How was school for you?

Sheer 100% utter hell! Have no idea how I made it through it to be honest.

It’s obviously difficult to think back four or five decades to those idyllic, wonderful, carefree schooldays and clearly, accurately, recollect my experiences, and with warm, fond nostalgia.

I’ll have a go: why not.

The contempt and abuse, both verbal and physical, promptly began on arrival at primary school.  The cheaply-dressed, unhygienic and infrequently-washed, grossly-overweight outsider poor kid with impaired social integration skills, and an obvious, easy, autistically-unresponsive ‘path of least resistance’ target.  Fat shaming, punching and kicking, persistently harassed and violated in the playground and while walking to-and-from school. One incident I recall in that regard, no big deal at the time but an indicator nonetheless, was a certain tormentor, a particularly unremitting one for a while, picking up a piece of thin, seaside-style rock off the ground just ahead of me, offering it with a smile and expecting me to eat it, there and then.  I didn’t, throwing it away. The smile stayed with me, understanding better now the pathetic look of control and sadistic contempt there, more so than his more commonplace physical assaults. Having been diagnosed with severe OCD as well autism now, something which worsened much later in my teens, it’s understandable why such a trivial, early marker event might bother me so.  I suppose such amplified stress responses to simple, neurotypically-minor experiences and memories are common in autism, though.

A frequent, repetitive memory of this time is sitting down cross-legged on the floor in the school hall, which looking back on I’m absolutely amazed I could do, bearing in mind the vividness of the minor seaside rock incident above.  If I did that now, with my very intense anxiety reactions to OCD triggers, I’d feel so violated and endangered by contact with the ‘dirty’ surface  that I’d end up showering several times, believing for hours that it would infect and injure or kill me.

One recurrent observation throughout the academic experience was how frequently the perpetrators would be a bit tubby or otherwise in someway lacking ideality themselves; the classic, hypocritical strategy of deflecting attention away onto someone with similar issues, but who’s more socially marginalised and vulnerable. Or, alternatively, I was mocked and attacked for social perceptions that don’t fit in with the neurotypical norm or which sound naive by their standards.  The threatening, overhanging cloud of “how, when and where?” is vast and confusing for the young, neurodivergent victim.

The teachers weren’t particularly great with positive reinforcement talk, either.  From when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old I recall their doom-laden comments, such as, if I were to continue being so overweight I’d likely die at a very early age; real masters of subtlety, a damaging opinion amped up by the looks of shock from my school ‘mates’.  Should’ve been quite aware of the psychological damage a public calling-out like this would have on a young mind.

About a year or so later, one teacher decided to take it upon herself to get actively involved with the issue and take steps to get my weight down. Being somewhat spaced-out and not particularly contradictory at that age about directives from authority figures, I sheepishly complied.  The assessment procedure involved being made to stand in front of the class every week and weighed on a set of bathroom scales; a bit of an amusing, freakish circus attraction for all there, exacerbated by the judgmental stares and smirks of the class ‘mates’, and no doubt by the unrealised, undiagnosed, amped-up, autistically-symptomatic discomfort of all those staring dagger eyes, and the negatively-reinforcing effect on body image of this bossy, heavy-handed, critical, controlling  and intrusive process.

I went along with this for a while, not understanding how very degrading it was from a social perspective, but, back home I eventually got around to casually mentioning the weight watching to my parents, who were quite incensed by the arrogance and invasiveness of it all, done without their consent, which, after all, was their right-to-decide, one way or another.

My father turned up early the following morning at the start of class, taking the time off work, rushing in, furiously informing her that I was being seen for my weight issues at the hospital and to mind her own ** business,  absolutely ripping her a new one, in the most explicit of terms.

Soon afterwards, tearfully, she asked me why I hadn’t told her; a bossy control freak incapable of taking responsibility for her machinations when they went terribly wrong, now an emotionally-crushed, blubbering ‘victim’, attempting a desperate transfer of guilt onto a young kid.

