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I disagree and have experience with Autism as well. I disagree peer modeling works. They need to be taught communication skills. If peer modeling worked, OP would have picked up social skills in 17 years of school with typical students. OP needs one to one guidance IMO, she has been floundering trying to do this herself for years. She did get models, as a student teacher.
In NJ in the district I worked in, Aides could not make more than a certain wage, but a Masters degree required starting on a higher step. It was the reason they couldn’t get me a COTA, because they have two year degrees and couldn’t be paid more than an aide (while in the real world, they got $25-30 an hour).
OP has tried and tried to teach, she is terrible at it. The schools have bent over backward trying to help her but to her it’s like they are speaking a foreign language. She does not groom or dress properly, despite seeing and noticing how much nicer the other teachers looked...it did not translate into learning how to present herself. OP has been hitting her head against a wall for years now and has nothing to show for it except student loans that are well over $100,000. It is long past time she chose a field that’s a better fit. OP is in or close to her mid-30’s now.
What on earth would she even say to get hired as a teachers aide anyway? Tell them she has failed as a teacher due to a total inability to relate to or communicate with either students or staff, but can she please be hired to interact with your students and staff? ? Teachers aides need to communicate with the classroom teacher and the kids.
OP needs autism specific career guidance. Just trying one thing after another has set her up to fail repeatedly.
If going in the OP knows to focus on learning how to teach it will help. Modeling (live and video) are evidenced based approachs for use with Autism. Evidence-Based Practices | Autism PDC
I’m in a right to work state. TAs and subs don’t get paid extra for having a masters. We have had teachers come in and work as TAs because they wanted to refine their teaching ability. They say student teaching wasn’t enough. We’ve had them say they were unsure what grade level or type of room they wanted to teach in. There were some who just didn’t want all the responsibilities that come with teaching, but they still wanted to work in a classroom. There are a lot of reasons she can give.
Clearly the OP communicates well enough to successfully get hired, twice, as a teacher. That means she’s capable of proper grooming and dressing. That was a past issue. Has she stated it’s still an issue? Those interviews aren’t easy and you need to think on the spot. Her current district may even allow her to transfer into a TA position next year if she asks. This has been done in my district when an otherwise good employee just needs more training. The OP may just be lacking confidence. New teachers are often offered extra support. Unless she has been given an improvement plan or told by an administrator that her performance is subpar she may just be perceiving that as the situation.
If going in the OP knows to focus on learning how to teach it will help. Modeling (live and video) are evidenced based approachs for use with Autism. Evidence-Based Practices | Autism PDC
I’m in a right to work state. TAs and subs don’t get paid extra for having a masters. We have had teachers come in and work as TAs because they wanted to refine their teaching ability. They say student teaching wasn’t enough. We’ve had them say they were unsure what grade level or type of room they wanted to teach in. There were some who just didn’t want all the responsibilities that come with teaching, but they still wanted to work in a classroom. There are a lot of reasons she can give.
Clearly the OP communicates well enough to successfully get hired, twice, as a teacher. That means she’s capable of proper grooming and dressing. That was a past issue. Has she stated it’s still an issue? Those interviews aren’t easy and you need to think on the spot. Her current district may even allow her to transfer into a TA position next year if she asks. This has been done in my district when an otherwise good employee just needs more training. The OP may just be lacking confidence. New teachers are often offered extra support. Unless she has been given an improvement plan or told by an administrator that her performance is subpar she may just be perceiving that as the situation.
I’m not going to argue anymore, but having read OPs posts for years, I feel you’re doing her a grave disservice encouraging her to try to stay in teaching.
It is just not refinement OP needs. In one incident in her old school, she punished a child for having his head down on his desk, and the principal had to explain to her that the child had actually been crying and that’s why his head was down. OP has great difficulty even discerning emotion. Everything is literal to her- kids should sit up means sit up at all times, she is unable to adapt her thinking that there are exceptions to rules. She is never going to learn intangible concepts like this via modeling.
You speak of beginning teachers, OP has been teaching and barely skating by for years now. Again what would she even say to get hired? The students and the parents complain about her and with good reason, she doesn’t belong in a classroom.
I disagree and have experience with Autism as well. I disagree peer modeling works. They need to be taught communication skills.
If peer modeling worked, OP would have picked up social skills in 17 years of school with typical students. OP needs one to one guidance IMO, she has been floundering trying to do this herself for years. She did get models, as a student teacher.
