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[quote="ebec11"][quote="Teoka"]I would've seen my counselor if I had felt comfortable around her. But I don't. She is not warm at all. And getting up in front of the class would cause too much anxiety (I also have General Anxiety Disorder). Note that another teacher handled it completely differently when I had a meltdown very similar to this, and he was able to teach the class. It's not impossible. If you knew this teacher, you'd understand. He is demeaning and always sarcastic. I've also spoken with many of the students in the classroom at the time who said that they were mildly concerned for me, but did not work any less proficiently. "Making an example" is probably not the right phrasing. I understand that I've got some things to work on, but at this point in time, I haven't solved the problem, but I'm trying. And he knew that. But he decided to threaten me with the school cops. Even if I was NT and I was crying, that's no excuse for what he did. I can't change or control him, but I can somehow show the world that what he did was absolutely wrong. I was just hoping that I wasn't the only one who's had to deal with this, and maybe I could get some help ;-; I only know one other person with Asperger's personally, and she's in another school district. I'm the only aspie who I know in my school of 4,000 students. It's hard enough to get my peers to understand what happened...[/quote]I get what you mean. Were you making any sound? Because if not, it's NOT disturbing, as I've done the same thing and nobody cares. I think you should have asked to go to the washroom or something, but he was still out of line. (I had the evilest teacher - even worse then yours - and I just had to remember that I would be done with him after the semester - and in your case right after that class - and although there's jerks like that in the world, there's so many nice people out there that actually care) Maybe you should plan some coping skills to use for next time? I have a stress ball that I use, plus I count to a hundred or do simple math (because math is usually calming for me) in my head.[/quote]
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<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" width="100%" class="forumline"> <tr> <th class="thCornerL" width="22%" height="26">Author</th> <th class="thCornerR">Message</th> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>velodog</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:47 pm<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody"></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>anbuend wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">1)Trust me I'm not big on emotional "support" threads and that's not why I'm writing what I'm writing. <br /> <br />2)But most of the things people have come up with out of this have been tangents, or have been things to the effect of "This makes us look bad, so we should just berate the person for having fewer skills than we do in some areas." <br /> <br />3)When a teacher is able to be nasty to a person for "sleeping" when they are just shutting down and doing so in one of the most responsible and productive ways possible, that's discrimination. It doesn't matter whether a "victory" in this area is easy, it is not okay to turn around and try to bother the OP for not being in an easy situation. <br /> <br />4)The fact that the teacher thinks everyone in the class is entitled to have a class without people shutting down in it <br /> <br />5) You know, autism politics isn't just about "easy" situations where it's really really simple to get a "victory", and it isn't just for autistic people who "look nice" or have no real problems adapting to the world as it is. In fact, given that the point of autism politics is usually to change the world to make it more adapted to us (as in disability politics in general), I'd think it's more and more relevant the less and less an environment is adapted to a particular person. <br /> <br />6)And <span style="font-style: italic">way</span> relevant is that some autistic people think it's okay to draw a line between what they consider good auties and bad auties, and only fight for the people with the right set of skills, the right attitude, the easiest situations to figure out, etc. <br /> <br />7)Most political situations when it comes to disability are not neat and tidy, and they require actual work, actual stepping out of your comfort zone, all those kind of things that aren't fixed with a by-your-own-bootstraps kind of attitude. (Which is the least political attitude in this thread, really, since it just focuses on the person being discriminated against <span style="font-style: italic">being</span> the problem.)</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br />1) Emotional support threads. I was not being sarcastic when I said I would have responded different in the Haven. <br />2)We should care how we present ourselves when we publicly proclaim ourselves as autistic. If we expect NT's (not my term) to understand us than perhaps we should reciprocate and try to understand their possible perspective as well. Or is it a one way street? <br />3)Is it even possible that the teacher may have thought she was sleeping? And I still believe that every possible battle is not necessarily one that it is wise to fight. Getting your ass kicked on a regular basis because you let the opposition pick the venue and circumstances will not give your side credibility for future engagements. <br />4)Try to sell that to the School Board and PTA. <br />5)Changing the worldview of the entire world sounds awfully akin to