Do I tell the students?

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This is my dilemma. University lecturer, expert in my field and feedback from the students is that I am a good lecturer because of enthusiasm for my subject. My colleagues know about my Aspergers, know that I have reasonable adjustments plus recognise that there are times when I will seem eccentric ... even if in old fashioned universities people would ignore such things while these days it is a human resources issue. The students do not know, in part because being an adult diagnosis (about ten years ago) I have a lifetime of practice at passing and, well, as a university lecturer being eccentric is a typecast role.

Should the students know?

Not through some dramatic revelation, yet passing is such a pain plus openness says that being on the spectrum is not something shameful. Managers and colleagues throw the question back at me, yet are supportive about the question. If I do disclose, management assure me that they will back me up if I receive any prejudice from the students and I do have a forceful, some say arrogant, enough attitude to ignore problems. Yet, well you know that should and reality are divergent. Has anybody else been in this situation or opted to disclose? What happened? Are there any problems that do not occur to me?

In my experience, if a student is going to harass/make fun of a teacher they are going to do it regardless. I think that having a teacher that is openly autistic and is spreading some, hopefully positive, images of autism to the public would be a good thing. I don't teach but I have been open about my autism with my patients, some refuse to deal with me after finding out, some have asked me about it but mostly people just continue on like nothing is different because nothing is different.

Really it boils down to what you feel comfortable with and how mature you expect your students to be.

I would say definitely not. The only exception might be in private to a student you know well who was officially registered as such with disability services.

> "management assure me that they will back me up"

I wouldn't trust that assurance for one second.

Sounds like an excellent way to help them make your life hell.

In an ideal world, yes, of course.

In this world, no, definitely not. People tend to use whatever means possible to get what they want. If there were to be a situation in which a student knew this information and argued that you were unfair in some way they might use your diagnosis as proof to support the argument even if it was wrong. People are mostly sh***y. Parents are worse. Pardon my pessimism.