(In biology class we are discussing genetics.)
Teacher: “If you have a brown dog and a white dog, what color puppies will you most likely get?”
Classmate: “Well, you would certainly not get kittens”
(I am in a PE class. It is a school where most of the students like playing soccer and there are a few that don’t – including myself. The teacher assumes most of us know what to do but still shows demonstrations.)
PE Teacher: “Okay, [Student], do a solar run.”
(Student #1 ran down the field staring at the sky and having the position of a solar panel with his arms stretched out and his head face up. When he came back we were still laughing and he didn’t understand why!)
(I teach Irish in secondary school. This happens in class, when I call on a male student.)
Me: “Okay, can you translate this sentence? Bhí ar na daltaí dul amach. Remember, ‘bhí orm’ means ‘I have to’.”
Student: “Er… I had everyone?”
(Laughter.)
Student: “Wow, that came out wrong!”
Me: “Rothar an bhaile, nach ea?”
(Thank god they didn’t realise that I just called him the town bicycle!)
(I’m in secondary school and am on the autistic spectrum. I’m usually quiet and co-operative but I’ve sometimes run into trouble for refusing to do things I think are pointless. I’ve been nagged into attending a lunchtime group for special needs pupils. After I’ve attended for a few weeks the staff decide to create a rule where the special needs students are made to read aloud to a staff member in front of everyone else. I decide this rule is unfair and discriminatory for several different reasons, mainly the fact that no non-disabled student is forced into any activity during free time. I refuse to read while otherwise behaving properly. This leads to conflict. One day I enter the room and take out my lunch. The second I sit down a staff member approaches me and leans over me in a confrontational and aggressive way.)
Staff Member: *drops fairytale book on table in front of me* “Read. Now.”
Me: “I’m still eating my lunch.”
Staff Member: *shouting* “NOW!”
Me: “I am still ea-”
Staff Member: “GET OUT!”
Me: “I’m still-”
Staff Member: “I WILL HAVE YOU REMOVED!”
Me: “Fine.” *I collect my things and leave*
(The next day I’m hanging around in the playground waiting for the library to open. The same member of staff approaches me.)
Staff Member: “Are you going to say sorry?”
Me: “No.”
Staff Member: “Are you going to read?”
Me: “No.”
Staff Member: “Well- you- you’ll be sorry!” *storms off*
(Several days pass. I spend my lunchtimes in the playground and library. One day after I come home mum calls me into the kitchen:)
Mum: “I’ve had a phone call from the school. They’ve told me you’ve stopped going to the club.”
Me: *confused* “But they threw me out.”
Mum: “WHAT?!”
(I never went to the club again despite staff members following me around trying to nag and cajole me into coming back, none of them acknowledging that I was made to leave in the first place. Later that year I left that school and transferred to a nearby school which had competent special needs staff.)
This story is part of our Autism roundup!
(I’m 16 and in my last year of secondary school. I come from a pretty small town, so my parents know our school’s principal and a few of my teachers. I had a knee surgery a few weeks prior to this. I have to do physiotherapy in the morning, which means I often arrive late at my first class, which is mathematics, about half the time. The math teacher is a pretty funny and eccentric man, and this is a well-known fact around the school. One day I get called to the principal’s office. Note that I’ve always been a straight-A student and rarely missed class.)
Principal: “So, [My Name], I have been informed that you’ve been absent to your maths class this Monday.”
Me: “What? I was there. It must be a mistake.”
Principal: “That’s not what the attendance sheet shows.”
Me: “Well, I’ve been late because of my physiotherapy, but I went to class after that. Maybe that’s the reason why I’ve been put as absent.”
Principal: “Your teacher left a note saying you were seen at a bar that morning. [Student Council President] even wrote that you looked like you were drunk.”
Me: “Are you serious? Come on, obviously [Maths Teacher] has made a joke and [Student Council president] helped him along. Why would I be drunk at a bar at eight in the morning? That’s ridiculous!”
Principal: *laughing* “Well, that’s what I thought too at first, but I had to ask the question. You see, one morning about 30 years ago, your father and I decided to go to a bar instead of going to school, and we got ourselves pretty wasted. Sometimes the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… Anyway, you can go back to class now.”
(And that’s how I learned that I was a better student than my father, or my school’s principal, for that matter.)
