How was school for you?

Terrible! (1970s) I excelled academically but could not handle the lights, noise, people, sitting in desks & not being outside, hallway walking in a line, lunchroom, expectations, and shunning of creativity, etc. I'd hide in the morning so I wouldn't have to go. I was sick or became sick often. My dad was principal, so that didn't go over well.

I suffered every day from K-5. If I stayed home/refused to go, my mother told me that I could not leave my room that day. No problem for me. That was a bad move on her part because it reinforced my building a cocoon to deal with things, and I became even less interested in venturing out.

In 5th grade they allowed me to go to school for fewer days & the days were shortened; I completed my work from home and excelled further academically. But there was no real system or supports for people like me and it was seen as an emergency effort for this freak of a kid. There was no diagnosis (because they didn't know about these things yet) and I just continued to suffer.

I sometimes think about how my life could've been if back then people knew about kids like me and how to help them thrive.

The rest of my school "career" was just as difficult. 

But the thing is that I LOVE learning and teaching. So I did get a teaching degree thinking I could use it somehow...but schools are still not made for people like me even as an adult teacher. So I didn't last long and am now self employed in a very quiet life (making very little money but at least I'm not suffering every day).

If I could teach in a school setting that had maybe 5 kids at a time at most, low lighting, lots of outside time, in a quiet, slow moving creative setting, I'd love it. But that doesn't exist where I live. And I don't have the personality to start a school like that.

I've considered (briefly) getting a special ed endorsement for teaching mainly autistic students, but special ed classrooms in those settings are still not how they should be. It's still glorified babysitting in a noisy, scary environment where teachers are routinely physically assaulted by their students (with a terrible student-to-teacher ratio), especially by special ed students who are overwhelmed.

In an alternate universe, I operate a "school" where our main classroom is the outdoors...all of our math, language skills, science, etc content revolves around the natural world. We are not trapped by a 6 hour day M-F. We do some things individually, some as a very, very small group, and most of the rest at home. We create stories, plays, gardens, podcasts, books (including nonfiction), and whatever else, individually, in partners, or small groups--whatever they want.

But legislation regarding classroom hours and content areas does not allow for that. And you can't be hired to do that by homeschool families. All homeschooling must be done by a parent (in my country). It's so sad.

Thanks for the great discussion and for reading this. I wish everyone well.

My Junior school had some challenges, for example there was always at least one child in the class who smelt. Often they were from big families. I didn't realize at that time that I had a stronger sense of smell than others. The building also had a strong smell which got stuck to our clothes and the liquid soap had a very odd smell. I tried to avoid using the toilet as much as possible. This was in the 70 s.

I only remember a couple of smelly pupils at my grammar school, but it was as big as a lot of comprehensive schools these days. The work was hard and lots of people went to University. I always found revising and remembering facts difficult.

I'm sorry your time at school wasn't the best.

My time at school was actually okay.

Looking back I was masking pretty much 24/7.

I put in so much effort to fit in and be like the other girls.

I laughed when they did. I wore makeup. I was probs super annoying and bratty at times - way out of character for me not my comfort zone but the alternative would be being unpopular and bullied

I couldn't take that so I masked and carried this other me who was an illusion through school.

Towards the end of school I started to crack mentally.

Now I know what masking is and the effects it causes (thanks number and autonomistic) I'm sure that's what caused my breakdown.

Really I should have been true to myself but I didn't and in the long run it cost me big time.

Teachers were mostly ok. You get the odd one right but most were all right with me.

Towards the end of school I started to struggle with the work and exams. I wasn't bullied thank god though.

One of my biggest fears is being bullied.

I loved the learning and the predictable, familiar routine. Everything else was awful. I got bullied for being 'weird', and for being poor, and for being hopeless at sport. When I became a teenager it got worse because all those things were still true, but I was also a late bloomer and fairly obviously queer (obvious to everyone else anyway, I would realise MUCH later, due to section 28 and very limited cultural awareness about asexuality anyway). And then for some reason I decided it was a great idea to be a goth I think my reasoning was that if everyone hated me for being weird, I might as well be weird on purpose and in a way that I enjoyed. It didn't stop the bullying, but it did make me feel as though I had some control over my life.