In NJ in the district I worked in, Aides could not make more than a certain wage, but a Masters degree required starting on a higher step. It was the reason they couldn’t get me a COTA, because they have two year degrees and couldn’t be paid more than an aide (while in the real world, they got $25-30 an hour).
OP has tried and tried to teach, she is terrible at it. The schools have bent over backward trying to help her but to her it’s like they are speaking a foreign language. She does not groom or dress properly, despite seeing and noticing how much nicer the other teachers looked...it did not translate into learning how to present herself. OP has been hitting her head against a wall for years now and has nothing to show for it except student loans that are well over $100,000. It is long past time she chose a field that’s a better fit. OP is in or close to her mid-30’s now.
What on earth would she even say to get hired as a teachers aide anyway?
Tell them she has failed as a teacher due to a total inability to relate to or communicate with either students or staff, but can she please be hired to interact with your students and staff? ? Teachers aides need to communicate with the classroom teacher and the kids.
OP needs autism specific career guidance. Just trying one thing after another has set her up to fail repeatedly.
OP, I hope you know I am not saying anything I say out of meanness. It is perfectly okay to not be suited to a particular thing. I tried many things I found I wasn't suited for (albeit without $100,000 in loans). You know I have been trying to help you for years, I just don't want to see you go backward but to find what you really are going to be good at and happy doing.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 04-08-2018 at 06:28 AM..
Reason: See DM
If going in the OP knows to focus on learning how to teach it will help. Modeling (live and video) are evidenced based approachs for use with Autism. Evidence-Based Practices | Autism PDC
I’m in a right to work state. TAs and subs don’t get paid extra for having a masters. We have had teachers come in and work as TAs because they wanted to refine their teaching ability. They say student teaching wasn’t enough. We’ve had them say they were unsure what grade level or type of room they wanted to teach in. There were some who just didn’t want all the responsibilities that come with teaching, but they still wanted to work in a classroom. There are a lot of reasons she can give.
Clearly the OP communicates well enough to successfully get hired, twice, as a teacher. That means she’s capable of proper grooming and dressing. That was a past issue. Has she stated it’s still an issue? Those interviews aren’t easy and you need to think on the spot.
I agree with the bolded and people who continue to bring this aspect up are in my opinion being cruel, whether they intend to be or not. Besides, if this is something a principal feels is an issue, it can be easily resolved by having the right older teacher gently mentor them. I have been that older teacher before, in each of those cases it would have been a crying shame to lose the otherwise fine teacher over something so easily resolved.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spazkat9696
Her current district may even allow her to transfer into a TA position next year if she asks. This has been done in my district when an otherwise good employee just needs more training. The OP may just be lacking confidence. New teachers are often offered extra support. Unless she has been given an improvement plan or told by an administrator that her performance is subpar she may just be perceiving that as the situation.
She has been told, both directly and indirectly, that her performance is subpar. Based on what she has said in other posts her current principal has tried to work with her. This is just his latest intervention.
The OP is a clearly intelligent person when it comes to information and functions like writing, she struggles with social intelligence. I would happily hire her for certain jobs in a school system, ones in which the primary job function does not include instructing or leading students, because she does not appear to shy away from working hard and craves instructions to follow - meaning she’d do what I asked of her as long as the instructions were clear.
She just needs to find work she is suited for, and it isn’t teaching. She might do okay as an aide, provided she is assigned to the right teacher. She would be fine with someone like me, not good fit at all with quite a few other teachers I have known. I don’t know, maybe she needs to try being an aide to settle once and for all the question of whether she needs a different profession, but the pay might present an issue. What she really needs to do is work with a career counselor who specializes autistic adults.
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I don't remember if I mentioned it in this thread and didn't go back to read it, but I was nearly fired from that good Texas school in which I was working. This time I just couldn't bring myself to ask my coworkers for more help and decided it might be best to just try to figure it out on my own, rather than call more attention to my deficits. Well, that didn't work, and to add insult to injury, the teacher the principal apparently sent to mentor me is now kind of mocking me, or at least that's how I'm perceiving it. I guess she thinks I deserve it, and I'm not going to try to explain that I didn't understand what she was telling me to do, and I was too afraid to ask for clarification because I had this nearly irrational fear that I was "bothering" her and other coworkers and just didn't want to make myself a nuisance. I doubt she would believe it, anyway. My assumption would be a master teacher who has figured out the formula probably sees a struggling teacher like me as an insult, especially when she, in her perception, tried "everything she could" to help me. All I need to do is survive here another month and a few weeks. I've already put in my letter of resignation, but I'm not sure how I'm going to leave this place in good standing.