tilting at windmills to me. <br />6)I have never stated an intent or desire to separate AS/HFA people from LFA Auties. <br />7) This is a good deal of the differences between us, because I have not even known what AS is, much less Kanners Autism except for the last not quite 3 years. And I have not even suspected that I am on the spectrum until Feb. of 2007. It was not confirmed until 4/9/08, so I have had to learn job skills and kick bullies asses myself. And I do tend to take a pragmatic view of the world rather than an idealistic one. Contrary to what some respondents to this thread may think, I do not have any ill will or dislike of Teoka or other people who may have a different function level than myself. <br /> <br />After this post I'll just leave this alone. Obviously I'm just getting in the way of progress for Autistic Rights, have a good life.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row2"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>anbuend</b></span></td> <td class="row2" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:55 pm<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">Trust me I'm not big on emotional "support" threads and that's not why I'm writing what I'm writing. <br /> <br />But most of the things people have come up with out of this have been tangents, or have been things to the effect of "This makes us look bad, so we should just berate the person for having fewer skills than we do in some areas." <br /> <br />When a teacher is able to be nasty to a person for "sleeping" when they are just shutting down and doing so in one of the most responsible and productive ways possible, that's discrimination. It doesn't matter whether a "victory" in this area is easy, it is not okay to turn around and try to bother the OP for not being in an easy situation. <br /> <br />As far as political issues go, I think the way some autistic people treat autistic people with fewer skills in certain areas is a <span style="font-style: italic">major</span> political issue within the autistic community. Especially when this person was not screaming, she was not throwing things, she was not hitting people, she was putting her head on her desk. <br /> <br />What the teacher did is akin to non-disabled people trying to throw people with severe cerebral palsy out of restaurants because their eating style disgusts other people. What many people on this thread are doing, is like when people justify throwing people out by saying "Well it <span style="font-style: italic">is</span> disgusting, how selfish to want to eat in a restaurant with everyone else when you can't chew quietly and you sometimes involuntarily choke, you have to think of everyone else here." <br /> <br />The fact that the teacher thinks everyone in the class is entitled to have a class without people shutting down in it <span style="font-style: italic">is</span> the problem, just like people who think they have some kind of right to eat in public without people with disabilities around <span style="font-style: italic">is</span> the problem in the restaurant situation I described. <br /> <br />Oh, and I should mention -- when I was 16 years old, I was in a small classroom in a barn. Four students including me. I was drugged to the gills and often nearly passed out in class and drooled all over. This was seen as harming the other students in some way, so instead of making the situation so that I wouldn't need to do that, they put me in a big chair facing away from everyone and blared audio books into my ears on a Walkman to keep me awake. I don't think that was the right thing to do in that situation, nor do I think that treating her like she's the problem is the right thing to do. <br /> <br />And that's the political issue. That's where the problem is. You know, autism politics isn't just about "easy" situations where it's really really simple to get a "victory", and it isn't just for autistic people who "look nice" or have no real problems adapting to the world as it is. In fact, given that the point of autism politics is usually to change the world to make it more adapted to us (as in disability politics in general), I'd think it's more and more relevant the less and less an environment is adapted to a particular person. <br /> <br />And <span style="font-style: italic">way</span> relevant is that some autistic people think it's okay to draw a line between what they consider good auties and bad auties, and only fight for the people with the right set of skills, the right attitude, the easiest situations to figure out, etc. <br /> <br />So yes, it's highly relevant as a part of a political situation, and many of the posts here are good examples of a huge part of the problem. Personally I think that if the autistic community only fights for people it finds "pretty" (not the word I'm after, but something like that), then it's being more lazy than it is political. Most political situations when it comes to disability are not neat and tidy, and they require actual work, actual stepping out of your comfort zone, all those kind of things that aren't fixed with a by-your-own-bootstraps kind of attitude. (Which is the least political attitude in this thread, really, since it just focuses on the person being discriminated against <span style="font-style: italic">being</span> the problem.)