I didn't know I was autistic at the time, but looking back, it seems like the most obvious thing in the world. This was the 90s through to the mid-2000s though, and it was just assumed that girls in mainstream education couldn't possibly be autistic- even if they were socially clueless, ate the same packed lunch every day for years, and couldn't get through a PE lesson without some sort of physical or social ordeal occurring.

Without the benefit of established procedures and competence, I’m quite sure that a lot of the horrors of schooling went straight over my head, instead I am just left with a bad taste in my mouth.

Some of the fondest friendship-experiences that I hold onto, were on reflection, the stances-taken in the face a horrendous acts of intimidation and harassment.

None of what I use to gauge and quantify my experiences now, I used to measure my schooling-experience as it occurred, so I find I don’t really register it, I just know that it was ineffective and traumatising.

It was largely just a corrupting and regrettable experience, that wasn’t something I could’ve controlled, the only thing I could’ve controlled was what I took away from it. Such as the acquisition of a stout-heart, in defence of my companions, who on reflection were only exploiting me as a decoy in the face of oppression..

School was very similar to most here, bullying, violence and just overwhelming. Sports were the worst part, the bullies also must win everything. Unfortunately I have no coordination. I can’t kick, throw or catch a ball. Running causes my legs to go everywhere. Obviously if the team I was placed in lost the weakest got punished. I found staying in the library at lunchtime a great hiding place. No self respecting bully would be seen in a library.

Hugs, Debbie, if wanted

Welcome and returned, thanks

I believe most with autism would benefit from schooling at home. If I were a mum I would homeschool my children, I wouldn't want them to go through what I went through as it has definitely caused problems for me in later life.

I'm so sorry to read of your experience at school, Debbie. It sounded awful for you at times. Bullying causes scars and memories that don't appear to heal. I think in some ways this changes us and makes us kinder, so I've observed in others anyhow.

Also I relate regards your mother. My mother who I expect was autistic was not really fit to be in charge of children, I admire her though for her efforts and the kindness she gave when she herself was battling greater inner battles. I know how hard it is at such a tender age having to go through that, watch it happen to someone you love. Hugs, Debbie, if wanted.

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I'm sorry you had a bad time at school. Most of us have. I was bullied during my time at school, both primary and mid school, but it did lead to my first proper friendship so I guess it wasn't all bad in the end. I often consider school years the worst I've been through.

It's good to read a more positive experience! I'm glad someone found it to be not too bad. At my school the teachers weren't very eccentric, most appeared bored and had a vendetta against me lol. That's how it felt anyway. In my school the teachers sounded and looked depressed, if we had had more enthusiastic teachers it might have felt a better environment to be in.

I'm so sorry Tris. I remember those kind of feelings and thoughts. By the sounds of it most of us had the same sort of experience at school. As another member has said it isn't an autism friendly environment.

School in the 70s sounded rough. I don't consider my time at school in the early 2000s that good but definitely was easier than what you endured by the sounds of it.

Bless you, Dawn. I'm sorry you went through so much yourself. School leaves its mark on us all, in one way or another.

I think all children should get to learn from home because it would make schooling a lot more fun,

I'm sorry you went through so much trauma.

The above made me smile though.

I think being at home may have been more awful than school.

It depends a lot on the home environment.

Ideally, in a stable, happy home, then I agree, it could be preferable, in these internet days especially.

Just copying my reply from an earlier, trauma themed, thread:

School for me was a nightmare.

In Junior school I was bullied and because I couldn't see the blackboard due to myopia (and no-one picked up on it) I think I lost out on some schooling.

I used to wear my older sisters' or mum's clothes + shoes to school as I didn't have much of my own = more bullying.

I didn't pass the 11+ so went to a Secondary Modern school (for girls).

Those schools were in place for people who weren't expected to take exams.

Both my schools were in the poorest areas of Portsmouth, very rough + with poor teaching standards.

It was only when the Secondary School became Comprehensive that the school improved, with an influx of Grammar pupils and teachers.

So, against all odds, I ended up with some 'O' and 'A' levels.

We were the 1st pupils to take 'A' levels in that school (ie ever).