Not only have they made it very clear that they don't want me to work for them (the principal told me she was voting to not renew my contract), but they have another teacher teaching my classes while I just sort of sit in the corner. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? I feel so inept and powerless. I haven't done any of the work I would normally do as a classroom teacher, because the responsibility of instruction has been turned over to the other teacher. I usually just sit and grade papers. I feel like the kids have lost respect for me, too, and, well, this is just humiliating. I've attempted to leave uncomfortable situations to save face before, and it didn't really work, so I think I'll at least try to finish my contract.
I really would like to have a talk with my principal and explain to her how this is making me feel, though. I'm just afraid she'll fire me after all of this, though. I explained that I had ASD, but apparently she expected for me to have gotten accommodations for it before applying for this job.
I wonder If hiring an attorney would help straighten all of this out. I wonder if I could even afford one.
Yes, I do feel like feeling sorry for myself and saying that no one will help the poor autistic woman, but that's life, I guess.
...and, yes, I am trying to help myself this time. I've attempted to contact a local vocational rehabilitation center, joined a local teacher's union (even though my coverage won't start until next year--I should have found one to join a lot sooner), called the Education Service Center and signed up for training, and now I'm thinking about hiring an attorney who helps teachers in unfair employment situations. Of course, the difference is that I made it unfair. I really thought I could make it at a school that wasn't as challenging. Wow, do I feel like a failure now.
Krmb, i feel for you. It must be excutiating to have to go through that every day. You are stinger than you realize, many people would have run but you have hung in there and tried your best, you. Should be proud of I don't see what a lawyer could you really do nothing have competence in the job and they can't just let those kids fall behind. Aside from that for ADA, you would have needed to disclose your ASD before you started, and requested specific accommodations.
When I finished OT school, we had to do 3 month affiliation, (which means 40 hours a week of free labor lol). My first one was horrible, my student supervisor seemed to hate me, and didn't teach me anything about working in the field. School was mostly theory and of course anatomy, etc. They said we would learn clinical skills inure affiliations but she acted mad at me if I didn't know how to do something. My fieldwork coordinator fro?m my school and I came close to failing. I had butterflies of fear in my stomach everyday when. I walked in. So I understand how hard what you're going through is.
So IMO, what you need is not a lawyer, but help to learn how to thrive with who you are, and to find what you are good at. I result think you need this from people with experience in ASD. Call the Alabama Autism Society ( I think last time you emailed and then gave up). Tell them about your degree, and your failures in working in teaching. Ask them about ASD-specific vocational testing and guidance. You really have nothing to lose at this point.
I agree with you. I'm living and working in Texas now, though, so wouldn't I need a Texas autism society? I've already contacted DARS, and I'm seeing a counselor who specializes in autism.
I'm also maybe perceiving things a little differently, too. I don't know if asking to help the other teacher in my room rather than just ignoring her would accomplish anything productive. I think I was told more or less to stay out of her way, and I didn't want to get permission from someone to do things in my own classroom, but maybe it would at least leave my co-teacher with a good impression of me. I just hate being humiliated. Don't my coworkers understand that ignoring me when I greet them and talking to me like one of the wayward students makes me feel bad, not to mention odd and uncomfortable? I really didn't need any more self-esteem destroying moments; believe me, I've had enough of them, and my mentor teacher started off so nice!
I also really wish I could do something to at least leave in good standing. I chose to resign. I didn't wait for the results of the principal's vote to non-renew my contract; the very real threat of it was enough for me, but I'm failing to understand how I can make this into a positive experience on a resume. I guess I'll just follow what I see and see if I can leave in good standing. This situation is hard to explain, and I feel like I need medically documented proof of everything and can't just tell my boss things like, "well, the reason I don't stand at the door to greet the students is because I lose track of time and think getting the students inside started on a task is more productive." There are "common sense" things I could do, like ask my co-teacher what duties I can perform that won't get in her way. I mean, I've been humiliated enough, really, getting embarrassed by being denied the right to perform one of my classroom duties wouldn't be that jarring.
Sorry, instead of rambling, I guess I should have just asked. If you were in my situation, what do you think you could do to ensure that you leave the school in good standing? I think at this point my principal may have a conflict of interest, but I have disclosed that I have a disability, and the frustrating part of all of it is that I honestly think that if I would have had better more open and honest feedback I could have succeeded here. I was afraid of what my boss and coworkers might do if they discovered my deficits, though.
Last edited by krmb; 04-10-2018 at 04:00 AM..
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