I have had problems with teachers. I have also adored teachers.

I have been abused by teachers and seen teachers who saw the job as a means to get their hands on a captive, powerless set of victims.

I have known teachers who subjected us to verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

I have the deepest respect for the good ones.

I have the deepest contempt, even hatred for the bad ones. Annihilation is too good for them. They should suffer before they are put down.

Some of the things this thread brings to mind happened more than forty years ago, but they still seem as fresh as the burn in a newly skinned knee cap.