The bullying was relentless which would have been due to being pretty, very different ie autistic, wearing glasses and old hand-me-down clothes and eventually excelling academically (relatively speaking).

The bullying has haunted me all my life.

This was against a background of complex relationships, a mentally unstable mother, my parents being unhappily married but still together and sharing a bedroom with my older sister in a noisy council house where there was no quiet place to study or think or do anything really.

We had originally been in our own house but Portsmouth City Council in the 1970s compulsorily repossessed loads of Victorian housing in the city, demolished it and replaced it with council owned.

These are not happy memories and much of my earlier life, home and school, was filled with trauma.

https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/29271/school-trauma/257439#257439

Schools aren't autism friendly for sure! I can't think of many things worse for someone with autism to have to go through.

My time at school sucked massively! I was bullied because I walk different and my voice isn't quite like everyone else's, everybody else thought that was hilarious even some teachers. I couldn't focus in school I heard everyone sound from the clock ticking to kids in the hall outside. And my year head at secondary who I had for 4 years hated me straight away so I was getting detention with him for no reason at all. I hated school worst years of my life.

I was fortunate to have some really inspirational teachers who accepted my geekiness. I went to a grammar school where geekiness was the norm. Looking back I can see the traits in many of my friends, like Glen who had not only memorised most of the London Transport bus routes, he knew what make of bus they operated and how often they ran.

A lot of the teachers were eccentric (in some cases that's a euphemism for barking mad) which made life interesting. In one maths lesson, our maths teacher came up with the information that Korean socks have a separate big toe, like mittens. How this was relevant to quadratic equations I am still trying to work out fifty years later. 

A lot of stuff would not happen these days, like we had to wear caps until year nine, and at the end of the term there would be a pile of caps behind the gym, a perfect would produce a can of petrol, and they would be cremated. The teaching staff pretended not to notice, but somehow the caretaker just happened to be standing by with a fire extinguisher.

Talking of the caretaker, he had a German shepherd, and all the new first years were told that if they met her they had to say "Good morning (afternoon, evening as applicable) Janet." That was like a password.

Apparently a few years after I left they stopped singing the school song after a particularly enthusiastic rendition ended up with a kid falling off the stage and breaking his arm - don't ask.

Or there was the time when we had a bit of rivalry with a local secondary modern, and one of their kids put a felling axe through a classroom window. We had twelve police cars outside the school that afternoon, all lined up one behind the other. There were no major casualties, although a few of the CCF cadets complained that they would have to re-polish their boots after resolving an issue where a few of their boys were threatening one of our younger kids. Not that one condones violence ...

So despite three hours' homework a night, and having to line up in the playground each morning for uniform inspection, it was not that bad.

It was real bad. I didn't ever fit in, was bullied since primary, could never focus so I didn't do well at the work side of it and the realisation of what the rest of my life would be like made me quit everything. I started ditching classes in year 10 and started skipping days and weeks in year 11 because I'd decided to die at the end of exam leave. 

Schools aren't ideal environments for us at all, are they?  But again, I think that's because they aren't designed with us in mind.

My middle school was horrendous.  I was big time bullied and blamed by the head master for being bullied:  "If only I were like the other children"  he said, while games teachers covertly endorsed the ritual humiliation of my complete inability to catch a ball, and propensity to cry if turned upside down.  But hey! That was the 1970s.

I got luckier in secondary.  The bullying subsided and there was a more arty set of clever mavericks who were natural friends for me (a couple turned out to be autistic too - like attracts like huh?)  And the fact that I was academic and my teachers liked me helped a great deal.

Schools ain't great for autistic adults either.  I worked in one once - never again!  I really couldn't handle all that rush here, rush there, constantly task switching to the tempo of  the bells blasting my ears to smithereens while the bitchy office staff engage in NT game playing at it's worst.  God! It was worse than being at school myself.

I'm sorry you've had such an awful experience.  I think a lot of autistic people have had their education ruined and bare the emotional scars of a school life which is an autistic nightmare.  It's so sad because it doesn't need to be that way.  When the environment is right we can enjoy school too.  I loved my 5th and 6th forms - happy days!