The struggle with Autism

Hi Peafowl,

Work in education needs to carry a Government Health Warning. Pretty well everyone is stressed. But it is majorly so if you are on the spectrum, for precisely the reasons you've hinted at - collegiate expectations.

My background is higher education, but this collegiate nonsense is much the same in different ways perhaps. You are expected to present an image to your students,in keping with some kind of ethos of all-knowing authority. All students are idiots unless proved otherwise, never show weakness in front of a student etc etc.

To be honest I think the NTs that carry on like this greatly add to their own stress and are bad teachers. Good teachers are the ones who relate to their students, allow some give and take within reason, and avoid the rabble gaining control by working hard on their lesson plan so they really enthuse and inspire. The phoney authority types are often the teachers who have to stop all the time to discipline noisy students who are just bored with their bad teaching. They are the ones who think humiliating weaker students is cool.

That said it is hard to deal with a noisy class with autistic spectrum, not being able to think clearly, not being able to work out when a student is being constructive or disruptive, and you are bound to show weakness. I just think that teachers on the spectrum can and do make good teachers.

I also think you can strengthen your position by taking on neglected areas like disabled or disadvantaged. And your experience of cleaning - cleaning is a badly underrated profession, where would we be without cleaners? And cleaning is an environmentally perceptive profession. You can make cleaning seem really up beat. Same with 'dustmen' - everybody scorns the job but it is an essential service and worthy of better language used to describe it.

To Nanny ju, could you ask the Mods to make you a new thread. I know it is difficult to start new topics because the software hiccups and Bob cannot fix it. But coming onto an existing thread with something entirely different is a disservice to the original poster.

I find when posting a new topic, when it sits for ages and comes up with a server error, I just click on Discussion Forum (top left hand margin - you may have to scroll up a bit) and it accepts it as a new topic. We shouldn't have to do this but we don't seem to have the IT support we need on a site like this. IT is very taken up with checking out our language.

Hi Peafowl,

Work in education needs to carry a Government Health Warning. Pretty well everyone is stressed. But it is majorly so if you are on the spectrum, for precisely the reasons you've hinted at - collegiate expectations.

My background is higher education, but this collegiate nonsense is much the same in different ways perhaps. You are expected to present an image to your students,in keping with some kind of ethos of all-knowing authority. All students are idiots unless proved otherwise, never show weakness in front of a student etc etc.

To be honest I think the NTs that carry on like this greatly add to their own stress and are bad teachers. Good teachers are the ones who relate to their students, allow some give and take within reason, and avoid the rabble gaining control by working hard on their lesson plan so they really enthuse and inspire. The phoney authority types are often the teachers who have to stop all the time to discipline noisy students who are just bored with their bad teaching. They are the ones who think humiliating weaker students is cool.

That said it is hard to deal with a noisy class with autistic spectrum, not being able to think clearly, not being able to work out when a student is being constructive or disruptive, and you are bound to show weakness. I just think that teachers on the spectrum can and do make good teachers.

I also think you can strengthen your position by taking on neglected areas like disabled or disadvantaged. And your experience of cleaning - cleaning is a badly underrated profession, where would we be without cleaners? And cleaning is an environmentally perceptive profession. You can make cleaning seem really up beat. Same with 'dustmen' - everybody scorns the job but it is an essential service and worthy of better language used to describe it.

To Nanny ju, could you ask the Mods to make you a new thread. I know it is difficult to start new topics because the software hiccups and Bob cannot fix it. But coming onto an existing thread with something entirely different is a disservice to the original poster.

I find when posting a new topic, when it sits for ages and comes up with a server error, I just click on Discussion Forum (top left hand margin - you may have to scroll up a bit) and it accepts it as a new topic. We shouldn't have to do this but we don't seem to have the IT support we need on a site like this. IT is very taken up with checking out our language.