Hey , great video. I agree that teachers should know more and I love that you’re putting yourself out there to spread the word. I remember one of my main drivers when I started teaching was to make sure kids had a better time of high school than I did. My reality was that most teachers are overwhelmed, the ones who are not generally got their degrees well before there was anything like the amount of understanding about autism that there is now. Yes there are short PD sessions but until recently bite sized chunks of useful information was not available. When I was high school teaching in the 2000s, I look back at my time and we never got taught anything about neurodivergence ,what to look for, what it means and what to do. We got told about the odd kid who was ADHD, but even then we were not taught anything other than it was a behavioural issue. Autism was never a word I heard in those 7 years (it was pre DSM-5) and my only exposure was at a visit to a special education school in my Dip Ed. Fast forward 15 years and one of the few kids I kept in touch with has recently been diagnosed with ASD, He’s telling me his story, and well…., I related. To the point where I am in a 4 month research binge and diagnosis process myself. So yes, I kind of got identified by one of my students which is not the way it is supposed to work!
For me I'd say perfectionism too, I felt like I had to get good grades to be worth something as a person because other people didn't like the real me
Hey , great video. I agree that teachers should know more and I love that you’re putting yourself out there to spread the word. I remember one of my main drivers when I started teaching was to make sure kids had a better time of high school than I did. My reality was that most teachers are overwhelmed, the ones who are not generally got their degrees well before there was anything like the amount of understanding about autism that there is now. Yes there are short PD sessions but until recently bite sized chunks of useful information was not available. When I was high school teaching in the 2000s, I look back at my time and we never got taught anything about neurodivergence ,what to look for, what it means and what to do. We got told about the odd kid who was ADHD, but even then we were not taught anything other than it was a behavioural issue. Autism was never a word I heard in those 7 years (it was pre DSM-5) and my only exposure was at a visit to a special education school in my Dip Ed. Fast forward 15 years and one of the few kids I kept in touch with has recently been diagnosed with ASD, He’s telling me his story, and well…., I related. To the point where I am in a 4 month research binge and diagnosis process myself. So yes, I kind of got identified by one of my students which is not the way it is supposed to work!