Subscribe Via RSSThe Things I Saw As A Teacher – Part 1
I’d like to talk about my past life as a classroom teacher. Coming from the rare perspective of being on the spectrum and having been a teacher, I feel like I’ve gained a little insight that might be helpful to some.
Sometimes It’s Not The Teacher
At the beginning of each school year, do you take the time to meet your child’s teacher and discuss goals? Before you assume teachers know everything that should be happening and just aren’t implementing them, have a friendly talk with them. Schools never told me who had an IEP in my class, who got services, who was supposed to leave at any point in the day, nothing. They’d watch me request interventions and information for months before someone would casually point out that the student had an old IEP.
All you have to do is introduce yourself in a friendly way, ask if he or she is familiar with your child’s situation, and if you can sit down and talk about it sometime. It’s so much better than your first conversation being a disciplinary phone call home or worse yet the result of your frustration!
And Sometimes It Is The Teacher
I’m unfortunately not shocked at those videos that are popping up online of autistic students being hit by teachers and caretakers. It happens to so many of us, and it happened to me when I was young, though not at school. Often the abuser will lie about what they’re doing to justify their actions. I knew several teachers who were open about hitting students and they would tell me “Oh his mom told me I could, it’s okay.” No, I’m sure she didn’t and it’s NOT okay.
You’d think a school’s administration would be outraged by this, but the principals at these schools actually preferred the teachers who hit students. The teachers got special privileges and power because principals could send any child to that teacher for a beating.
When they’re not actually hitting the students, schools are still afraid to report abuse. A student confided in me that he was being beat at home, but the counselor put pressure on me not to report it to CPS because she didn’t want to deal with the parents.
It’s very important to have a system where your autistic child can communicate to you that someone is hurting them. That other person may try to convince them that you said it was okay, that they do it out of love or concern or to make them not an animal, or that to tell anyone else would be to betray their secret (all things said to me when I was a child). Often when a child tries to avoid a person or place, or experiences physical symptoms it can be their way of saying something they can never vocalize. They need to know that it’s not their fault, they don’t need to keep anyone’s secrets, and there is never anything in their life they did that made them so bad that the only love they deserve is pain.
6 Responses
Wow. That’s some sad stuff. We’re lucky that DB’s teachers are always aware of his IEP (at least that he has one) because he’s one of the reasons the class exists as it is. I do try to be nice when pointing out things from the IEP at the beginning of the year, because who has time to read (and the brain power to remember) every kid’s details. I know one kid, they have to get to know what works and doesn’t work with 17 kids, with and without IEPs.
I look forward to hearing more about your teaching experiences.
Parents know their child so much better than the teacher does, and they will always be their child’s best advocate. Not because the teacher doesn’t care, but because you don’t have 20 or 30 kids who have to share your attention.
For me to get a copy of a child’s paperwork from the school *should* be automatic, but really it involves going through a lot of people who have a lot of other things to do, and it can be months before anyone gets around to it. And schools sometimes have weird rules that prevent teachers from discussing potential LDs with parents, so I can’t even ask them about any paperwork or knowledge they might already have. Catch-22!
It’s amazing to hear about how some schools are run. It would never have occurred to me in a million years that a school administration would reward teachers who hit students–or pressure a teacher not to call CPS with a child’s report of abuse. Wow. Now I’ve heard everything.
I’m sorry to hear of the things you had to suffer as a child. I went through similar experiences. Of all the mind-bending things I heard from the people who abused me, probably the one at the top of the list was, “No one will ever love you like we do.” I was actually in my late 20s before I realized that the only appropriate answer to that statement was “I sure as hell hope not!”
“It’s amazing to hear about how some schools are run.”
Sure is….
“It would never have occurred to me in a million years that a school administration would reward teachers who hit students–or pressure a teacher not to call CPS with a child’s report of abuse.”
School I went to wanted to keep the highlight of my history-of-being-bullied (an incidence of a hanging) out of my medical records. And the psychiatrist I had to see after it actually agreed to doing so.
Make of that what you wish … personally, I am not convinced that all schools are such good places. My daughter is autistic and has some special educational needs; the other students in her previous school seem to have been bullying her for ages, and the school has not even thought to put anything in place to even reduce it, let alone stop it; she’s in a much better place now, where her needs will be met and where there are more students who experience difficulties in learning. After adjustment time, she is likely to have a better experience of schooling there than in the old one.
David, I sometimes forget how old I am, and that schools today are not like the one I went to as an (undiagnosed, autistic) child in the mid-1960s. Even then, my school was a pretty amazing place. It was safe, it was quiet, and it was structured. The principal made it his business to be everywhere, and he let it be known that he was in charge. If he caught anyone fighting, he’d call an emergency all-school (K-8) assembly and read us the riot act. He didn’t want bullying or any other form of violence in his school, and he made no exceptions.
None of us liked him much then, but I have nothing but the highest respect for him now. He was willing to be an adult for the sake of the children. It’s a quality in short supply these days. If he were still alive, I’d write him a long letter telling him how much he’s meant to my life. He was quite a person.
The next school I went to was – in terms of the students there – not much of an improvement on the grammar school; but it was closer to home, and the deputy head teacher was pretty active for my final three years of compulsory education in making sure I was as okay there as was possible… given the school it was, this was not easy.
Seems you were very lucky, really, in your school… I wish all head teachers were as committed as yours obviously was; we have too few that care about the students in their care… most of the time, they have uppermost in their minds the economics and politics of the school organisation and how to make the school look good, even when it’s failing.
I’m one of very few educational psychologists who think that schools are actually a largely terrible idea; learning groups are far better, and more enjoyable to be in. Much in school is teacher-centred and oriented to saving money for the management. And the education of students generally suffers for this.