Aspies + School?

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Do you mean primary/secondary school or college/university? For me it was a BIG difference:

Primary: so-so/good b/c of homeschooling than private school for diabled kids
Secondary: "hate is an understatement"
College: I LOVE IT

For me, I had my good years and bad. years.


Grade 6-the bullying got bad. One bully decided it would be fun to chuck pennies at me and I was shunned by many.
Grade 7- Some kids were cruel, but at the same time, most people left me alone. The teachers were great, and alot of times I got my own little corner in the back of the room, and I got to do assignments when I felt like doing them. I did well in most of my classes because I wasn't forced into an arbitrary box. We also went to Kananaskis and Banff and did alot of tobogganning and outdoor activities.
Grade 8-Neutral year. Some good teachers and some not so great teachers. For the most part I loved drama class. Although it wasn't structured, the teacher kept the bullies under control. Math was hard, but I made it and some classes were boring but I did ok in the end.
Grade 9-Not so great. A great teacher left for maternity leave and we were stuck with an ahole who let the other kids gang up on me. Although I hated math, the teacher was really nice to me. English class was fun too since the teacher let us do alot of creative writing.
Grade; 10-a bad year-I was bullied in grade 10 social. The teacher looked like a hooker too. The rumours started flying and I took to hiding in the student centre during breaks to avoid the taunts. I loved math class which was taught by our vice principal. There was NO BULLYING in that class. She threatened the bullies with kneeling or cleaning the whole school top to bottom and if a bully bugged me she said I had her permission to give them a good licking.
Grade 11-more bullying- CALM class was full of bullies and my english teacher was bully too, but luckily she went on maternity. Physics was hard but I passed and the same went for math. I took grade 11 and grade 12 honours social studies that year and did well in that class. I loved history and politics.That was my favourite class.
Grade 12- English was better. The new teacher was nice. had to take math 30 applied since I failed math 30 pure.I also failed physics 30 but took a bunch of law courses to make up for it. There was some bullying in PE but not much. At the end of it all, I am glad I persevered to the end.

College....It was ok, but not the best. I loved the classes and the instructors were great and they were passionate about what they taught. It was challenging too but fun. The other paralegal students shunned me and hung out in their cliques. They nvited me out once or twice but I think that was os they could get ammo to use against me. I was oblivious to the fact that they were saying stuff about me behind my back, but luckily I have a friend and classmate who looked out for me and told me what was happening and coached me a bit on social skills. He is from El Salvador and is close to attaining Canadian citizenship. I helped him out in school and now he is helping me and coaching me on some things. I have not come out of the closet with respect to AS, but the fact he understands my quirks and is helping me in that aspect is all I need.

Last edited by Tory_canuck on 25 Aug 2010, 3:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have PTSD from public school.

I've started to truly love school when I specialized in literature/linguistics and even more when I went to university. I used to love it when I was a young child also, because I am a lifelong student who loves learning. Knowledge has always been more important than the rest.

I hated primary school, but secondary school is okay, I guess.

Used to hate it when I was there... now I miss it, lol. I liked some aspects though-our school had an artsy group full of very quirky people who just accepted everyone with open arms, and I was part of that-same with band. Sure, we had jocks and all that, and I'd get picked on here or there, but I had 100 people I knew fairly well walking around the school, too, so could always just hang out with one of them if I wanted to.

My school might be an exception in that the curriculum at my school is apparently much more challenging than in other schools. I felt like the stuff I learned at my school is very much applicable to the real world. I participate in different discussion groups outside of school, and I was able to apply the stuff I've learned in class in the group discussions. My school is amazing. If I went to any other school, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.

I hated elementary school and the 7th grade because the bullying was constant. In the 2nd grade, my teacher ended up going on maternity leave, and the teacher I ended up with was a major bully, to the point where my mom still couldn't stand her to this day. The bullying by classmates didn't really stop until my family moved, and I got to go to another middle school for the 8th grade. It got better so by the time I was in high school, I actually liked school because I had a small group of friends who were also band geeks. College, I loved because people are even more accepting of differences than those who went to my elementary school.

Not neutral or hate it, but somewhere inbetween.

Apart from the negative part of bullying; what EXACTLY was the point of spending years in school learning stuff, most of which you have zero use for in life? School is supposed to train you for life, not to force you to learn/do pointless things.

I learned nothing about law - something which is crucial in society, nothing on basic psychology, nothing on how to find a job and do on interviews, nothing on how to find a girlfriend since that is supposed to "come natural". All that stuff i had to learn myself because some dickhead once decided that my time was spent best learning how to kick a stupid football!

And some stuff i still haven't figured out... I wish someone would write a manual for life, someone who realises that things do not come naturally for everyone, then start handing that out in schools.

i am not going to vote in the poll, because my answer depends on what stage of schooling we are talking about...

Kindergarten through 12th grade (i am a United Statesian, i understand that the system is different in other countries) was mostly horrible for me. socially i did not fit in well and i was picked on a lot. because i got the message that it was not "cool" to complain to teachers or other authorities, i instead tended to find other kids who seemed even more "out of it" socially than i was, and tease and make fun of them. then they would complain, and i would get a reputation for being at least a verbal bully (things rarely got to the physical, as i pretty much knew i was at a disadvantage in that realm). understand, i am NOT proud of the way i treated those who i saw as my social inferiors, i just did not see any better way at the time to make myself feel any better about all the crap i was taking from those at the top of the social heap.

as far as academics in K-12, it seemed like one of two things was usually the case...there were the subject areas i was good at (mostly humanities and social sciences) and i was usually way AHEAD of everyone else in these areas and so found the material boring. Then there were the subject areas i was not good at (mostly math and natural sciences) where i was often so far behind, or struggled so much, that i ended up feeling stupid and frustrated.

College and grad school, on the other hand, were MUCH better both socialy and academicaly...socially, there was much greater variety and diversity and not as much of the narrow "cliquishness" of high school. at last i didn't have to try to be a "jock," or a "bad ass, heavy metal listening, hard partying person," or whatever...i got involved in progressive political activism and counterculture and finally felt like i "belonged" with the people i became close to.

as far as academics, i was able in college and grad school to focus on the subject areas that i had the skills to handle well, and only took the bare minimum of math and natural science courses. And, the material in the humanities and social sciences was MUCH MUCH MUCH more interesting and challenging!

I'm pretty neutral on the overall experience. Can't say I miss it, though.

Excellent idea! There should be lessons for Aspies about life skills and understanding other people.

Yeah - I have written some for my autie son. There are some books out there for this too. Very good ones. Only problem is that the schools think the regular curriculum is so important and special that they can't take any away to make room for the life skills lessons and if you are aspie then you are too smart to need life lessons and have to get all the "important" college prep stuff in Aarghhh!

I really felt like I off to prison. I couldn't handle the bright lights, the constant bullying, the teachers who didn't help me (they thought my learning difficulties were due to laziness), and I found it to be a waste of learning. I found the real world to be quite different from school and I had wished they taught us more about that than the academic crap for those able to afford college. No one taught me how valuable social skills were in applying for jobs.

On another note, there were many subjects I liked. It was also an escape from my already dull world. But right around the year I was graduating, I had to be hospitalized for seizures and self inflicted wounds. The stress was too much but I'm kind of glad I got out there and experienced a setting full of people as tough as it was. They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If I had been homeschooled I probably would've been completely clueless about how to behave appropriately around people.