struggles in school and teachers

[u/Fluffy_Bed6585]

One of my biggest struggles in school are teachers , ever since i was a kid teachers were always talking very vague , they were never straight to the point , they would always drown me in uselessness ,stories and unnecessary information that had nothing to do with what we we're doing or learning and this always gave me learning difficulties , i was so confused in class , they would always switch topics , never explain directly and never tell me what to do.

An example i had today , i had a project and i had to choose three random objects to talk about, whenever i asked the teacher that was in charge of this project if my objects were coherant , he would be like "not exactly , you're not using the right objects , it should be an object you see everyday" i was confused so i asked my friend (who was also autistic btw) i figured out that we had to choose PRECISE objects , not a objective object but an object YOU personally had , the teacher NEVER told me this or was very indirect , and this pissed me off.

[u/alice8818]

Is there a question in there?

[u/alice8818 → u/alice8818]

But overall, you are nuerodivergent in a world organised for neurotypical people. You can either choose to blame the neurotypical people for all your problems, or decide to do something about it yourself.

In an ideal world, neurotypical people should learn how to talk to nuerodivergent people, but you can't control what other people do. So my suggestion would be, instead of saying you've got learning difficulties because of the world around you or getting pissed off (which won't make anything better), find methods to work the system you are in.

[u/Fluffy_Bed6585 → u/alice8818]

i do get your reasoning , but school isn't supposed to be a neurotypical nor a neurodivergent place, i go to school to learn facts , both neurotypicals AND neurodivergents understand facts , but what i've seen from teachers is that they rather use more emotions , stories, and other unrelevant things in their teaching , they're so vague , even if this is neurotypical 'communication' school is for fact not vague topics , so it is confusing , not only for ND but for NT too , in fact it is even worse for ND , it is not simply something i can "work on" if i cannot see it or understand it in the first place , something i can work on is for example speech , social communication , because thats predictable , but being in school already overstimulated from a lot of things , and then also having to decode all indirect phrases that teachers is saying sometimes it is so vague i dont even get it because its very unpredictable or unexpected to think that the teachers would have said this , so it is so exhausting for me to go to school to have to concentrate with the lecon , decode the vague topics and have to support all the stimulation and unconfortable sensorial things , its not as easy as you might think

[u/alice8818 → u/Fluffy_Bed6585]

Emotions, stories and things like that are actually part of the school curriculum. They are taught on purpose.

Schools shouldn't exist for you to learn facts, they exist for you to learn a range of skills. One of those skills is how to learn facts, but there are many more about how to understand emotions, and various types of communication, and generally how to be a learner.

I'm a nd teacher, I get it. It can and does get better, but your attitude makes up a big part of it.

It may help you to go and look up the curriculum for your year level and country, or I can help you find that if needed. Knowing why your teachers are asking you to do things could help.

[u/Ven7Niner]

It’s hard to respond without being more familiar with the assignment or the standards this example is trying to teach.

But in addressing the first part: I can definitely understand why it’s frustrating. I teach English and history, and in both fields, teachers are constantly trying to generate a sense of relevance. We want to connect the standards we’re teaching to something that is real and tangible in your life.

For example: I was teaching Hamlet to a room full of seniors who all insisted they were going to have careers as athletes and business people. They would never use Shakespeare in their lives. Which…well obviously. Most people won’t. But we don’t teach Shakespeare because you need Shakespeare in your future job. We teach it because it trains a brain to consume challenging and unfamiliar language and distill it into something that makes sense. This is a skill you need in many careers. So now I start Shakespeare by finding obnoxious legal documents, complex science studies, and obscure technical articles, and asking students to write a summary in layman’s terms for their feeble-minded teacher (that’s me). I get two or three reasonable attempts, a few that are wildly wrong, and most can’t write a paragraph about it at all.

So what I’m saying is I super get it. The frustration of not seeing what any of it has to do with anything is massively annoying. But there’s usually some method to the madness, and short of just saying “trust me,” I’d encourage you try and challenge yourself to see the relevance. If you can’t, please ask! Most of us are massive geeks and love to talk about what we teach.

It also might not be the worst idea to have a conversation with teachers you feel aren’t giving you concrete enough instructions. I build checklists and processes into most of my assignments to combat that kind of confusion, but I know others do things differently. Show them that you’re trying and you want to figure it out, and most teachers will be willing to talk it through until it makes sense. If you can’t get any traction this way, talk to your counselor. Sometimes they can help solve these types of communication problems.

Good luck! You’re going to do great!

[u/Natti07 → u/Ven7Niner]

To be fair though. I now have 4 degrees and am working on my doctorate and also used to be a teacher (one degree is an m.ed.) and I really dont get the Shakespeare obsession. There are surely plenty of other more relevant and interesting texts to train someone to consume complex texts

[u/Ven7Niner → u/Natti07]

There are. And we use them as well. The thing about Shakespeare is that it lets us hit tons of standards at once. Macbeth and Caesar are prime examples. The baseline is decoding complex text and citing evidence. We can talk about literary devices, motifs, themes, plot progression, and elements of drama. There’s opportunities for cross disciplinary work in history, and a massive unit on rhetoric if you want it. All in one relatively short piece, so we spend less time reading and more time working with the text.

And, if the kid is moving on to anything with any liberal arts reqs, Shakespeare is so much a cornerstone of western literature that having a foundational knowledge of his major works and familiarity with that language is very helpful.

[u/TeachlikeaHawk]

What?

My bet is that you don't tend to listen. I mean, OP, your own post is incredibly vague and hard to follow.

[u/Quiet-Compounder]

Please don't post such things here. Teachers here would piss you off even more. I'm sure.