How did you do in school?

Yes.  I remember, in the 90s, shortly after getting a 'big job', sitting on a wall near the Presidio Fort in San Fransisco, in the sunshine, and recalling my teenage years when I thought I couldn't do maths ... it turned out, later, that I could do maths - once I'd got rid of the maths teacher who couldn't teach it. 

His response to the fact that I struggled with homework one day, because I hadn't understood what he wanted us to do, was to throw a blackboard "rubber" at me and say I hadn't half the brains I was born with, and then cane me on a Saturday morning (yep, we had Saturday morning school, and caning pupils was one of the legitimate teaching tools at the time).  That was in the early 70s.  

He stayed in the same dismal job, incompetently "teaching" successive generations of miserable kids, until progress consigned his ilk to history (adults were no longer allowed to perpetrate acts of instutionalised violence on young children; teachers were required to actually know how to teach, and study the subject formally before being allowed to take classes; Saturday morning school was abolished; tech began to creep into classrooms; that kind of thing).   

As I sat on that wall, about 20 years after getting away from that awful place, I had a piercing moment of mental clarity and sent him a telepathic message more than 5,000 miles.  It said "I survived you, you b+%*#@d."  I doubt that he received it.  He's long dead, but I once met someone I'd been at school with who had family connections with him, and I was very satisfied to be told by this guy that "he was always astonished at what you achieved in career terms".   I didn't know he'd even kept abreast of my life; I certainly did everything I could to erase him from my memory, though found it impossible in practice.  

I had quite low mood throughout a lot of secondary school but I found the work mostly easy so I got top grades anyway. I was very secretive, and good at masking, so none of my friends or teachers knew I hated my life.

we should have a twitter hashtag where autistic people post their worst school report next to their highest qualification.

I had an awful time at school, but eventually I got a decent degree.

Well since we seem to be sharing school reports here's the middle of the one my school did just before they kicked me out. Was only there for about a year. Soon as they got the dyslexia report they asked for they kicked me out on the basis they couldn't provide the support advised. I imagine if I'd had an autism diagnosis at the same time it would have been much the same story.

Robert this breaks my heart

All these reply’s that I have read ring so many bells my son was a bright happy bubbly little boy before he started school and then bang the bubbly little boy disappeared every summer I would put him back together but he hated school and it all began before he was statemented because his teacher who I trusted bullied him.whilst the rest of the school was out playing he was in a class room being forced to drink from his water bottle

at senior school he made 1 friend but life at this school was just the same as the first, he hated it and loathed going in because the school valued independence they left him alone to study his GCSE resit maths he resat it 3 times and failed each time once by only one mark so at a time when he needed more support he got even less he would to have done a level history like his friend but that was not allowed because of his failure in spite of the fact the teacher knew it was his best subject 

so he came away with GCSE English, and a BTECH in science just like you all he excels at something and would like to become a narrative designer but his fear of education makes him believe it is not worth the efforts he would have to sacrifice put simply he hates his school life 

good years at school. Jumped 2 years in maths and 1 year in all else. Went to med school., but didn't socialise, few friends, always the odd one out

love it! i'm sure you are :)

From a social point, terribly. I was the loner of the class and didn't mix with the others. Everything else though was good. I aced and excelled in my classes because I'm just, well, brilliant  

I was exactly the same. I really struggled to so called fit in with everyone. I could hardly talk, sometimes out of choice for embarrassment. My parents put me up for speech therapy but nothing ever came of it, I was pushed down the waiting list. I hardly passed any of my courses, but it has never stopped me

Hated every minute of school, was always tired and anxious and only spoke 3 to 5 words a day, I always ended up in the bottom set for every subject so no gcse. I had speech therapy when I was little but I was told they was teaching me baby words, I had a lot of trouble concentrating couldn’t focus. 

Arrogant though it might sound (it's my trumpet and I'll blow it if I want to!) I excelled academically - I inevitably got the top average grades in the end-of-year exams, at an academically selective school, straight A*s at GCSE, and my definition of miserably failing my A-Levels (because I got glandular fever which turned into some kind of post-viral fatigue and I missed months of school) is getting ABB rather than AAA and thus not getting into Oxbridge.

I was crap at anything that required hand-eye co-ordination, mind you (why must autism so often come with free dyspraxia?), and good luck getting me to do anything that I considered "too easy." I also hated PE so much that I once put all my PE kit on the school bonfire... my mum was not best pleased!

Now, don't get me wrong, I like being revoltingly clever, but I tend to think that, if I wasn't, all the "quirks" - the stubborn behaviour, being a loner, the occasional meltdown, being "rude/blunt/tactless" - might have got picked up on, and I might have had an autism diagnosis rather sooner, which might have made a lot of things in my earlier adult/professional life rather easier. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but as a teacher, my autistic students are so obvious to me now that I wonder how I was missed.

I have no idea what sogi is?

I believe that not only should all school teachers have received autism spectrum disorder training, but that there should further be an inclusion in standard high school curriculum of a child development course which in part would also teach students about the often-debilitating condition.

It would explain to students how, among other aspects of the condition, people with ASD (including those with higher functioning autism) are often deemed willfully ‘difficult’ and socially incongruent, when in fact such behavior is really not a choice. And how "camouflaging" (or "masking"?), a term used to describe ASD people pretending to naturally fit in, causes their already high anxiety and depression levels to further increase.

