Where did you have the most trouble in school?

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for me, there are A LOT OF areas.

Academics: my worst were Math, English, and Social studies. Later years i had a lot of trouble in gym because i was just too lazy. the issues where the teachers spoke too much and moved too fast and i just couldnt keep up and re-tain information.

Participations: i had a lot of trouble participating with Projects and just paying attention in general, i was often day dreaming, drawing or listening to music in high school, elementary i was playing in my desk, drawing or again, day dreaming. In middle school i had actually made friends, i was so happy i constantly talked to them, so in middle school i was distracted talking to my friends, drawing or, you guessed it, day dreaming.

Social: like i said, in middle school from 5-7 i was... popular? LOL i wouldnt say that but i definitely had a clique, a group of 7 people, all sonic fans and Emos. i was really happy. Other than those 2 years i got ignored, alienated, and picked most of my school career. ESPECIALLY GRADE 8!! ! one kid came up to me and told me he was going to punch me in the face, a girl once said she had a knife and was going to stab me. I didnt get along with teachers either, not a fan of authority figures. So overall, my social life in school was always bad, but i always had one friend, who is still with me to this very day.


i had quite the meltdowns at school, once i pulled out a bunch of my hair.

i really hated school

like a lot

i DESPISE SCHOOL

WITH A BURNING PASSION

how was school for you? where were your weaknesses

Academics: I hated public speaking to the point of getting an F for every spoken assessment for refusal to do them.
Everything else was so easy that I spent most of my time being bored and trying to think of things to keep myself entertained.

Social: n/a

The school system is designed for the masses. Statistical outliers may have trouble. All I can say about school is that I did it, I survived it, and I learnt a lot of important lessons (about people, not so much about the actual subjects) that have been valuable in my later life.

It was the environment and the other kids. I was bullied to no end and expected to study in a room with talking, noise, flickering fluorescent lights and other people sitting next to and around me inside my defined bubble space.

I was an honours student and everyone might think I loved school but I HATED, HATED, HATED IT! I would go so far as to being the first in line if we were legally allowed to rip it apart piece by piece. The worst BY far was Junior High. Even being into sports and obsessed with Nintendo did not save me from being mercilessly crucified in those years. Once the 'tough black kid' who probably was partially Aspie jumped to my rescue in Grade 9 the bullying stopped, period.

Middle school had too many issues for me to describe now. But in terms of high school, my major weaknesses were History and English. With English, I just couldn't understand the material. It made no sense to me. Especially poetry. Poetry was the worst. I would read a poem and panic because I had no idea what it meant. I'd usually make up some overly logical explanation that was way off. With novels, I just couldn't see the big picture. Basically, I focused on the individual details and could never see how they joined together. Time and time again, I would get super frustrated in class when we went over homework. What I could not figure out other students figured out easily. A problem I had with both History and English was short term memory. I could never remember what was said in class. I couldn't comment on a peer's homework assignment because by the time the peer finished reading it, I'd forgotten most of it. It's very difficult to follow a conversation in class when you forget what was said three minutes ago. I couldn't participate in class discussions because I had no idea how to enter a conversation. Still don't. And the noise often times was an issue as well. Gave me major headaches.

Zombiebride, are you still in school?


Academically, because I was never really able to comprehend my teachers (especially at young ages), but enjoyed figuring out the material anyway, my largest academic problems came from teachers being upset about alternative algorithms I came up with. I never really had trouble passing coursework, but on occasion a teacher would get very upset about how I arrived at my correct answers.

I just searched for how I taught myself to subtract (the one that gave me the most trouble, despite getting all of the answers correct), and I couldn't find the algorithm I came up with at a quick search. It is similar to the "add the complements" method (I called it an "opposite" ), however I worked from left to right. I could do arithmetic rapidly and well--and somehow--that was a problem.

Socially, with teachers, I was often in trouble that actually stemmed from misunderstanding or just poor speech on my part, and consequently labeled "naughty", "lazy", or "smarta$$" because of it.

Socially, with peers, I didn't really notice that I should or could make peer friendships until I was much older. In high school, I had friends. I probably lived in a blissfully naive bubble.