</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>velodog</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:29 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">anbuend, here is what the OP has reported herself as the result of the incident. Apparently she feels like a large portion of the student body considers her to be using her AS as an excuse to BS people. All because her lunch routine was changed. If this had been put in The Haven then I would not have responded the way I did, but it was posted here as a political issue, a fight to be won. Can you show me anything positive or even remotely resembling a victory that has happened to the OP as a result of this whole mess? <br />I work, in the workforce, with NT's, on a daily basis and I know what will and won't be tolerated by people running job sites that I work at. Some work places may choose to make allowances for meltdowns, I have not been to one that does. <br /> <br />Seriously anbuend if this situation looks to you like a winnable battle then I would like to know how. I have no influence over the people that Teoka references in the quote below. They made up their own minds about her sincerity, and while you may ( or may not ) be shocked that they came to the conclusions that they did, I am not. <br /> <br /> <br /></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Teoka wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">You all can stop assuming things about what my motivations were right NOW. <br /> <br />I was NOT trying to disrupt the class on purpose. I already feel like everyone thinks I'm psychotic now; do you have any idea how hard it is to go to school now?! It turns out that more people who I thought were my friends think that I'm using my AS as an excuse to BS people. I figure that in time they'll learn, but as it is now, it's more painful than anything I've ever dealt with before. I'd like to note that those closest to me do not make those assumptions. My family, boyfriend, and close friends know how I'm different. <br /> <br />I was upset because my lunch routine had been changed and I felt excluded! I'm sure at least some of you can relate to that! I was originally going to be fine and calm down on my own, which I have only in the past few years been able to do on my own, but the teacher's sarcastic comment was the straw that broke the camel's back. <br /> <br />I wasn't trying to show aspies in a negative or positive light. I was just going about my day which was going horribly wrong. And as much as we all try, we can't hide the negative aspects about AS. We can try our best to show that we're not all bad, but no one is all good..</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"></span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row2"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>dongiovanni</b></span></td> <td class="row2" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:41 pm<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">I pretty much second everything that Amanda said. I just didn't want to make her into the thread-killer, so I decided to voice my support.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>anbuend</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:32 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody"></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>velodog wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">No strawman here, you brought workers rights into the discussion. I simply responded by telling you how my Union handles those who deliberately disrupt jobsites.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br /> <br />I didn't see anything in the original post about deliberately disrupting anything. <br /> <br /></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Quote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">If you believe that being an Aspie (or not an Aspie) gives you the right to refuse to take tests or otherwise meet academic standards to graduate then go for it.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br /> <br />I didn't see anything about refusal to take a test, either. <br /> <br /></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Quote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">After you successfully finish High School with that formula, <span style="font-weight: bold">then you can mentally prepare yourself by laying your head on the desk and refusing to take tests while in College</span>.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br /> <br />Have you ever actually experienced shutdown? <br /> <br />The extreme kind? Where an ability simply <span style="font-style: italic">isn't there</span> when you need it to be? <br /> <br />It's actually <span style="font-style: italic">recommended</span> by experts on the topic, to do something along the lines of reduce activity, sensory stimulation, and outside pressure, while you wait for the abilities to come back. <br /> <br />i.e., lying your head on your desk is <span style="font-style: italic">among the most adaptive things to do</span> if you're genuinely experiencing a severe enough shutdown. (well, it's also pretty adaptive for less severe versions, but less severe versions can also sometimes be pushed through) <br /> <br />There are also steps a person can take to prevent it, but a totally unexpected change in routine can throw a lot of autistic people into total non-functionality. Making it to class at all under those circumstances shows someone is probably not lacking in the willpower department. <br /> <br />What I find interesting is how many people have used the words and concepts the <span style="font-style: italic">teacher</span> used, in responding to the original poster. <br /> <br />The original poster did not say she was sleeping, but the teacher did. <br /> <br />The original poster did not say she was deliberately disrupting the class, but the teacher did. <br /> <br />The original poster did not say she was deliberately