any teachers on here?

Hi,

I was a teacher for 25 years and struggled all most every single day. However I'm happy to report that that was not with any of my students but always with my colleagues and management. Well maybe a couple of more unique students............including......my stalker, but thats a whole different story. 

I started in FE in 1995 and worked with adults who wanted to learn computers for work and personal need.  The European funding was secure and the job was very rewarding, especially helping impoverished and marginalised students get qualifications that opened up better opportunities in work and enhanced their home lives.

I was too organised, too methodical and too fixated on perfect paperwork.  Whilst finding any social interactions with colleagues confusing and bewildering.  Fortunately, I was able to cultivate my own classroom and just concentrated on that perfect paperwork, including being very creative with resources for students and having a well organised and systematic classroom. 

Unfortunately, I retrained to be a secondary teacher in 2008 in order to move with my long term girlfriend to London so she could complete her PhD.

It went downhill from there and I was unable to pass my probationary year at an infamous comprehensive. I had the breakdown of all breakdowns. 

Within a year I did however, manage to secure work within the Prison Service as a tutor teaching prisoners basic business enterprise, basic skills and managing staff.

But again, my colleagues made life hell for me, but in such subtle and gaslighting ways, I had a second breakdown in my fifth year and was asked to be made redundant instead of pursuing my grievances.  Nice pay-out though. 

Again colleagues "hated" my perfectionism............................my immaculate paperwork, creative resources and extremely well organised classrooms.

I really did struggle and looking back, its a small miracle that my ASD was never identified sooner due to my obsessive neatness, tidiness, punctuality, organisational skills and exemplary paperwork. 

But total inability to even spend five minutes in a staff room.

My strategy was to isolate myself and just get on with my job for the students, albeit adults, but not even with my rose-tinted classes about teaching as a whole, dealing with colleagues is the worst aspect.

They replicate the worst aspects of school as teachers; if they were bullies at school, they are bullies as teachers.  If they were jocks at school, they are jocks as teachers.  And if they sailed through school, they sailed through teaching, and played all the petty politics blah blah blah.

I was very fortunate in being able to work with adults, but all the other issues such as curriculum changes, tests and examinations are the same, as well as the drive to get funding for courses, as well as the drive for consistent high success rates, is still the same vicious circle.

I'm jaded, cynical and torn between having loved my job, and also hated half of it.

Again, I know it doesn't help, but the current system needs a through overhaul, so students can reach their potential and not just be a tick box on the exam success rate.

If i had known about my ASD yes it would have helped me immensely, but was the FE or secondary system ready, probably not. 

Hi,

I was a teacher for 25 years and struggled all most every single day. However I'm happy to report that that was not with any of my students but always with my colleagues and management. Well maybe a couple of more unique students............including......my stalker, but thats a whole different story. 

I started in FE in 1995 and worked with adults who wanted to learn computers for work and personal need.  The European funding was secure and the job was very rewarding, especially helping impoverished and marginalised students get qualifications that opened up better opportunities in work and enhanced their home lives.

I was too organised, too methodical and too fixated on perfect paperwork.  Whilst finding any social interactions with colleagues confusing and bewildering.  Fortunately, I was able to cultivate my own classroom and just concentrated on that perfect paperwork, including being very creative with resources for students and having a well organised and systematic classroom. 

Unfortunately, I retrained to be a secondary teacher in 2008 in order to move with my long term girlfriend to London so she could complete her PhD.

It went downhill from there and I was unable to pass my probationary year at an infamous comprehensive. I had the breakdown of all breakdowns. 

Within a year I did however, manage to secure work within the Prison Service as a tutor teaching prisoners basic business enterprise, basic skills and managing staff.

But again, my colleagues made life hell for me, but in such subtle and gaslighting ways, I had a second breakdown in my fifth year and was asked to be made redundant instead of pursuing my grievances.  Nice pay-out though. 

Again colleagues "hated" my perfectionism............................my immaculate paperwork, creative resources and extremely well organised classrooms.

I really did struggle and looking back, its a small miracle that my ASD was never identified sooner due to my obsessive neatness, tidiness, punctuality, organisational skills and exemplary paperwork. 

But total inability to even spend five minutes in a staff room.

My strategy was to isolate myself and just get on with my job for the students, albeit adults, but not even with my rose-tinted classes about teaching as a whole, dealing with colleagues is the worst aspect.

They replicate the worst aspects of school as teachers; if they were bullies at school, they are bullies as teachers.  If they were jocks at school, they are jocks as teachers.  And if they sailed through school, they sailed through teaching, and played all the petty politics blah blah blah.

I was very fortunate in being able to work with adults, but all the other issues such as curriculum changes, tests and examinations are the same, as well as the drive to get funding for courses, as well as the drive for consistent high success rates, is still the same vicious circle.

I'm jaded, cynical and torn between having loved my job, and also hated half of it.

Again, I know it doesn't help, but the current system needs a through overhaul, so students can reach their potential and not just be a tick box on the exam success rate.

If i had known about my ASD yes it would have helped me immensely, but was the FE or secondary system ready, probably not.