From then on I was no longer in favour.  Flippant nonsense, of course, given the history of contempt already. My social inability, dissociation, lack of peer integration and participation had been noted by several teachers, and I had no real understanding or recognition of the level of angry impatience and frustration going on with them, but there was, in retrospect, a quite interesting and perhaps autistically-indicative experience,  another conflict with Mrs Weightwatcher in my penultimate year.

We were being tested as class monitors to see who were the most capable of ascending to the status of final year school prefect, and I was assigned a simple task of finding a book for her.  I wandered around the classroom for a while, feeling very tired and dissociated from everything and simply couldn’t find it, and eventually she got extremely annoyed with me.  As a result of this terrible, damning failure and perhaps other equally minor, petty social infractions, it was decided that I wasn’t capable of being a prefect and should, so ironically given the preceding experience, become the school librarian. An example, perhaps, of those of us with unrecognised autism, and ‘inferior’, immiscible, atypical social skills, being shoved away in a back room - a complication out of sight and out of mind.

At one stage I was considered bright enough to be put ahead a year, but then I stopped making sufficient progress and was demoted.  Perhaps this was because of being ground down by all the years of abuse and despising being exposed to a horrible, incessantly-toxic environment, not caring about being there and just phoning it in, although there was another equally important, functional complication which was neglected for a very long time.  I hadn’t realised that I’d developed quite severe myopia, thankfully easily corrected, and it took the teacher forever to notice that I was squinting at the blackboard all the time, which, duh, was an obvious reason for my underperformance.  The fact that I wasn’t even slightly bothered about having blurred vision and not being able to read material at a distance perhaps also indicates how little I cared about schoolwork learning, even at this early stage.

I also suspect that it was during this period that my level of depression started to escalate and perhaps ingrain itself.  I was presenting but not participating in an academic environment, not connecting, not absorbing information or caring in the slightest about the opportunity. That was in addition to a constant background of hyper-anxiety; pre-existent, present as long as I can recall, but now beginning to get seriously compounded.

The headmaster seemed sarcastic, but I never realised the full extent of the contempt he held for me back then.  When I got my UCL degree in my twenties, my father then disclosed that at a parents evening the guy had said that, in his opinion, I’d never achieve or amount to anything, and I’d always fall short at the proverbial last hurdle, but, I’d just evidentially proved him wrong.  I went to an Anglican faith school, and later he retired from teaching to become the vicar. When my father died he was to perform the funeral service, as bad fortune for me would have it, but, and justifiably irked after what was effectively egregious, backstabbing false witness,  I asked for him to be removed and replaced.

Looking back, as well as the neglect of being deprived of an autism / Aspergers diagnosis at an earlier stage when there could’ve been much more constructive, therapeutic intervention, I now also strongly suspect that there was ADHD mixed in as well; inattentiveness, hyperactivity, impulsiveness.  But, it was a different time, and a diagnosis now in my sixth decade would be pretty useless in comparison to the good it might’ve done back then. I’m sure that represents a loss of potential and a very common, wasteful tragedy for my generation.

I took the entrance exam for scholarship to the local, exclusive private secondary school.  Did it in a bit of a daze, but somehow managed to pass and go forward to a viva-style interview in person there.  Despite coming from a very poor background and in the exact demographic that needed the financial support, this turned out instead to be my first experience with the class system barrier. That concept’s something I’ve never really understood, certainly never automatically submitted to ; judging someone’s value on a simple, stratified, genetic luck-of-the draw criterion, a stubborn rejection which eventually led to many conflicts at school and university.   So, I attended the interview with my very proud mother, dressed casually, perhaps shabbily, certainly cheaply and poorly without a hint of designer elitism, and got called in to a room for a focused,  in-depth, comprehensive assessment.  I’m being extremely flippant there, as the teacher took one look at me, let out an exclamation of disgust, asked me to identify an animal from a skeleton (it was a cat) and then flick-gestured me towards the door to leave and cease contaminating his air space.  The rejection letter soon afterwards was disappointing, but should’ve hardly been surprising.