refusing to take a test, but the teacher did. <br /> <br />As far as college is concerned, I went to a community college that <span style="font-style: italic">did</span> allow students to take more time to take tests, including if they were autistic. They even allowed test-taking in a separate room if it was necessary. And there are <span style="font-style: italic">many</span> totally cheap or free ways that a workplace can be modified to allow an autistic person to be productive there and give them time to recover from changes in routine. I know this because I know a number of autistic people who are in the workforce, some of them making quite good money, and do have these modifications as part of their job. <br /> <br />But, as far as the original post is concerned, what it looked like, when the teacher started getting nasty and snarky, was the person was being totally non-disruptive, and doing <span style="font-style: italic">all the right things</span> to help overcome shutdown as rapidly as possible. <br /> <br />Sometimes I think elements of the autistic community are terrified to admit that there are autistic people who genuinely need adaptations (like a big of extra time to deal with shutdown) in order to function. It's like, that would mean admitting that the "just put us in the work force and expect us to function like everyone else" model doesn't work for the majority of us, and it'd also mean admitting that not everyone fits the public super-autie image that some autistic people are trying to cultivate of themselves. <br /> <br />Note that my perspective doesn't say that autistic people shouldn't work to the best of our ability to avoid doing things that cause problems for us or other people. Learning to deal with overload, shutdown, and meltdowns is an art form that many of us take years or decades to progress in. <br /> <br />This person is still in high school by the sound of it, and has learned to control herself to a greater degree than I could even <span style="font-style: italic">approach</span> until my mid-twenties. Starting at the age of just-barely-almost-fifteen I was almost entirely in segregated schooling environments (when in any schools at all) until I was eighteen. <br /> <br />One thing I always find interesting about special school is this: All the people who are supposedly disruptive or unable to learn in "normal" classes get sent there. So... okay, we're supposedly too disruptive to learn around, and more easily distracted than normal, and yet we're supposed to be able to learn around each other? Well... when anything was taught, we actually <span style="font-style: italic">did</span> learn around each other. We learned around people having screaming tantrums just outside the classroom window, and we learned around people standing on top of the school building peeing off the roof. We, who supposedly had far less ability to take that kind of distraction. <br /> <br />This convinces me that the reason many of these things are considered horrible distractions in regular classes, is because non-disabled people are not expected as a matter of course to put up with each other. They feel that they are entitled not to have us around the moment we become inconvenient, and much of current practice backs them up. Disabled people are not given any such weird sense of entitlement, and are expected to put up with each other as a matter of course, and, surprise, we <span style="font-style: italic">do</span> learn that. <br /> <br />That's a bit of a digression, but I wanted to mention it, given that I think if disabled kids could learn while heavily drugged and with screaming and peeing and the like going on around us, then non-disabled kids could learn to do so as well. Not that screaming and peeing off buildings and things are great things to be doing if you can do anything about it, but good grief I think if we could put up with that then non-disabled kids can deal with someone putting their head on their desk or softly crying. (Heck, even public-school kids can disrupt class more than that without being asked to leave. I can remember in regular school crying in class after a teacher yelled at me, and he certainly got disgusted with me but he never asked me to leave.) <br /> <br />To get back on the topic of shutdown though: <br /> <br />Basically, I'm at the stage where even <span style="font-style: italic">communication</span> requires taking enough breaks, to be able to do it at least somewhat consistently. I was just at an autism conference where those breaks were not always possible, and very soon I became unable to speak or respond to people. Very fortunately, nobody came out of the woodwork to yell at me and make snarky comments about "sleeping". Because people were willing to take the extra few minutes to leave me alone, I usually recovered my ability to type within a relatively short period of time. Had someone come at me in an aggressive manner it would have only shut me down further. <br /> <br />I'm not making these situations up, either. There's a website dedicated to this topic called <a href="http://www.shutdownsandstressinautism.