While some other school curriculum is controversial (e.g. SOGI, especially in rural residential settings), it nonetheless got/gets implemented. The same attitude and policy should be applied to teaching high school students about ASD, the developing mind and, especially, how to enable a child’s mind to develop properly.

It seems logical to me that if people have their ASD, ACEs, etcetera, diagnosed when very young, they should be better able to deal with their condition(s) through life. I have a condition I consider to be a perfect storm of 'train wrecks' — with which I greatly struggle(d) while unaware (until I was a half-century old) its component dysfunctions had official titles.

I still cannot afford to have a formal diagnosis made on my condition, due to having to pay for a specialized shrink, in our (Canada's) “universal” health-care system. Within our “universal” health-care system, there are important health treatments that are unaffordable thus universally inaccessible, except for those with generous health-insurance coverage and/or a lot of extra doe.

I was fine in Junior school but hated secondary school. I had severe asthma when I was young so my autism just got missed. I was intelligent, got put up a year and learned how to unconciously mask I guess. I always struggled with maths and spelling, but I was good enough at the other subjects so that I was very average overall. I went to a very poor council estate school and unless you were a right pain nobody was really interested in you. I too have blotted large parts of that from my memory as I hated it so much.I excelled after leaving school, I always liked grown ups more than kids as there was no bullying, tantrums, spitefulness etc.

School was horrible for me for many reasons. Was always told I was 'bright' but was horrifically bullied in primary and middle school. Also in middle school and Upper school I tried to over compensate and mask via being the class clown and getting into trouble. Never had any friends or a friendship group and left school with no qualifications. But went back to college after having children and now have gcses, a levels, diplomas and university level qualifications . 

That sounds horrific.  I actually had a nun as a teacher in primary school.  Corporal punishment wasnt around in my days thank god...i would have hit back 100%.  She used to tell me i wasnt as clever as my 2 older brothers, i actually wasnt lol but i remember just sitting there digging my nails into my hands feeling like an idiot.  

Academically, very, very well. I got 10A*s at GCSE and 4A*s at A-level. 

Everything else, really quite badly. 

Primary school was one of those things where you don't realise quite how bad it is until after it is over. I had no friends for most of my time there, the friends I did make left the school to go to one with more support. I was bullied horribly for 4 years. I don't think my teachers really knew what to do with me. I could do the work, but I couldn't do the people. A lot of my school reports refer to my need to 'try harder to socialise' and 'make more friends'. The teachers main way of encouraging this was confiscating books at things like break time if they felt I should be socialising which went predictably awful. I wasn't incredibly disruptive or naughty but I would often misunderstand instructions, transitions between activities, and couldn't at all and still struggle with knowing what information was 'not to be repeated' when teachers and adults discussed stuff in front of me. Which they kept doing. While yelling at me for having told someone or parroted what they said. I spent a lot of time very confused in primary school. 

Secondary school was also kind of poor but for the first time I met people more like me and had a safe space to hide in during breaks and lunches. Also these teachers cared far less about what I was doing as long as I got good grades. By year 10 I was using earphones or headphones near constantly without being challenged by anyone other than SLTs that never interacted with me and by year 11 every teacher assumed I had been given permission. I struggled to do homework outside of school but I had enough spare time in lessons after finishing the work that I got most of it done in school and those that I didn't have time to I was academically capable enough that my teachers didn't have evidence it was affecting my work. I didn't do any English homework for the whole of GCSE despite some being set twice a week. I didn't do any maths homework out of class for year 8 to year 11. My teachers didn't realise or didn't care. During GCSE my teachers had learnt that I also liked to have a physical copy of the work so would let me use a textbook or a copy of the powerpoint on my ipad (very tech based school, everyone had to have Ipads) to follow the lesson. 

Sixth form was better as I was only doing subjects that interested me but still failed with the people thing. I would literally sit with clear spaces in every direction and would go weeks without talking to anyone in my class other than my teachers when addressed. I had a few friends in the extra curricular club I would spend my frees and breaks in, but they were all different years. My self teaching also ramped up further. For chemistry, physics and maths I was almost entirely getting to the content before the teacher so had to pay less attention. Further maths was harder but there were also only 4 of us in the class so it wasn't noisy in the same way so headphones were less necessary. 

So yeah. Academically great, I came away with great grades. I also came away with a ton of maladaptive coping mechanisms that I'm still seeking treatment for now, and a complete exhaustion at the end of every day which left me unable to do much else until I'd decompressed for a few hours. Leaving school was amazing but work isn't much better in terms of the exhaustion. 

I hated every day of school, I can remember pre and infant school, the other children would go outside to play, I just didn’t know what to do, I found the idea of playing puzzling.

Fo  my whole school life I would never see another child in school holidays, even the six week summer breaks I would just mainly watch TV or stack used bricks in the yard as I loved the symmetry and pattern of the bricks.

The last school was single sex and a very violent place. You just learnt to stay under the radar and not make a fuss. All my school reports and parents evenings had the same message, ‘Roy doesn’t join in, Roy is always quiet’ If the school had of acted on my behaviour, the answer would have been more team sport to cure me.

It didn’t pay to be anyway different from the crowd otherwise the bullies would hunt you down. I remember the last day of school, we were kept until mid morning, the year head told us we could go now and if anyone tried to re enter the school property, the police would be called and we would be arrested. Such fond memories!