Seriously P*ssed Off.

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I'm fairly good at English. I'm in one of the two top classes of my year, and I always try hard because I really enjoy the subject and I love to read and write.

Every year, we are each required to perform a talk to the class, and although this has never been a strong point of mine for obvious reasons, I've always tried my hardest to deliver unique, high-quality, and interesting content through my talks. This talk will count towards my exam result next year, and while typically unhappy about being required to talk, I was still determined to try. Until I read the f*****g criteria.

One major contributing factor to the mark I'll receive is that I must "show good understanding of non-verbal communication and engage the audience with good FACIAL EXPRESSION and eye contact".

...

Why the f**k do I even bother trying at all? I put SO MUCH f*****g effort into this subject, and not only that, but I put an equal amount of effort into becoming less socially-anxious and improving my social skills. Nothing I do, NOTHING, is ever good enough for anyone. I have only just gotten to a stage where I'm comfortable using any facial expression in front of other people at all, and I am now expected to be 100% perfect?!

I am SERIOUSLY contemplating dropping out of school next year. Hell, it's unlikely any qualifications I attain will improve my chances of employment anyway! People are tested on the "suitability" of their personalities, and "excellent communication skills" are fast becoming a standard requirement for so many jobs, and those in charge of our education system seem perfectly happy to go along with it.

If you have an official diagnosis of anything on the spectrum, bring this to the attention of the instructor as this is specifically not a valid requirement of a composition course and also explicitly one of the defining characteristics of a recognised disability... they would not expect a paraplegic to stand at the podium and use posture as part of the grading criteria.

If you do not have an official diagnosis you may be SOL as they may not be able to legally make "reasonable accommodations" for stuff that is not documented (unless someone else in the class is diagnosed AS/ASD/PDD-NOS etc).

Yes, some of the course requirements do seem unreasonable. It sounds like you are in high school, or a college or university. Perhaps you should change over to a vocational training school. They focus more on actual hands on training in real world jobs. With regular colleges and universities this is not so much the case. Instead they teach courses that may or may not have any real bearing on real world jobs. People often have trouble finding work in the fields they want after going through college/university, and are often left with a big school debt to pay, but no real practical training for real world jobs. The vocational training schools prepare you for real jobs in the real world, so their graduates tend to have better luck finding jobs. There are many vocational training courses out there. These are some, but not by any means all of them:

> Nursing
> Computer related
> Beautician
> Office work
> Accounting
> Car and truck repair
> Electrician
> Plumbing
> Air conditioner and heating repair

And there are many more. Vocational school might be a better fit for you, so look into it.

Hope this helps!

"Excellent communication skills" is often domain specific. If your career direction is with one of your special interests you might be able to do well.

Having good communication skills has always been an important part of what employers look for. Another important thing that the vast majority of employers are looking for is education, so you're certainly not doing yourself any favors if you drop out next year. You say your future employment is already limited by your troubles with facial contact/eye contact, why limit yourself far more profoundly by dropping out of school? You're right, people skills are important in getting a job, but you can always improve on these, and you'll only make yourself far, far less employable if you drop out of school.

And as far as this English presentation goes, you talk about how you've done your best to provide good content in past presentations? How have they gone? I expect that engaging the audience/eye contact/etc. was a criterion in the past. And it's surely not the only criterion this time, is it? And I'm guessing this isn't the only grade you have in the class? I highly doubt if you do a poor job of engaging the audience/eye contact/etc. that it will sink your grade.

Okay, DON'T drop out of school. You will have an unsuccessful life if you do that.

Anyway, the teacher was doing a very wrong thing making an autistic use good facial expression and body language, eye contact. Does your teacher know you are autistic, and if he/she does, will he/she make an exception? I would sure hope that teacher would ! It is unfair to make a student with autism use good facial expression when that student might not even know what good facial expression is!