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" class="postlink" >Shutdowns and Stress in Autism</a>, where they talk about a kid <span style="font-style: italic">really</span> falling asleep in response to increased pressure to do a difficult task. (That kid's pattern of shutdown is only one among many, but they're all variations on similar things.) <br /> <br />And the proper responses to a shutdown are: <br /> <br />1. Try to avoid situations that cause it in the first place, where possible. <br /> <br />2. Learn various internal ways of regulating the kind of stress that can lead to shutdown, again where possible. <br /> <br />3. (Where possible) try to avoid extra stimulation, stress, pressure, and thought. <br /> <br />4. Make controlling behavior that is directly destructive (physically injuring someone, for instance) the highest priority, all other things (including avoiding crying) will be lower priorities than that one, but possibly higher priorities than other things. <br /> <br />5. If you have to do something difficult, attempt to wait until your brain is settled and collected to do it, otherwise doing so will quite possibly just escalate the shutdown. <br /> <br />6. (for people <span style="font-style: italic">around</span> the person) don't add extra stress, pressure, or stimulation to the person unless absolutely necessary, and be prepared for just about any response if you do. Certainly don't be mean to the person. <br /> <br />So, yes, there's a place for controlling yourself and the situation, but once a person is shutting down it is disingenuous to act as if shutdown is a voluntary act and a person is simply "task-avoidant" or whatever the current trendy term was. That is a really good way to make the situation in general worse, and it's never appropriate with <span style="font-style: italic">any</span> student anyway. <br /> <br />I'm kind of baffled by the idea that because it's impossible to control someone else's actions, then it's also wrong to have them held accountable for their actions. The student did not make a choice to shut down in class, but did seem to make a choice to handle it in what's among the most efficient ways possible in a classroom (or, if it was not a choice, her body made the choice for her -- happens to me sometimes if I don't choose to do the right thing, and is always far worse to have it forced than to just do it). The teacher on the other hand chose to belittle and ridicule the student in an aggressive manner. While the original thing about trying to ruin his career was probably an overreaction, I saw nothing in the student's conduct <span style="font-style: italic">as described in the classroom</span> that was all that bad at all, and I saw a <span style="font-style: italic">lot</span> in the teacher's behavior that was extremely wrong (and not acting for the good of the class either). <br /> <br />And what seems to really be happening in this thread, is that what actually happened to the student is getting lost in favor of some people's ideologies that tell them that situations like this are always the student's problem period, because otherwise various other parts of their ideologies about the workplace and whatnot would topple over and fall apart. People seem afraid of any bad portrayal of autistic people, and thus seem afraid to admit that a lot of these situations <span style="font-style: italic">are not under the full control</span> of the autistic person in question. Some of the comparisons -- such as the idea that driving recklessly or otherwise truly endangering people is in any way comparable to laying your head on your desk in class or even crying in class -- strain credibility so much that it seems like some people are really <span style="font-style: italic">reaching</span> to make this into a story of an "autistic person using it as an excuse and avoiding taking responsibility" and not to notice or do anything about the actual injustice (or actual need to take responsibility) in the situation. <br /> <br />From the original poster's post, it seems like she's totally fine about taking responsibility, and trying to do better (although if she could never do better than that it would be no reason to throw her out of class or call security). It also seems as if the teacher is being irresponsible and not being held accountable. Therefore, it seems really obvious which one the problem currently lies with. <br /> <br />It's also just ... odd ... to see how other people's experiences play out in this one. Not all autistic people are capable of the same things in the same areas. And while I'm seeing a lot of people totally willing to, based on <span style="font-style: italic">their own experiences</span>, judge someone for not doing as well as they would in a particular situation, based on <span style="font-style: italic">my</span> experiences it's very hard to judge her because I probably still don't have her degree of self-control. (Maybe more so in emotional matters, but shutdown hits me and I can do very little about it other than the bare minimum necessary to avoid doing anything dangerous, and that bare minimum has only been consistently met recently.) And this is with my having dedicated my entire adult life to learning better methods of self-control, and succeeding a good deal. <br /> <br />So... yeah. I'm just not seeing the "let's all claim the autistic person is deliberately doing all these things and not taking responsibility" picture that other people claim to be seeing.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row2"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>history_of_psychiatry</b></span></td> <td class="row2" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2008 1:57 pm<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">Teoka, Don't take what that dude Crawford or whatever u said his name is seriosly. He's just a highschool teacher. Anyone can go through some college and become a minimum wage earning "babysitter". Teachers only know what they teach out of their textbooks. Many of their students have much more intelligence than they do. Your teacher was probably just mad that everyone's parents make more money than he does and he took the anger out on you. You should really feal sorry for him.