A common symptom of autism is feeling detached from your surroundings and a bit vacant towards what’s going on, and a classic example of this would be my 11 plus.  One day I was sat down at an exam,  just thinking that it was a bit of ordinary course work. By that age, traumatised and depressed and feeling nihilistically that everything was pointless, I just sat there doing absolutely nothing.  Luckily, about halfway through I committed the sin of starting to chatter away and laughed sarcastically that this would be good practice for when we did the 11 plus, to which a very irritated girl thankfully informed me that this actually was it; the big one. So, with about half the time still available to me, I frantically knocked out some stuff as quickly and haphazardly as possible.

Amazingly, despite all this indolence and confusion, I still managed to get allocated a place at the local grammar school, whereas without that mid-exam verbal outburst I might have been tossed into the local special needs establishment instead.

At the time there was little focused educational support available for those of us with autism and degrees of social incapacity, and I’m pleased that the system has changed for the better, providing a level of shielding and empathy which wasn’t around back then.

Perhaps there are a number of trivial observations here, but they’re starting points to build up from in complexity, and dynamics that I experienced over and over, later on.

Terrible for me. I found the environment too loud, smelly and bright. Meltdowns were frequent for me during school time and I was bullied relentlessly, even by a teacher, Mr Sharp, who seemed to have it in for me from day one. 

Worst years of my life. I would never repeat them and always feel sorry for anyone who has to go through it.

Secondary school was brilliant, especially sixth form. I got to study my special interests all day around a small group of friends I'd known for 6-7 years. Lunchtimes I would either study more or go for a walk as we were allowed out by then. I got six As at A level plus an extra AS and the material was never difficult enough for that to be in doubt. Expectations were clear and achievable.

I didn't like primary. Too chaotic. Nursery was downright traumatic.

I remember that smell in the Infant School as the bottle tops were put in the wicker baskets.

I was ok with infant/Junior school (1975-81) , we were not allowed at at lunchtimes and I lived a 20 min walk away. We mostly played football in the playground at lunchtime. Many of the kids lived in my blocks of flats so I was quite comftable as I knew enough of them. Hates school meals though as we had to eat everything and I had, and still have, big food issues.

I totally hated secondary school, too many kids I didn't know, some of my friends from juniors went elsewhere. It was a very lonely, bullied, experience I have blotted out. Could go home for lunch on my own, mum was at work. It was a bit of an oasis and I really had to force myself to go back to school after I didn't one day and my dad came home unexpedicaly!

It was appalling, I remember one lad in my class holding off a teacher with a chair, like a circus lion-tamer. I tell these sort of things to my kids and they think I lived in Victorian times!

The ruler and the lion-taming were at the school I attended from 11 to 14, it was a comprehensive, but a former Secondary Modern. At 14 I moved to another Comp. but it had been a Grammar School, it was much more civilised and there was very little corporal punishment.

My Nan had a private tutor when she was a girl who used to hit her on the hand and leg with a thick wooden ruler.

Sadly back then especially there was a lot of mistreatment with children.

I was lucky that I lived in a small town with my parents for elementary and middle school. The kids were the same in the class, or at least a group of them stayed the same, from third or fourth grade until 9th. The same group were our neighbours and we played after school together. I was interested in the game being played as a group but I was interested in talking with the close few ones only. Kids don't fake, kids just play. I liked and still like games. As for classes, I wasn't the best but I definitely was one of the nerds. I had good grades and my parents pushed for that. I enjoyed writing, math and physics mechanics. I disliked chemistry, electrical stuff and biology.

Highschool tho was a nightmare socially. Girls talked only about boys, boys about girls. Less people were interested in playing and more in gossiping. Everyone was new to me. I used to have such a temper, scream at people the loudest I could. Skipped classes except math! I was in every math lesson. It excited me so much that I was standing up the whole lesson because it helped me stay focused on it. I practiced math for very long hours, I remember not sleeping and doing math for hours instead until my mom forced me to study other subjects as well. Physics continued to be my favourite too. I made 2 close friends in highschool but neither of them could understand me well. They kept saying that I'm weird, impulsive and eccentric.

