School film asperger's awarness

Post Reply New Topic

My name is Hop along I am 20 years old and have Asperger’s syndrome, I am an aspiring film maker and I am also a student in the UK I am making a short film about having Asperger’s syndrome and the school experience, I am a specialist trainer in the field of Asperger’s syndrome I visit schools, colleges and Universities to train their staff. Id like to hear about others experience of schools , Don’t feel that you have to answer all the questions some you may feel you don’t want to talk about. Thank you for your help,
NOTE that I have put this in the school/college section too.
AGE:
Special ed or mainstream school?
1. what are your most prominent memories of school?
2.What are/is your worst memory of school
3.what is /are the best memories of school
4.What was most difficult at school ?i.e making friends
5. What do you think should be in the film?

Thank you

Prominent Memories of School: Feeling rushed and confused all of the time, noise, smells
Worst memory of School: Being ganged up on by schoolmates
Best Memories of School: Graduating college in my thirties
What was most difficult at school? Math, mean kids, and teacher's saying "We went over this already. Weren't you listening?"
what should be in film? Same as what AspieGirl89 said.

20



how did the film go???????

yea good on you for SPREADING THE word!

Age: 32

Special ed or mainstream school? Mainstream school, with some special ed.

1. What are your most prominent memories of school? Thinking that school was a prison, and a big fashion show, that I've had no interest in. Getting my homework done, over my lunch period, and during my LD study block, so that I wouldn't have very much of it, to do at home. Avoiding the things that reminded me of my peers, during weekends, holidays and after school hours. That means, that I didn't have much of a life, because of that.

2. My worst memories of school, are ending up without a partner, when the kids in my regular classes were asked to pair up. I didn't like the Sped teacher that I had, in Grade 7. He wanted everybody to be a certain way, and he wanted me to be like most Canadians, which I'm still not, to this day.

3. My best memories of school were, having a Cockney for a music teacher, in the early months, of my Grade 7 year. Another memory that I like, is being out of school, for the evenings, weekends and holidays. I was a bit of a hippie, and I wanted to sit around my house, dressed in hippie fashion, working on my art, during my free time.

4. The things about school that I've found the most difficult were, 1. Dealing with the obnoxious girls, in my regular classes that I was in, 75% of the time. I'd talk about the exact same things that they were, and they'd brush me off saying, "Oh yeah...okay...whatever!" The fact that my LD teacher wanted me to be friends, with those same girls. That same teacher didn't know anything about ASDs and she presumed that I was a little slow. She also thought that I was an auditory learner, like most of the students, that she taught. She also kept me from taking Psychology, my biggest obsession, from year, to year and I wish that she didn't do that. I was visual learner. My auditory memory was next to nothing. I was able to retain visual information, 100% better. I was not slow, and I knew more about Psychology, more than I knew about anything else, and I knew a lot, about a lot of things. A lot more things, than my teachers gave me credit, for.

5. I think that real life and fictional Aspies should be featured, at the end of the film, from Albert Einstein, to Sid from Flushed Away. :O)

Age: 25
School: Mainstream Gymnasium, special ed primary school due to my seriously impaired vision.
1. Loud noises, always sneaking into places where I shouldn't be, just to get some time alone and some silence, getting constantly harrassed by classmates and people of lower grades, stupid teachers, who always either bored me or shouted at me, noises which everyone else seemed to tolerate, one painful 5+, not being able to read the text the teachers wrote on the blackboard, CS classes, which only had the disadvantage of being too short, somehow getting along with some people in the last classes...

2. My worst memories were being bullied in school constantly, once to a point that I ticked off and threw a chair at someone.

3. I think when I handed in a long 'Facharbeit' about journaling filesystems and recieved a 1+ - and visiting the public library in the time when I was supposed to just wait for the bus (I took another line, which came once an hour and claimed that it was faster and spent the time I gained by this in the public library).

4. It was always too loud and the teachers never allowed me to get a share of peace and quietness. And that I never could decipher the teachers' handwriting.

5. No idea. Maybe it should show how NTs are percieved by us...

My name is Hop along I am 20 years old and have Asperger’s syndrome, I am an aspiring film maker and I am also a student in the UK I am making a short film about having Asperger’s syndrome and the school experience, I am a specialist trainer in the field of Asperger’s syndrome I visit schools, colleges and Universities to train their staff. Id like to hear about others experience of schools , Don’t feel that you have to answer all the questions some you may feel you don’t want to talk about. Thank you for your help,
NOTE that I have put this in the school/college section too.

AGE: 51 and a half

Special ed or mainstream school? They only put "ret*d" kids in special ed when I was in school. I was functional, so I was in the same room with anyone else with an IQ over 100 who was not blind, deaf, or in a wheelchair.