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:58 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">That is so true and so typical of what anyone who has a neurological disorder has to deal with. The nature of it being neurological means that we cannot deal with the same situations in the same way as the NTs. <br />The same sort of things happened to me in school as well. The way you wrote about this is very detailed and insightful. Teachers, in my experience, can be very insensitive. <br />Good news is, once you get to college, things might go better. Things went better for me in college. <br />Just keep looking toward your future! <br />Best wishes.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row2"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>dongiovanni</b></span></td> <td class="row2" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 3:38 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">From Katie's perspective, which may very well be biased, I don't see how Herr Crawford could be construed as the good guy. Could Katie have handled the situation better? Probably. That doesn't change the fact that the man acted in a manner that (to me) seems like he was just trying to be demonstrative of his authority. He insisted on essential man-handling her with the authority instead of taking the two bits of sympathy necessary to help deal with a problem at its source and work constructively. While Katie could have stood down and maybe should have (I don't think so, but...), she did not turn the situation into an antagonistic one; he did. His inaction would have prevented the conflict, whereas it required action by Katie (action that was not morally required) to end the conflict. It seems that from Katie's description that her crying was not a problem until the teacher made it a problem. So for the teacher to put an ultimatum on the situation was certainly uncalled for. Also, for him to completely disregard her AS the way that he did was also morally reprehensible. That would effectively be the ethical equivalent of a physical education teacher shaming a kid with a broken leg for his mile time, saying, "I don't care what shape your leg's in." <br /> <br />Again, why the sectarianism? It saddens me. We're never going to make any progress as a community if we are always (a) giving society the benefit of the doubt and (b) if we adopt the mentality that we have a job to make ourselves compatible with society rather than society accommodating us.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>traveller011212</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:02 pm<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody"></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>nontrivial wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">Teoka - I'm going to take what will probably be an unpopular stance here and say that I have to side with your teacher and your school on this one. I'm not saying that you deserved to be humiliated in front of your classmates, or that your teacher handled the situation as well as he possibly could. But if you want to go to a regular school and live among the NTs, you have to be prepared to work with people who don't understand your condition. You can't shut down and stop cooperating when someone is unable to address a situation in the particular way you want it addressed. <br /> <br />As an Aspie who wants to be a teacher (and has taught a few classes with younger students), I can tell you that having a crying student in class makes it impossible for a teacher to conduct class effectively. Whether you think other people care or not (and it sounds like some did in your situation, thank goodness), this creates a distraction for the other students and for the teacher. It sounds to me like Crawford tried to remedy the situation in the most natural way possible, which was to have you go see your counselor. (If I'd known that you didn't like your counselor, I might have simply asked if you wanted to step outside for a few minutes, but teachers in some schools don't have that option - school rules. And I would guess Crawford didn't know that you don't like your counselor.) You weren't doing your work anyway, so he probably wondered what the point was in keeping you in class. And he probably felt he was doing you a favor - a lot of students don't like to be seen crying in class. I know I didn't when I was a kid. <br /> <br />I don't know what you mean by "making an example" of him - for all I know, you could be thinking lawsuit - but I would ask you to try to see things from the school's perspective and the teacher's perspective. A school can have thousands of students (and a teacher hundreds), each of whom has a different neurological/psychological situation. Since we've learned about lots of different mood disorders, learning disabilities, etc. in the last few decades, more and more students are getting diagnosed - and that means more IEPs for the teachers to deal with. We can ask teachers to be sensitive and to use their best judgment, but we can't reasonably expect any teacher to be fully familiar with the entire cornucopia of disorders that are out there - especially AS, which means different things to virtually every person who has it. Similarly, we can ask schools to try to provide safer environments for people with neurological disorders (special classes, alternative campuses), or we can ask them to give us the chance to try to go to school with the general population - but we can't expect them to be "tolerant" of us when we disrupt classes and prevent other students from learning. Again, I know you thought you weren't much of a disruption... but as a teacher who has had students have meltdowns in his class, I've never seen a meltdown that wasn't disruptive. <br /> <br />It sounds like your teacher didn't handle the situation in the most sensitive way possible, and for that he's partly culpable, but I don't think that going to war against this guy is going to help things at all.