Teachers who don't "GET IT"

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With respect to group work, for me the problem is I did not know how and still do not know how to coordinate myself with the rest of the group. When I went to school in my day, it wasn't really a requirement that one had to do group work or have classroom participation. It was more about individual academic achievement. It seems like now we have collaborative learning. This all started changing when I was in my senior year of high school and starting college? Why did this all change?

I think there is more of an emphasis put on working with others as a business skill.

When I was young the opposite was true. Group projects were for little kids, and then later on there was more of an emphasis on individual work and accountability. it did not happen fast enough for me. In college, the business majors had to do group projects, but the rest of us did not have to deal with that, luckily for me. There may have been other majors, too, but that is the only one I am sure about. Anyone I knew did not have to deal with it, either.

I think the idea now is that in the work world you have to work with others (although the degree of this depends on the job) and there is a notion that working together is a skill in demand by employers.

I hate it, but there it is.

When working with others I feel like I have two left feet. The reason they do this is because they want to save money. It is a cost saving measure.

You state



I will have to ask why does it have to be this way? There are a lot of people in our country who hate the way the workplace is now. These are NTs. They all state the same thing you say and that is it is the way it is. Here is my opinion. It is the way it is because a good chunk of the population accepts it this way. It will continue to be this way as long as people accept. It is cyclitic in nature.

Life will be unfair and people will be in poverty as long as a good chunk of the population accepts these things as true and chooses not to do something about it, question the status quo, and challenge it. I am doing something. Right now, I am writing essays on things like Attitude and Trust.

More than likely nothing will come of it but still someone has to do something about it because evil thrives when good men do nothing. I am what you call a Ronin.

It is not always to cut costs. For example, sometimes one part of a company has to do work for another internal part of the same large company, and you need to work together to design, say a computer app, or something for the other part of the company. You need to have meetings to gather requirements for the app, you have to design and test it, etc and go through a whole process. To do that you need to work with others in the company who need the app, others who are in charge of quality control, others who are in charge of the servers etc. In another example, to save time, they may have multiple people doing parts of one big project, to get it done faster.

It isn't necessarily a "fight the system" kind of thing, it is the nature of the job in some instances.

Your daughter sounds very like how I was at school and higher education. My school reports are good, but a few say 'needs to speak up and ask questions'. I never knew what/when/how to ask, so I never did. I had developed selective mutism, but there was a little more to it than just not being able to speak. I couldn't think of what to say anyway. I've never been one for asking questions at the end of presentations, as I can't think of anything they haven't already told me (and, if I could, my shyness prevented me from speaking). On field trips, etc, I never knew what to do, that wasn't already being taken care of by someone else. I'm smart and got my degree and post grad, but I always felt like a third leg. In my youth, nobody thought to have a child assessed, unless their schoolwork was poor or their behaviour was really bad.

But, I think that teacher was out of order. She should not have been speaking like that in front of anyone. That should have been done in private and much more respectfully. The fact that she doesn't 'get' your daughter is another concern. But, if your daughter isn't quite identified yet, perhaps the teacher isn't regarding her as a child with AS. Or maybe she isn't all that educated with reagards to ASDs. Is this possible? Kids like your daughter (and me) will often be mistaken for not trying hard enough, when the other party has no inkling that something else might be going on.

I don't think the teachers get my daughter either. She only got her diagnosis a few weeks ago, so maybe it's too early to say. However, she was recognised as needing to be assessed, about 18 months ago, so you'd think they'd understand that she's not being 'lazy' or 'talking back' or 'telling tales' deliberately. We're having a meeting with the school and the ed psych in a couple of weeks (although the school have not even notified me yet, I only know because the ed psych mentioned it to me). I'm going to make it my point to impress upon them how important it is for them to recognise that my daughter has additional needs and isn't just being awkward or lazy.

Please don't let this matter rest, as your daughter's self esteem is so important and the attitude of this teacher will not help her.

Yes, I understand. All of this is fine. It does make better sense now that you break it down to me in more concrete terms.

All some people will say is it is good for the organization. They never will break it down like you have.

When people especially employers talk in abstract terms I find it difficult to understand. When the subject of emotions and feelings come up I do not know what I am supposed to do or react.

If the team consists of mostly women I have major difficulty understanding them. There are exceptions of course but they speak in a way that is more abstract and round about. I have been in meetings in which it was mostly women and they sometimes would go off the subject of the work at hand and talk about their pet dogs, their children their hair and clothes, etc. How is this adding value to the workplace? How does the work get discussed and done? If the women just stuck to the topic I believe we would've been done in half the time. It is frustrating to me. If I sound sexist then I do apologize.

This is one example I have in which I had major problems working in a team oriented environment. Even with other guys I have major problems. http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3619691.html#3619691

This is a little off-topic but as I am a woman, NT, and work for a global company in a position where I need to work with a lot of teams, I thought I would take a stab at it. (I joined this board as a parent of an AS child).

This exchange of seemingly irrelevant, personal details is not done to further the specific agenda items of the meeting.

People do it in order to get to know their teammates better. Knowing a little bit about a person's background and life situation, or winning their friendship, can help an NT team member work with another NT team member better.

For example: my close coworkers do better at avoiding meetings with me between 7:30 am and 9 am because they know I am a working mom with 2 kids to send to school. Of course, they could look in my online Calendar where I have this time blocked as Out of Office. But that is a very logical/fact based approach, and for some NT people the image of me making breakfast for my children works better.

A coworker and I know we can call each other at any time and we will not be embarrassed if our dogs interrupt the meeting with a barking session. I would spend time and effort doing something with my dog before calling a senior executive to avoid seeming unprofessional, which means I would be slower to reach out to such a person than someone I know.

Also, there are times when I know a project will move along more smoothly if someone who is not assigned to work on it, spends 15 minutes helping me with it because they have specialized knowledge of their work that I do not have. It is easier to ask someone to help if they can feel I care about them and will appreciate their work. Being able to mention personal details when I ask helps create this sort of rapport with NT colleagues (of either sex). This also works the other way. I am a top expert in my division on one topic and people are always asking me to help in this way. By making it easier for them to ask me for help, I am able to help more people in my company, which is good for the business. It is also good for me, because people I have helped, are generally happy to help me back when I am in a jam.

Regarding the abstract and round-about way of speaking - there is a workplace-appropriate way to deal with this difference in communication styles. It would be appropriate to ask your supervisor, the project leader, or the meeting organizer to send out an email which lists the main points discussed, and lists any follow up work the team members need to do. You should do so without pointing any fingers (I can't understand what the women on the team want me to do would not be an appropriate thing to say!). And there is no need to disclose your AS if this is not known to your employer.

Simply suggest that it would be great to have an email to everyone in the group after the meeting that summarizes the discussion and lists all the follow-up steps the team agreed to take. Explain this is because you want to be sure you are doing your part by doing the follow up work assigned to you, and to make sure you have not missed anything.

This will make the person you are writing to understand that you want to do all the work that is needed, which is a positive attitude. The email will not include any of the personal stuff, just the business decisions that were made or discussed in the meeting. And it will prescribe actions you should take, and other team members should take.