Being successful as a teacher with mild autism

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Well, it's been a struggle, but I'm finally teaching full-time at a detention center. I wonder if I'm going to keep my new job, though. The kids seem to HATE me. I'm guessing it's because I'm rigid and not emotionally responsive to their needs; it might look to them like I don't really care, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm just struggling putting together this behavior puzzle the kids and society like to present me with. Now, I'm kind of grateful for defiant behaviors, because they model for me appropriate ways to interact outside of work, but they're also annoying and sometimes hard to deal with.

This is what I've learned so far:

If a kid makes fun of you or seems to be talking back to you, it's time to enact a punishment. I usually warn the child once or twice and correct him or her on the off chance that it might have just been a mistake.

Kids act out when they feel threatened so try to keep correction private and appropriate to the misbehavior. I'm not exactly clear on how to privately correct a student who is publicly acting out, but maybe I will eventually get it.

Kids also act out when they are bored or frustrated, so make sure the material is easy to understand but just challenging enough to keep the students' interest. Also, throw in a fun activity now and then.

What I haven't figured out:

I'm "boring" and apparently I have some weird physical actions. I walk funny and don't dress well.

Well...I'm sill waiting for someone to reply to this...

Why am I being ignored?

And another important rule: Be ruthlessly consistent in the application of rules. If they find you sometimes enforce a rule and sometimes don't, or enforce it on some people but not others, nothing will ever stabilize.

I've had lots of autistic professors, some of which were respected and popular and some were not.

Can you describe what this not dressing well thing entails? One professor I had dressed in sweatshirts and generally looked like the cleaning lady during non-teaching hours but then when teaching would choose one of two dresses which were very bright, and more suitable for an office party. I could hear the male students making fun of her where she couldn't hear them. She wasn't the kind of person where you could give her a hint or stick up for her. She was Intimidating, but very nice if you were respectful and tried very hard.

As for the walking and physical actions- I had another professor who passes with the other students but not with me (I study autism in adult professionals). He makes a point to move his arms when walking around other people, but I have caught him walking with rigid arms and bouncy feet (heels not completely touching the floor or toe-walking) when he thought no one was looking.

That same professor has a droning, monotone voice. He will move his hands while he talks, which takes people's attention away from his face and brings levels to his speech that he doesn't get with his voice alone. He will also put "hard breaks" into his speech when he sees people looking away or doing things other than paying attention to him. So he'll be in the middle of a point and just stop talking and ask, "Are there any questions?" or "Am I talking too much?" It works REALLY well. I generally look around the room at other people when he is talking so I can see the reaction and he commands attention with his tricks.

Hi, I'm a teacher too. I would give you advice, but I am still figuring it out. I will say that I dress very neatly, in teacher-like clothing and dress shoes, and I wear make-up for the day. I do this on purpose, so that the students feel comfortable. They need to feel comfortable to make themselves vulnerable to learning. I go home and change into my normal clothes

I read a bunch of articles and books a few months ago about something called 'restorative practices', which changed two of my three classrooms a lot. The third didn't really improve; all I can do is prepare a highly visual lesson, chew gum, and help students one-on-one. Because I can't seem to compete for their attention, no matter what.

Well, I wish you luck. We can trade things we learn if you want.

Sometimes when a student is acting out publicly I will say something like "I will have a conversation about this with you later" and that usually shuts things down and when I do get a chance to talk one-on-one they are ready for the conversation and have had a chance to get their thoughts together. Or if a students tries to derail teaching by asking inappropriate or irrelevant questions I have learned to say, "if you would like to talk about that one-on-one later I can, but now is not an appropriate time."
Good luck and keep the anecdotes coming!

Maybe I'm judging myself unfairly, but I can't figure out how to dress well. I've tried a few things, including hiring an online stylist. Clothes and I just don't seem to get along. I can find outfits that are "cute" and get me compliments, but there's always something wrong with the way I wear it in general. For example, I've gotten a little on the plump side and tried to dress to hide it, but quite a few people at work have asked me if I was pregnant! That's pretty embarrassing. I also walk with an odd gait. The kids imitate me a lot for their amusement; it upsets me. I often go through the day feeling somewhat incompetent.

On top of all of my challenges, the class is by nature "boring," because it's credit recovery, and most of the students' assignments are on the computer. Doing group lessons would be a real challenge, because everyone is working on different subjects. The kids are also pretty difficult; it's a detention center, so the kids are dealing with a lot.

Got plenty of teaching experience myself. The more "bad-ass" you are the more you are respected (and I mean like being able to lay down some Bruce Lee on everybody if necessary kind of bad-ass).

Anyway, you have to understand, you are in a position where you are supposed to be a role-model. When someone makes fun of you, show them how to handle such a situation by gracefully ignoring the distraction, for sometimes these things happen to the students, and they might need to be shown a better example of how to react than when they did when they were on the receiving end.