Math and English were usually the worst, Gym was usually just is poor or worse often based on participation marks, I knew I was letting the team down so rather then get yelled at or humiliate myself I just stayed off the floor and let the real athletes play. English(literacy) was mandated to be at least 30% of the overall mark in every class so that fact alone meant that all of my grades were always about a level lower then my actual performance in the subject.

Boredom

My trouble area was getting along with my peers. My typical peers and I were on different planes of thought. My peers seemed to be a few years behind me in maturity. I'd be getting my work done and they'd be goofing off. I cut myself off from the NT world completely from grades 9 to 12. I wasn't going to pretend to be like my peers just to be accepted.

English was a very tough subject for me. I was in English in grades 9 and 10 and I had a very tough time. I couldn't understand the different types of humour that there were. I also couldn't understand books such as Hiroshima and Animal Farm. My typical peers in my grade 10 English class didn't think very highly of me, either. I think it was my accent and uniqueness.

I didn't have trouble with any academic subjects, in terms of learning and understanding the material. But I had trouble with following the process they wanted and getting assignments done the way teachers wanted them done.

I had trouble turning papers in on time. I hated writing a rough draft. I would figure out in my head what I was going to write and then I would just write it all down at once. They would say you wrote a wonderful paper but why didn't you write a rough draft?

If I did a math problem in my head and put down the correct answer, the teacher would take points off because I didn't show on paper how I did the problem But if I had to copy it down on paper, I would end up copying it down wrong and get points taken off for that even though I did that math correctly.

Some of my teachers treated me disdainfully because they knew I was smart and "capable of so much more" but when I didn't do things the way they wanted they took it personally, like they thought I was being rebellious. Actually I was just too rigid to do things any way other than my own.

Anytime we had to do group discussion about something in a class I couldn't really follow along. I would only hear bits and pieces of it in between spacing out. If I said anything they would all turn to stare at me like "OMG SHE SPOKE."

I had the worst trouble with PE (physical education). I couldn't do any sports. The coaches were always bullies. I was always the last person to finish running a mile, and I mean every single time, ever. It was a misery to do anything physical.

Academics: did okay in most subjects (more on that in a moment) up to a certain point in high school, where I hit a wall when it came to math and physics. In grade school, they wanted us to prepare for writing reports by putting individual facts on index cards--I HATED that, it just seemed like a pointless waste of time--just get on with writing the damn paper already.

Oral presentations: AWFUL. My low point was in the 8th grade, where in my Humanities class we had a "storytelling" unit: had to write a myth or legend and present it to the class in the manner of a semi-professional storyteller. Writing the story was fine, presenting it was quite another. I was literally petrified. Incredibly, I was permitted to tape-record it at home (and that was pretty awful too--I hate how my voice sounds on tape) and play it for the class. I sat at the front with my head turned away, I could not look at them while it was playing. Aagh (*shudders*). Incredibly, everyone said they liked my story, and made no snide remarks about how it was presented. I think it was around that time that I started to stop caring what anyone thought. Oral presentations in high school were a bit easier (though far from perfect). By the time I took a Shakespeare English class senior year, I could sword-fight with the best of them.

P.E., for the most part, was awful too...until we were rotating sports in middle school and one of them was court hockey. Having a stick in my hand seemed to make things...better. I took aerobics in high school, and my teachers didn't seem to mind that I couldn't keep up as well as some of the others (at least I tried--many didn't, they just screwed around).

Socially: all of grade school was horrible. Bullied all the time, and I couldn't figure out what was so "weird" about me that made almost everyone (including some of the teachers) hate me. My mom was there a lot, demanding answers. I felt ill almost every school day, missed a lot of days...pretty awful. Things improved slightly in middle and high school (maybe a larger student body meant I could "blend in" better, plus I met some people from other elementary schools who weren't total jerks). In high school, I hung out with some people I considered to be friends (mainly guys--we spent our lunch hours playing card games and yakking about TV shows...ah, memories ).

By the end of high school, the main reason I couldn't wait to get out were the ridiculous, restrictive rules. I was MUCH happier when college started (community college at first, then the local university while still living at home). Finally, I was treated like an intelligent adult.

Ironically (perhaps), I'm a teacher now (college undergraduate level). I enjoy learning, and teaching--it's just all of the crap that often goes along with it in K-12 that sucks.

