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My difficult life at school

bristolvr3

Hello everyone.

I started school in my home town of Felixstowe in 1985. However, as an autistic person, my parents struggled to find local schools in my area that could support my special needs. Autism was a somewhat unfamiliar topic back then, and from what I've heard, it's still difficult today. Me and my family could have ended up living absolutely anywhere in East Anglia, or even beyond, but that would have been a devastating and emotional situation to their friends and relatives. 

Me and my family moved house to another part of Felixstowe a year later, in 1986. Fortunately, there were various local schools at Infant, Junior and High level that were able to provide all the support I needed. Even so, although my teachers were supportive, I found socially interacting with my fellow pupils very difficult. As with any normal pupil, other pupils would want to get to know me, and be my friend. However, although most of them would help, a few others would allegedly tease and taunt me like crazy. 

Although I coped relatively well at my local infant and junior schools, I found life at high school very difficult. My fellow pupils allegedly teased and taunted me, for reasons which still remain a mystery to me today. I wasn't sworn at, nor was I violently attacked in any way, but they kept saying or singing something so frequently, that I still have the odd nightmare about that experience today. I tried telling them to stop doing it, warn them or even report them to one of my teachers, but all that was in vain.

Any autistic person such as myself would find such an experience really terrifying. But despite all that, I was ready, willing and able to learn my various lessons. The older I got, the better I was in subjects such as Maths and Physical Education. I hated doing homework, especially in the History category where I would have to remember various historical events, dates etc. There was no Internet for much of my 1980s/1990s school life, so I had to rely on my parents to help me out. If they didn't know the answers to my various questions, I would be really worried at not doing my homework at all. 

I would love to be able to share my school stories with you. 

Parents

  • bristolvr3 said:
    There was no Internet for much of my 1980s/1990s school life, so I had to rely on my parents to help me out. If they didn't know the answers to my various questions, I would be really worried at not doing my homework at all.

    That's an interesting statement you make about the internet. I'm a bit too young to experience a world without the internet although I can remember modems and time metered telephone calls from my school days when Britain was (and still sort of is) a broadband backwater.

    An older friend with AS tells me about his secondary school and college life in the early 1990s whilst referring to himself as a member of the last of the pre internet and pre mobile phone school generation. This was an era where children learned life skills and social skills by word of mouth with no facility to verify rumours or confirm whether classmates were telling the truth. The end result was a mass of confusion and contradition with nobody or no facility to help him out. Is that statement from a classmate about the law relating to a particular activity really true? What is the meaning of that slang word? Is my teacher telling me the truth about how the education system works or is she trying to deceive me for her own benefit? Kids nowadays don't need to worry themselves over issues like these because the internet can help them out. Sure, there's plenty of misinformation but nowhere is it as bad as in the past where the truth could only be derived by physically finding a person who knows it.

    I think that the internet has helped out kids socially just as much as it has academically.

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  • bristolvr3 said:
    There was no Internet for much of my 1980s/1990s school life, so I had to rely on my parents to help me out. If they didn't know the answers to my various questions, I would be really worried at not doing my homework at all.

    That's an interesting statement you make about the internet. I'm a bit too young to experience a world without the internet although I can remember modems and time metered telephone calls from my school days when Britain was (and still sort of is) a broadband backwater.

    An older friend with AS tells me about his secondary school and college life in the early 1990s whilst referring to himself as a member of the last of the pre internet and pre mobile phone school generation. This was an era where children learned life skills and social skills by word of mouth with no facility to verify rumours or confirm whether classmates were telling the truth. The end result was a mass of confusion and contradition with nobody or no facility to help him out. Is that statement from a classmate about the law relating to a particular activity really true? What is the meaning of that slang word? Is my teacher telling me the truth about how the education system works or is she trying to deceive me for her own benefit? Kids nowadays don't need to worry themselves over issues like these because the internet can help them out. Sure, there's plenty of misinformation but nowhere is it as bad as in the past where the truth could only be derived by physically finding a person who knows it.

    I think that the internet has helped out kids socially just as much as it has academically.

Children
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