So love this: "Mrs. Benke had a honey-colored bob and an endless wardrobe of denim maxi-skirts and shirt-dresses...Early on, Mrs. Benke figured something out about 6-year-old me, which was that although I was quiet and well-behaved, I was also bored."
As a boy (still) with an undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder, my public-school teacher was the first and most formidably abusive authority figure with whom I was terrifyingly trapped. I cannot recall her abuse in its entirety, but I’ll nevertheless always remember how she had the immoral audacity — and especially the unethical confidence in avoiding any professional repercussions — to blatantly readily aim and fire her knee towards my groin, as I was backed up against the school hall wall. Luckily, she missed her mark, instead hitting the top of my left leg.
Though there were other terrible teachers, for me she was uniquely traumatizing, especially when she wore her dark sunglasses when dealing with me. (For some other very young boys back then and there, there was her sole counterpart — a similarly abusive teacher but with the additional bizarre, scary attribute of her eyes rapidly shifting side to side.)
But rather than tell anyone about my ordeal with her and consciously feel victimized, I instead felt some misplaced shame: I was a ‘difficult’ boy, therefore she likely perceived me as somehow ‘deserving it’. I was much too young to perceive how a regular-school environment can become the traumatizer of susceptible children like me; the trusted educator indeed the abuser.
Perhaps not surprising, I feel that schoolteachers should receive mandatory ASD training, especially as the rate of diagnoses increases. There could also be an inclusion in standard high school curriculum of child-development science that would also teach students about the often-debilitating condition (without being overly complicated).
Realistically, while low-functioning ASD seems to be more recognized and treated, higher (as opposed to high) functioning ASD students are more likely to be left to fend for themselves, except for parents who can finance costly specialized help.
Nevertheless, if it’s feasible, parents should avoid enrolling their high-er functioning (as opposed to high functioning) ASD child in regular, ‘neurotypical’ grade school. Why? Because sound mental health as well as physical security needs to be EVERY child’s right, especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter; a world in which Child Abuse Prevention Month (every April) clearly needs to run 365 days of the year. And not being mentally, let alone physically, abused within or by the educational system is definitely a moral right.
"sound mental health as well as physical security needs to be EVERY child’s right" – I could not agree more. Thank you for sharing your story and speaking out.
You're welcome, and thank you. ... The health of all children needs to be of real importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing.
Mindlessly ‘minding our own business’ often proves humanly devastating. Yet, largely owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, however, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or (the even more self-serving) ‘What’s in it for me as a taxpayer?’
Also, many people still hold a misplaced yet strong sense of entitlement when it comes to misperceiving children largely as obedient property to misuse or abuse. ... If survived, early-life abuse and/or chronic neglect left unhindered typically causes the brain to improperly develop. It can readily be the starting point of a life in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammatory stress hormones and chemicals, even in otherwise non-stressful daily routines.
It amounts to non-physical-impact brain damage in the form of PTSD. Among other dysfunctions, it has been described as an emotionally tumultuous daily existence, indeed a continuous discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’. For some of us it includes being simultaneously scared of how badly they will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires.
The lasting emotional/psychological pain throughout one's life from such trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one's head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is prescription and/or illicitly medicated.
Such a gift! And I loved what you said about her learning from me because that's exactly how I always felt about my own students once I became a teacher too.
I remember my first grade teacher, as well. She was tall and had been teaching for several years when I became her student. She was kind to me and encouraged me as a student. I thought of her and other teachers when I had my first classroom, especially when I had the opportunity to teach first grade. When I think about the growth my students experienced during that important year, I'm grateful for my teachers who nurtured my love of learning and academic excellence.
Love this! So many of us who become educators do so in response to the experiences we had with our own teachers (for better and worse). Thank you for sharing!
So love this: "Mrs. Benke had a honey-colored bob and an endless wardrobe of denim maxi-skirts and shirt-dresses...Early on, Mrs. Benke figured something out about 6-year-old me, which was that although I was quiet and well-behaved, I was also bored."