PE and maths. in PE I was routinely spurned by both sides, so I was often sent to the office to do paperwork which I LOVED to do
wish there was the same sort of respite in math class I struggled in.

Anti-school movement and site based in Britain, Lib Ed:
www.libed.org.uk/

I wrote the article "High Learning Potential?" which lists the issues of: pressure, imposed expectations, lack of say, homework, nasty tempered teachers, and petty minded controlling rules.

School Survival seems to be the equivalent American site, www.school-survival.net/

My biggest problem was that I was disabled and gifted at the same time and my school had no idea how to handle that.

It took me hours to do a simple assignment, and I couldn't do any writing assignments because they were so difficult. Because I was so smart, teachers labeled lazy and defiant instead of realizing that I probably have a learning disability. I still don't know what it is.

Because of the pressure being put on me, the false accusations and the frustration of not being understood and believed, (plus bullying) I had pretty bad meltdowns. And those were met by abuse.

I had trouble w/ group assignments. Because I was unpopular, no one wanted to listen to my ideas, but because I was always the smartest, I ended up doing all the work. Finally, I just started ditching groups and doing it on my own my way. This was eventually written into my IEP, but instead of whittling down the project for 1 person, I, in effect, ended being punished by having to do a project meant for 3-4 ppl because I couldn't deal w/ the mistreatment. Of course, those complaints were met by school staff w/ "too bad. you don't want to work w/ ppl you gotta do it yourself". as*holes. Every issue I every had ended up that way. The school "made a allowance that other students don't get" (other students who didn't have IEPs!!) for me, but did it in a way that made things worse. as*holes. They got away w/ it cuz my parents don't have the money to sue.

I spent so much time fighting mistreatment and dealing w/ all of my issues that I got very little education.

Materials: I never had the right pen or pencil type that my teacher wanted. I often left my homework someplace. I never did it on purpose, I just often forgot things. Early on, it seemed like teachers had nothing better to do than criticize me for this. They didn't understand that it was hard for me, in the same way fractions are hard for other kids.

Teachers: I was bullied by more than one teacher. Three at my elemantary/middle school in particular. One math teacher used to call me "stupid" and "idiot" all the time, she would stand over me when I was taking a test and say "tsk tsk, are you sure that's the correct answer?" if I looked up she'd say, "Why are you looking at me, do you think the answer is on my face?" My mother wondered why in 7th grade I suddenly started doing so poorly in math.

There was this paranoid part-time church music teacher (I loved music by the way). She had some kind of problem with the vacant expression on my face. She kept saying I was giving her funny looks or rolling my eyes at her, even though I wasn't. She eventually gave me a detention for it.

I also have very bad dysgraphia. An English teacher of mine in the 5th grade used to hold me in at lunch to punish me for my handwriting by having me write lines. Even when I would get answers correct, or write a good essay, she would take points off because she believed I was just lazy. I actually just have a problem making stereotyped characters (you'd think I'd be good at it right?). One day a girl on the playground told me I wasn't allowed to drink from the same water fountain as her. Being outspoken as I typically was at that age, I said "Put a sock in it." to her and drank from it anyway. The girl said "You can't say that, I'm telling!" ...to which I responded "Go ahead, see if I care." Well, I don't know what this girl told my English teacher, but this teacher came at me yelling about how cruel I had been to her. The teacher didn't believe my side of the story and she made me write a 5-page apology to the girl. ...So I wrote a satire about people with a psychological fear of foot coverings... Needless to say this did not go over well. I was hauled into the vice principal's office where this girl was waiting, watching me with no expression while I was yelled at by this teacher and the administration both for who knows how long. No one believed me no one would listen. I couldn't believe they were letting her have her way. I tried not to cry, but I couldn't help it. I shoved my way out of there in the middle of their conversation


I was a good kid. I made some mistakes (mostly social), but I never wanted to outright hurt anyone. It was so nice to grow up and realize that the real world isn't nearly as bad as that. It's so nice not to be in middle school anymore.

I had serious behavioral problems, so I didn't really get much done.

Then I went to an approved school where I got a certificate for trampolining.

So it all worked out well in the end.

I've never been academically gifted.