You also note down a student's name and keep track of which ones you need to correct privately, have them stay after class to see you in your office, then you will have some time available to let them know what's up privately.

Some of the most-effective/popular-teachers that I've had were the ones who knew how to make games out of the assignments. Also, make them move, like literally have them move around the class for your games if necessary, instead of having them sit in one spot, like at their desk all day. The more you can get them to move, the more you will have their attention, and you can do this by semi-mirroring some of those board-games where the students themselves are the board-pieces.

You can do things like get fluffy dice to determine who goes next, how far around the room they get to move, have them "compete" for "championship" titles of who was able to remember the most "correct" answers (and I put that word in quotes because I believe that lot of the BS taught in schools is erroneous indoctrination), set it up in a manner as to where they compete for points, that they can then exchange for "upgrades" for their characters, such as double-rolling of dice, well, you being an Aspie should be able to come up with some good designs for a fun game, but if not, just let me know what kinds of things you're teaching and I can lay out some possible examples for you in more detail.

That's a good suggestion. I could maybe make a game idea like that work. It would take a lot of preparation, though, because I would have to quiz one kid on Algebra, another on Trigonometry, and another on percentages and fractions.

I also like the suggestion about letting kids move around the room; the only problem with that is I'm not allowed to let more than one kid out of his or her seat at a time, and I try to discourage movement as much as possible because of the detention setting. The officers also don't like to see the kids move around a lot.

Ignoring bad behavior only seems to make it worse; that's one of the only reasons I've started responding at all. I guess I kind of seem to lack common sense in some of these situations. At first, I tried to ignore it, but the kids acted like I couldn't hear them and continued to say very rude things. Then I decided to show the students that it was inappropriate by pretending to get upset, (which I learned later was the exact opposite of what I should have done). Now, I try not to ignore rude comments, but I try not to attach emotion to it when disciplining students. Disciplining students is still really tricky, though. For example, even though the rules say "no talking," I don't want to punish a child who is crying in class about not being able to go home; I think that would be cruel.

It sounds like you have a really rough bunch, and a single response won't work for all the students the same.

Do the students come every day, or do they rotate in and out? If they return every day, or every other day, etc., then I would say the best strategy would be to get to know each student very well. Let them know that you're not going to disappear on them, and you're not going to reject them. They likely haven't had a consistent adult presence/support in their life, and you are in the unique position to offer that to them.

If they're seated, get down on a knee or sit next to them (if you're allowed). Look at them at eye level and just talk to them, about math or about something else (I often talk about my cat, and this seems to disarm a lot of students). If you can make eye contact, do it, but if you can't just be consistent with your gaze and aim it in the direction of the student, even if you need to look down while you speak. Some of the students won't be able to look back, and some will over-react and purposefully reject you. But this is a beginning stage of accepting adult support. I've found that the gesture resonates with the student regardless of their first response, and they gradually respond more positively. It sometimes takes a LOT of time/repetitions; just be consistent. And of course, when you do this strategy with one student, they all want it, so it sprouts a minor uprising in the moment. But you can get to everyone by the end of the week or month, and once the students see that you want to connect--even if you connect in a very different way from anyone they've ever met--they will be grateful.

I think of course it might not work with everyone, but it will help, and I have a feeling that your clothes and your gait won't matter once the students learn to trust that you want to help them.

It's not easy! For me, it takes many months to get to a point of mutual trust, and I attribute this delay to my various ASD issues. But it's possible, and I'm hoping to get quicker and better at it every year.

I think that rule that they restrict you to is bad if you have a more effective method of teaching. I suppose you could turn it into somewhat of a "relay" game, such that one of the "captives" (ahem, I mean, students) goes and writes the first part on the board for some equation, then he passes the fuzzy dice to the next student to continue where he left off, letting several students take turns getting out of their seats to contribute towards succeeding through an assignment together.

You can even give them points and options as to how to use those points (like in a video game where they are the characters), such as the option to pass, spending points to re-roll their dice, spending points to be able to pick a specific other student whom they want to continue their equation, etc. This way, everybody feels like they are playing a game together, and you can section out the board into different math-categories if necessary.

Students of the algebra-category would go write in the algebra-section, trig-students in the section for trigonometry, etc. Also give them the option to be able to help their other students out, such as bonus points for helping to fill out an equation for another team-member's section. You can even ask your students to help contribute towards designing the game in such a manner that they think they might find to be more fun. Younger students learn best and enjoy it most when it's fun. Use a timer and give a limit as to how much out-of-seat time they are allowed (you can use an app that has a stopwatch with repeating timers that beep if you set it to repeat-mode for something like, say, every 30 seconds or minute).

I've also been having issues keeping things organized. A lot of grading and other paper work goes unfinished. I'll be honest; I haven't tried that hard, because I didn't know what to try. My supervisor has commented on my lack of organization, though. I've consulted my doctor for help.