Pissed off, Anxious, Confused

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I am feeling how the title says it. I am irritable towards everything, and anxious for no apparent reason (Probably school). And when I say confused, I mean I am confused about why I am anxious and pissed off.

Today at school, I got quite a large assignment. We were supposed to prepare for it by writing down the name, appearance, and function of 36 items that the teacher showed us. I had a very hard time keeping up, and got 6 mostly incomplete things down. The teacher asked to see my list, and I walked out of class, retrieved the list from the resource room, and stood outside of class looking at the paper. I wasn't reading it, just staring at it. When I went in and showed him the list, the teacher decided that I could copy some one else's list. I just walked out of class again and stared at the paper. I didn't know what to do about it, I felt that his solution would work, but at the same time I knew it wouldn't.

I couldn't make myself go in and copy the list from someone. Even if someone else copied it for me, I still couldn't have finished that assignment. The High Needs Coordinator asked me why I couldn't do it, and I said "I just can't". I honestly did feel like everything was a fail, and I couldn't do anything.

I hope that provided some information about how I feel (I am really bad at explaining my feelings, or anything else for that matter). Anyone else feel this way? Feel free to ask questions if you aren't sure what I mean about certain things there.

I completely get what that feels like. Sometimes a task that ought to be relatively simple suddenly starts to seem overwhelming and out of control, and from that point on it's a train wreck no matter what you do. You feel immense pressure to get it right, but the pressure itself makes focusing on it impossible, because all you can think about is how you HAVE to get this EXACTLY RIGHT right now, and the clock is running out. Then other people start adding to the pressure and its like there's a force field pushing back at you to prevent you from achieving the goal. There's really nothing you can do at that point but walk away, calm down, decompress and try to regain your equilibrium so you can maybe come back and fix it later. The most maddening part of it all is those other people who don't want to let you walk away and just cannot get it through their thick heads what you mean when you tell them I CAN'T.

Exactly. You have explained the feeling perfectly.

A thirteen year-old should not be expected to record the steps to a major assignment in school, whether the student is autistic or not. At that age, when the student hands the teacher an incomplete assignment, the teacher should think " I did something the student can not do" or " I need to be a reflective teacher and change". The assignment sounds too large and you sound like you are having problems grasping what is expected of you and planning what to do. What the school is doing is not acceptable. At that age it is their job to adapt to you and provide you with the skills to adapt to the adult world. I would talk to your parents or a school counselor.

I know what is expected of me. Everyone else managed to copy down at least 20 of the items. This is not an unusual assignment as our 'bigger' assignments go. Most of our big projects I do have a lot of trouble with at the start. But this is the first time the troubles have felt this way.

But no, I don't think the teacher or the curriculum is at fault. All my classmates seem to be doing fine.

It doesn't matter if your classmates are doing fine, you are not and that is all that matters.

Perhaps you might be able to talk to your teacher and co-coordinator and tell them exactly what you told us, or just print out your post and show them how this assignment made you feel and how you had problems with it. They need to know why you couldn't complete the assignment so they can find ways to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Just to play devil's advocate here, the whole point of school is to push people to do things they didn't know how to do before hand. A good teacher will try to find effective ways of pushing different students and will tailor their efforts to the individual student. Obviously a lesson that overwhelms the student will not teach them effectively and a good teacher will modify the lesson somewhat to suit particular students. But a good student will also recognize that they have to push themselves to do things that seem overwhelming at first.

I think you have a valid argument here and I don't want to imply otherwise. I recognize the problem of becoming overwhelmed with the assignment. You should discuss it with your teacher to find a method that helps you learn what is needed without overloading you. The teacher-student relationship is a two way street. The teacher needs to help the student learn, but the student needs to push themselves as well.

I guess this comment is really more a reaction to MrTeacher's comment:

While I believe this is well intentioned I just need to register my disagreement. Yes, if a teacher's assignment is obviously overwhelming a particular student, the teacher needs to look at how they might do better, but a teacher should NEVER dumb down an assignment just because a student finds it difficult. The job of a teacher is to match the level of difficulty with what the student is able to deal with and needs to learn. I know a couple of kids that age right now and I would expect them to be able to write down steps to a project and work at completing them.

Just to be totally clear: Yes, teachers need to work hard at figuring out what methods work best to effectively teach a student. But a teacher who demands too little of a student is doing that student a disservice. That teacher has stopped trying to teach and has, instead, just become a baby sitter.

Lars

The assignment appears to be rote copying down of notes and diagrams. Hence, it is already a dumbing down of school.

I remember such experiences at school, from when I was your age, It was sheer hell.