Thanks, Raju! I'll remember her forever :)
As a boy (still) with an undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder, my public-school teacher was the first and most formidably abusive authority figure with whom I was terrifyingly trapped. I cannot recall her abuse in its entirety, but I’ll nevertheless always remember how she had the immoral audacity — and especially the unethical confidence in avoiding any professional repercussions — to blatantly readily aim and fire her knee towards my groin, as I was backed up against the school hall wall. Luckily, she missed her mark, instead hitting the top of my left leg.
Though there were other terrible teachers, for me she was uniquely traumatizing, especially when she wore her dark sunglasses when dealing with me. (For some other very young boys back then and there, there was her sole counterpart — a similarly abusive teacher but with the additional bizarre, scary attribute of her eyes rapidly shifting side to side.)
But rather than tell anyone about my ordeal with her and consciously feel victimized, I instead felt some misplaced shame: I was a ‘difficult’ boy, therefore she likely perceived me as somehow ‘deserving it’. I was much too young to perceive how a regular-school environment can become the traumatizer of susceptible children like me; the trusted educator indeed the abuser.
Perhaps not surprising, I feel that schoolteachers should receive mandatory ASD training, especially as the rate of diagnoses increases. There could also be an inclusion in standard high school curriculum of child-development science that would also teach students about the often-debilitating condition (without being overly complicated).
Realistically, while low-functioning ASD seems to be more recognized and treated, higher (as opposed to high) functioning ASD students are more likely to be left to fend for themselves, except for parents who can finance costly specialized help.
Nevertheless, if it’s feasible, parents should avoid enrolling their high-er functioning (as opposed to high functioning) ASD child in regular, ‘neurotypical’ grade school. Why? Because sound mental health as well as physical security needs to be EVERY child’s right, especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter; a world in which Child Abuse Prevention Month (every April) clearly needs to run 365 days of the year. And not being mentally, let alone physically, abused within or by the educational system is definitely a moral right.
"sound mental health as well as physical security needs to be EVERY child’s right" – I could not agree more. Thank you for sharing your story and speaking out.
You're welcome, and thank you. ... The health of all children needs to be of real importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing.
Mindlessly ‘minding our own business’ often proves humanly devastating. Yet, largely owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, however, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or (the even more self-serving) ‘What’s in it for me as a taxpayer?’
Also, many people still hold a misplaced yet strong sense of entitlement when it comes to misperceiving children largely as obedient property to misuse or abuse. ... If survived, early-life abuse and/or chronic neglect left unhindered typically causes the brain to improperly develop. It can readily be the starting point of a life in which the brain uncontrollably releases potentially damaging levels of inflammatory stress hormones and chemicals, even in otherwise non-stressful daily routines.
It amounts to non-physical-impact brain damage in the form of PTSD. Among other dysfunctions, it has been described as an emotionally tumultuous daily existence, indeed a continuous discomforting anticipation of ‘the other shoe dropping’. For some of us it includes being simultaneously scared of how badly they will deal with the upsetting event, which usually never transpires.
The lasting emotional/psychological pain throughout one's life from such trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one's head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is prescription and/or illicitly medicated.
Teared up reading this one! I'm guessing she learned from you as much as you learned from her. What a gift, to have an incredible teacher.
Such a gift! And I loved what you said about her learning from me because that's exactly how I always felt about my own students once I became a teacher too.
I remember my first grade teacher, as well. She was tall and had been teaching for several years when I became her student. She was kind to me and encouraged me as a student. I thought of her and other teachers when I had my first classroom, especially when I had the opportunity to teach first grade. When I think about the growth my students experienced during that important year, I'm grateful for my teachers who nurtured my love of learning and academic excellence.
Love this! So many of us who become educators do so in response to the experiences we had with our own teachers (for better and worse). Thank you for sharing!