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br /> <br />A student throwing a fit does not give a teacher the right to do the same</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row2"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>traveller011212</b></span></td> <td class="row2" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 9:59 pm<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">Not just the teacher or the school is at fault. <br /> <br />We are all told that different is scary and should be either hidden or ignored. <br /> <br />The IEP or whatever its called should have taken into account meltdowns that also included the fact that sometimes you are too far gone to move, or at least move very far. If your teacher wanted you out of the way he should have at least pretended to be your friend and comfort until you were outside the door. If not, assigned you a buddy or two in each room to help you on those days. <br /> <br />Also, you should feel like your councelor is your best friend and biggest advocate. Though you should not depend on him or her, you should always feel not only welcome, but also safe. Even if you had no reason for melting down (ie. you were NT) your teacher and school admin. acted in a VERY inappropriate manor. My wife deals with children as her job, including several with AS, autism, and some who are undiagnosed something. She and her colleagues manage to conduct a normal (as in NT) classroom that is fully integrated where despite disruptions they can still both treat the child with respect and the rest of the class can still learn.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>Pandora</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:25 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">I wonder that too. Maybe it's because we tend to be perfectionists, but I've also seen many examples of being overcritical in the jobs thread. It's unreasonable to expect a child of say 15 to behave like a 30 year old or older. The teacher was the adult in this situation and although I can see he would have been concerned about the whole class, he could have handled the situation much better than he did. <br /> <br />I'm a parent and would have been very angered if a teacher treated any of my children like that and I found out about it. This would be regardless of whether they had Asperger's or not. The fact that this teacher was already told Teoka had AS makes his conduct all the more reprehensible. <br /> <br />Given that his behaviour was influenced by ignorance, I wouldn't think he should be summarily dismissed but a severe caution would have been appropriate. <br /> <br />I also believe there needs to be a plan for dealing with similar incidents in the future: eg. establish a safe area Teoka can retreat to when she is overwhelmed.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row2"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>Kalister1</b></span></td> <td class="row2" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:22 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody"></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>velodog wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">Teoka I'm with nontrivial on this one. You were asked if you wanted to see your Counselor and I can't help but think that things would have gone much smoother if you had. As far as his yelling goes you can't control him, only yourself. You are training for the rest of your life and you will not be able to have a career if you are not willing to take steps to minimize the disruptive effects of your meltdowns. I like your posts because you come across as a thoughtful, intelligent person. I'm sorry this happened but if Aspies want to be looked at as equals in the work force, then Aspies will need to work with the world as it is and not as we would like it to be.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br /> <br />I agree with you 100%</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>dongiovanni</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 3:17 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody"></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>fabshelly wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">Crucify him.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br /> <br />*ahem* <br /> <br />Lass ihn Kreuzigen. <br /> <br />(Imagine the Torba from St. Matthew here.) <br /> <br />Seriously, the revolutionary in me is getting really charged up. There is no justification to how that teacher reacted. It's just... argh. Well, it's conducive to creating a stratified society, so until said stratification ends, there will be no just treatment of aspies. I definitely agree with Pandora: we need aspie unity. Why is it that autistics seem to be more critical of each other than of society? What end does that serve?