Aspies For Freedom

I am not sure if anyone has seen this story before...

http://www.local6.com/news/4115365/detail.html

I just came across it by accident and it reminded me of the reason why I homeschool my Aspie son.  It saddens me that there are people like this teacher in the world.  I know that not all teachers are like her but the thought that my son's teacher may behave the same way scares me.  

When I was in 3rd Grade I had a teacher who locked me in the Coat Closet (it was very large and had a desk with a lamp) to punish me for not doing my Math.  She would tell me that I couldn't come out until it was done and refused to help me when I told her I didn't understand how to do it.  After being in the closet all morning and still not done any of the math I would then get sent out into the hall to be paddled.  This went on for about 2 weeks before I told my parents and they were irrate to say the least.  I was moved to another class and I was never paddled again but the teacher is probably still teaching and treating kids the same way.  

It's these stories that make me apprehensive about sending my son to public school.

My third grade teacher wasn't helpful to me really either. She made me copy pages out of the dictionary in cursive every single day. Finally, my mother volunteered to help out, came in, saw what was going on and threatened to school the sue if I wasn't put in a different class. I was put in a different class the next day. Gotta love my mum! She refused a label for me but still knew what was best.

Locking in a closet and paddling, that's disgusting, but it is illegal now.

Homeschooling was even more stressful for me than normal school, which says a bit, because I can't stand normal school.  I just can't stand being alone, I get really lonely, but when I'm at school, I absolutely hate being with the people, and I'm still lonely anyway, because I don't have any friends.  

Ok, life sucks, and people suck.

I think self-defense classes are very good for improving both confidence and discipline.  I put my son in a karate class when he was 8.  A few weeks after he started the class, a neighborhood boy punched him.  He came back home crying.  I lifted my hand slowly and told him, "Pretend that I'm a bully trying to hit you, remember your karate lessons, how do you block the punch?"  I could just see the proverbial lightbulb go on in his head as he raised his arm into a blocking position.

As far as I know, no one ever bullied him after that.  He didn't get into any actual fights (none that I'm aware of, anyway), but he acted much more confident around other kids and was able to laugh off the occasional insults and make appropriate comebacks.  (His dad helped him with the teasing thing, making silly jokes at him and encouraging him to joke back.)

Man, I feel like the girliest little wimp!  I'm the worst fighter you'll ever meet.  I hate violence and I never wanted to learn karate, even just for blocking people.  I've never really got beaten up, only relatively minor physical abuse (getting kicked in the nuts, having saliva spat down my ear....)  and pretty bad psychological abuse from other kids.

I only homeschooled for a couple of years in highschool, when normal school just became unbearably painful.  I went back a couple of years ago, but I've dropped out occasionally.

I haven't had too much abuse recently, as MOST people are a bit more mature.  Except last year, when someone put a beanbag over my head so I couldn't breathe, while his friend stuck garbage in my mouth, while a guy I'm in love with sat there laughing.  Most of my pain now comes from not having any friends at school.  Yeah, schools great, and for some strange reason it's better than not being at school.  Why?  I've never entirely worked that out.  School's very stressful and mildly depressing, and not being at school is very depressing and mildly stressful.

I was bullied very badly, psychological torture, and severe beatings that would leave me covered in bruises, this was all from girls, usually in groups.
I never had any option about home schooling, but to avoid school I would just not go, of course this meant I did very badly.

But there was little option.

Crickey96, I just want to say I love the Kurt Cobain quote in your profile.

Of course not, nobody learns anything in school, it's just a way of keeping kids off the streets until they're eighteen.

Superficially not going to school had its attractions: no disgusting school dinners, no humiliation on the sports pitch, no getting into trouble for leaving my exercise books / pencil case / PE kit etc at home to name but a few. On the other hand if I'd never interacted with kids my own age or taken responsibility for organising my affairs, would I have stored up trouble for the long term?

Looking at my parents, I don't think I would have wanted them teaching me. Not because of their level of intelligence :wink:, but because they were so unwordly about the reality of the 90s job market. Throughout my years in education they seemed incapable of appreciating why I should need to get work experience, dismissing my attempts with "I'm sure when you graduate you'll have no trouble finding a job". As if the job market were just the 11+ mark II. I'd be very wary of exerting undue influence on my own (hypothetical!) children in this way.

I subscribe to Positive News and they often run stories about home education. Rather too often. It's almost as if they're implying that anyone who espouses PN's green/ethical/progressive values is doing their child wrong if they don't educate them at home - rather guilt-inducing. I can't help feeling that the kind of parents who are willing and able to educate their children at home - presumably intellectual, motivated and financially well-off - are precisely the kind of parents who should be working to improve the mainstream education system from within. But maybe that's just too idealistic...

Alison, can she cope with it until she turns 16 and then goes to a college, where they are usually a little more mature in attitude.

Hi, I don't know any groups right now, sorry.
So are you actually homeschooling now?

I heard that if a group is quiet, after a while they remove it. They want busy groups to make money on ads.

I also had similar problems in school, math was the worst subject for me, and if I didn't finish something because I couldn't understand it, I got punnished, but not physically as that was illegal by the time I was in public school. The kids were the worst, I was bullied and once, the 4th grade teacher didn't believe that the bullying was going on, telling my mom it was in her head. I wonder if she would say the same thing now, past Columbine.

I do think that if the school isn't serious about dealing with bullying of Aspie/Autistic children, then homeschooling is the better option.

If all parents of bullying victims who could afford to opted for home-schooling rather than campaigning to improve the situation in schools, what help would that be for children for whom home-schooling is not an option? Unless you subscribe to the view that only middle-class children get bullied!

My kindergarten teacher has made all of the kids she teaches cry. Made me cry several times, told me to stop daydreaming. I currently have no imagination because of her. I have seen her recently, I wanted to punch her. Next time I see her I'll do it.