1. what are your most prominent memories of school? Fear. I was always afraid. Of the teachers, of the other kids, of not knowing where I was going to be if they changed the schedule, of forgetting my homework, of not doing well enough. The noise, the crowds, the confusion. The incredible intellectual boredom.

2.What are/is your worst memory of school. Being chewed out by my band teacher in junior high school. My parents went out of town and left me and my sister, who was two years older than me, home alone. My instructions were to make sure my sister got to school on time - I was "the reliable one" and she was the flake who was likely to ditch school and go to a friend's house or sleep until noon. The band teacher called an early rehearsal, requiring that we all be at school at 6:30 in the morning. That would have meant I could not be home to make sure my sister got up and left for school on time. I was scared to death of him, but I finally got up the nerve when I met him in the hall between classes and told the band teacher my parents were out of town and that I wasn't supposed to do anything differently than normal, and that I was supposed to make sure my sister got to school on time. He asked how old she was and I told him 14, and he literally started screaming about how I'd damned well better be at rehearsal or he was going to flunk me out of that class. He went on for at least five minutes (no joke) screaming until he was red in the face about me being slacker, and how the school was giving me an instrument to play and I'd damned well better show some appreciation for that by at least showing up for rehearsals. Classes were changing at the time, so the hallway was packed. I was so scared I peed my underwear and had to go wash it out in the girls room without anyone finding out that i'd done it.


3.what is /are the best memories of school. I worked in the library in junior and senior high school. I loved being in there where it was quiet and I had first dibbs on any new books. I also got to go on a band trip, when I was 16, to the Rocky Mountains. I'd grown up in the desert and never seen the mountains, and was totally blown away. We were there on my 16th birthday and it snowed.


4.What was most difficult at school ?i.e making friends - Making myself understood and understanding the people around me. I tended to call things as I saw them, and didn't sugarcoat or buffer my reactions. That did not make me a popular person with either students or teachers. I also had a hard time with change. Once I got the hang of changing rooms for different classes, if they rearranged the schedule, or if the teacher changed when assignments were due from when she'd originally scheduled them (even if it gave me more time), it would be upsetting.



5. What do you think should be in the film? Something about how bewildering it is to be in large groups of people. The noise, all the movements, the oppression of having that many bodies crammed in so closely. That and how people tend to treat us. Both teachers and other students - and how what they think they are saying is not necessarily what we are hearing.


Good luck with it.

AGE: 22
Special ed or mainstream school?
Mainstream

1. what are your most prominent memories of school?
Too difficult to answer this one - school is all a mishmash of various detailed memories and a blur of other ones.

2.What are/is your worst memory of school
In the third grade, just about every day, the teacher was verbally abusive. And she would grab me by the arm every day (leaving bruises), drag me out into the hallway, and leave me there until I could behave. In the first place, I never had any idea why I had been behaving badly. Secondly, I didn't know what she meant by "could behave." I was/am a literalist. I could behave anytime I wanted, of course. So I just sat out there until she came and got me back into the room. It was such a devastating experience (the hallway was frightening and had really painful noises, too) that after she did it, I could never do anything functional for the rest of the day. That grade was practically a write-off and damaged me for a long time.

3.what is /are the best memories of school
Computer class was my favorite - I was very good at operating the machines, though I was terrible at typing lessons (fine motor skills?). The teacher there was so supportive and friendly to me... I never found her difficult to understand like the other teachers. Also, classmates would ask me how to do complex math problems, or the spellings or meanings of words. I thought that maybe I could be friends with them. That never actually happened, but it made me feel good that they were friendly at least at those times, and that I could do things they couldn't, which made me useful to them.

4.What was most difficult at school ?i.e making friends
Making friends was one of the two most difficult things - I just couldn't do it because I had no idea why the other children acted the way they did, or what they expected me to be like.
The other thing was understanding the teachers - since no one knew what my problem was, they treated me like a wilfull and misbehaving child, and I just had no idea what they wanted from me, why they were acting the way they were, or why I was punished. School was basically a huge pile of confusing sensory and emotional memories.

5. What do you think should be in the film?
A brief explanation of what things most AS people find hard, and the causes for this (sensory problems, motor problems, social/emotional issues). Then a brief explanation of what teachers can do to help and classmates can do to make friends with an AS student. I don't think you should focus too much on stereotypical AS behavior, because other kids might pick up on that to use for teasing.

AGE: 28

Special ed or mainstream school?
*Mainstream

1. what are your most prominent memories of school?
*Bullying, misunderstanding from teachers and isolation

2.What are/is your worst memory of school
*as above the absolute worst was being digitally gang raped in grade 3 but all the others were horrible too. Being left out all the time was so awful.

3.what is /are the best memories of school
*legal studies and some teachers

4.What was most difficult at school ?i.e making friends
*making friends, fitting in, being organised

5. What do you think should be in the film?
bullying, teaching tolerance and understanding