College, the ultimate nightmare. Not just socially, this time no playing at all! Preparing me to become an adult.. I used to forget exams, mess schedules or just forget my things in places, anything could be forgotten any place anywhere. Didn't like any friend there. Almost failed it actually. I started to experience in the romance department failing dramatically. It's when I started to notice that social skills and better self-expression could get you better grades, well I realized that I'm bad at both and there I'm losing some grades. I realized that I'd rather stay alone the whole year than get myself to say hello to bunch of strangers. I started there to notice my social difficulties in general.

The PhD study. It continued with the social difficulties. I am now expected to present and express myself in a academic society. High expectations while I sometimes struggle to fu**ing say anything at all. Professional relationships, fancy phrases, sophisticated taste, "high-class", people there look at how I dress myself, prestige... Agh totally not me, and I can't and won't turn into someone like that just to fulfill expectations. I still want to play! And I hate professional relationships as they seem superficial. The study thing is ok, I enjoy research but definitely not teaching because it includes a lot of talking and self-expression. I've always wanted to deliver work that is meaningful to me. I never could deliver an assignment just to finish an assignment but I always wanted to make even a tiny small difference. Always extra care to every last detail and feeling satisfied when I look at a well-done work.  

Terrible from start to finish.

I remember being tutored before I was held back and I guess it didn’t work. I was very young so I don’t remember a lot of it. But from what I do remember is that one year I stayed behind while everybody else progressed. They were in the class next door. Everything else being the same except that. It was almost as if like nothing happened. I knew something happened!!

I should add that in the 1st grade I came down with spinal meningitis. I missed some school. It was explained to me that I was just unable to catch up. I never bought it though as I wasn’t held back till 2 grades later and I was tutored after the illness. I remember my mother getting extremely frustrated with me “not getting” things. But in my mind it was “yeah but I’m thinking about THIS” whatever that was at the time. 

Yes.  Teachers got away with anything in those days.

I was pulled out of the class by my hair in the junior school.

Some girls were turned upside down by one teacher so their underwear was on show.

Another teacher forced a boy to stand with books being piled on his hands.

Other children were made to stand in the corner of the classroom all day.

There was the slipper and the cane too.

My husband was terrified of the teachers.

That's what he mainly remembers about school.

In my first year at senior school (age 11-12 yrs), there was a teacher, fairly elderly, whose nickname was 'Bulldog Taylor'. He taught English; while everyone was working, he would have children bring their notebooks to him, one by one, for marking. If you had made a spelling or punctuation mistake, he would rap you over the knuckles with a wooden ruler. Hitting small children, not even for being unruly or disruptive, just for making a mistake. No wonder I hated school!

Tjank you Homebird

The further back you go in time, it seems the worse children were treated.

I worked with a Catholic chap about a decade older than me and he went to a Catholic school where his left hand was repeatedly hit with the side of the ruler by a teacher to force him to use his right hand.

My mum went to a school for delicate children but was shut in a cupboard for hours on end for talking.

Interesting re your family.

I was bullied during school like got pinned to a wall. Also knew too much.

A PE teacher singled me out by making me to take home equipment. Was awkward on the bus. I was denied a learning support assistant. Plus a teacher had to help me throughout lessons. Was glad left this school.

Middle school I was in a class of 36 with one teacher which was rare. Some students stayed for one term.

Thank you for all your replies. I have just thought of a couple of historical things. My grandfather was at school post World War I and told me there were no teachers in his playground so the children had to sort out any problems between them. My father was at school during the second World War and said all the children at Primary went home lunchtime except a few who came in from the farthest side of the town. 

Ben said:

but I think she was in error.

Yes, me too.

There was abject poverty in some of the families of the children I went to infant and junior school with (the poorest area of Portsmouth in the 1960s/70) so at least they got that bit of nutrition for bone growth.

Oh yes Debbie, the smell of gone-off milk used to linger in the classrooms. I didn't like it, and had long since left shool when Thatcher removed it, but I think she was in error.

Ben

I've just remembered another thing.

Warm milk left in the sun, tasting like it was going slightly off.

I used to wait until the teacher wasn't looking and tip it away, if I could.

Conservative Margaret Thatcher withdrew free school milk from children over seven in 1971, earning her the nickname "Thatcher, the Milk Snatcher".

For anyone who doesn't know about this, we drank straight out of glass bottles.

No health and safety in those days.