</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row2"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>Pandora</b></span></td> <td class="row2" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:37 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody">I must admit to being astounded by the amount of negativity, finger pointing and blame directed towards Teoka. Unfortunately, I have also been in the situation of being pushed into a corner and eventually "losing it". <br /> <br />Are all of you who replied so negatively Aspies yourself? If so, shame on you. If not, the same applies. You can't expect adult behaviour of a young girl who is still learning about life. The way her teacher handled the situation was quite unprofessional. <br /> <br />I do agree Teoka would have been better to leave the classroom but she should have been given a different option to seeing her counsellor - I would suggest being sent to see the school nurse or to lie in the sick room would have been best. <br /> <br />It really annoys me when people who should understand ie. other aspies are even harder on us than the NTs who some of us disdain. Remember the old saying: "united, we stand: divided, we fall".</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="22%" align="left" valign="top" class="row1"><span class="name"><a name=""></a><b>minzrel</b></span></td> <td class="row1" height="28" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td width="100%"><img src="http://wrongplanet.cachefly.net/modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/icon_minipost.gif" width="12" height="9" alt="Post" title="Post" border="0" /><span class="postdetails">Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 5:59 am<span class="gen"> </span> Post subject: </span></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><span class="postbody"></span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>nontrivial wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">Teoka - I'm going to take what will probably be an unpopular stance here and say that I have to side with your teacher and your school on this one. I'm not saying that you deserved to be humiliated in front of your classmates, or that your teacher handled the situation as well as he possibly could. But if you want to go to a regular school and live among the NTs, you have to be prepared to work with people who don't understand your condition. You can't shut down and stop cooperating when someone is unable to address a situation in the particular way you want it addressed. <br /> <br />As an Aspie who wants to be a teacher (and has taught a few classes with younger students), I can tell you that having a crying student in class makes it impossible for a teacher to conduct class effectively. Whether you think other people care or not (and it sounds like some did in your situation, thank goodness), this creates a distraction for the other students and for the teacher. It sounds to me like Crawford tried to remedy the situation in the most natural way possible, which was to have you go see your counselor. (If I'd known that you didn't like your counselor, I might have simply asked if you wanted to step outside for a few minutes, but teachers in some schools don't have that option - school rules. And I would guess Crawford didn't know that you don't like your counselor.) You weren't doing your work anyway, so he probably wondered what the point was in keeping you in class. And he probably felt he was doing you a favor - a lot of students don't like to be seen crying in class. I know I didn't when I was a kid. <br /> <br />I don't know what you mean by "making an example" of him - for all I know, you could be thinking lawsuit - but I would ask you to try to see things from the school's perspective and the teacher's perspective. A school can have thousands of students (and a teacher hundreds), each of whom has a different neurological/psychological situation. Since we've learned about lots of different mood disorders, learning disabilities, etc. in the last few decades, more and more students are getting diagnosed - and that means more IEPs for the teachers to deal with. We can ask teachers to be sensitive and to use their best judgment, but we can't reasonably expect any teacher to be fully familiar with the entire cornucopia of disorders that are out there - especially AS, which means different things to virtually every person who has it. Similarly, we can ask schools to try to provide safer environments for people with neurological disorders (special classes, alternative campuses), or we can ask them to give us the chance to try to go to school with the general population - but we can't expect them to be "tolerant" of us when we disrupt classes and prevent other students from learning. Again, I know you thought you weren't much of a disruption... but as a teacher who has had students have meltdowns in his class, I've never seen a meltdown that wasn't disruptive. <br /> <br />It sounds like your teacher didn't handle the situation in the most sensitive way possible, and for that he's partly culpable, but I don't think that going to war against this guy is going to help things at all.</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody"> <br /> <br />Thank you nontrivial for writing this as early in the thread as you did. It is an adult viewpoint on a pubescent girls' crying in class with a male teacher. Similar scenarios including slamming of doors and girlfriends defending the subject against the school, the adults and the system were common with many NT girls and both male and female teachers in my school when we hit puberty. This has nothing to do with AS, it is used as an excuse, making us all look bad.</span></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" height="1" class="spaceRow"><img src="modules/Forums/templates/subSilver/images/spacer.gif" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></td> </tr> </table>
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Asperger's is not a disease
