When I originally published this, I altered facts to protect my identity. I don't want to change it and it doesn't make a difference in the end.
Will there ever be more Aspie Teachers?
November 5, 2011
Teaching: A vanishing safe haven for people with Asperger’s Syndrome.
When I was emerging into what has passed for my adulthood, at the age of 25, I took a job as a teacher. To my friends, I said it was because I had a passion for kids and for writing. The truth was, it was something that I could imagine doing. Period.
My favorite teachers had been, what a friend of mine called, “extremely ugly people.” They didn’t pay any attention to conventional ideas about appearance. If they thought about what they wore at all, they conspired to find a compromise between clothing which was comfortable and which conformed to the norms of an intellectual/artistic or political aesthetic, however marginal. It wouldn’t have occurred to them that they were aligning themselves with “subcultures” – that they were weirdos. It was your loss if you didn’t know how comfortable Bierkenstocks were, or that Levis fit a man’s legs better than designer jeans or pressed slacks. If you prized variety over finding the perfect cotton shirt which you then bought en masse, that was your choice. I had a history teacher who might have stared at you for several minutes had you asked him why he always wore the same kind of white shirt. First, there would be the simple irrelevancy of the question. Then, the stupidity of it – why would you make something like dressing more complicated than it had to be when there was HISTORY to be studied.
So, yes, at 25, it seemed a safe bet that I could stand in front of a group of teenagers in black jeans and a distressed polo shirt. I took the leap that I might be able to make them laugh and then maybe teach them. What made any of it possible was that I didn’t have to put on the costuming of any particular social class. If you thought I looked like the janitor, well, maybe I did. So what? The difference between the janitor and me was supposed to be what we did, not what we wore. I also took for granted what I had since I was four years old; that my command of the English language would provide its own credibility. People could tell I was smart. They always had.
Surprising as it might sound, the bluff actually worked. My classes weren’t instant successes, but I got better at teaching. And I was funny. I was also close enough to the age of my students to find a common bond, and that rapport saw me through a lot of rocky lessons. Being in the classroom engendered the passion I pretended before I got there. In time, I became pretty good at helping my students jump through the necessary hoops ahead and to like writing in the process. They also learned that I really did care about them. Everyone continues to learn, and I hope to, but the changes in the teaching profession which have occurred in the past 6 years have increased the odds against me.
The new requirements that stand in my way have little to do with student performance, but now seem to have everything to do with my personal survival. If I can’t adapt, well: The work force has no place in which my skill sets or strengths will naturally assimilate. In my 50′s, it might be best if I were to go on disability because I’ve accrued some legitimate illnesses and injuries over the course of my almost-adulthood. Or, I could just go mad. Would it ronically, have been better if I had given up at 25, 26 or 27 rather than invest my energies in mastering a profession which would then invalidate the successes of my late twenties through the end of my forties?
You would think that the years of experience in the DOE would’ve have made me secure, or almost. The joke, however, was on me when in 2008, the Department of Education closed the school in which I had been working and producing excellent Regents exam results, as had the rest of my department. Nothing about my department’s results had anything to do with why we were closed. I didn’t want my school to close, but, at least, you’d think that my track record would still be valuable and my years of success would help me to find a new position. Actually, it’s the opposite.
Funny, right? But, the real punch line had already been written two years earlier, in the last contract negotiation between my union and the Dept. of Education. Traditionally, you joined the Dept of Education and spent the early 15 years of your career or more with little choice over where you taught. Schools with strong academic performances or special programs hired teachers with lots of experience, and those teachers were also able to transfer into those institutions by virtue of their seniority. So, not to worry, right? I should be able now to have some choices over where I will go next. But, enough of my fellow members accepted a contract with a fairly steep pay raise, in exchange for letting go of the seniority transfer. I can’t blame anyone for the choices they felt worked best for them. All I know is how this contract has affected me and other teachers I know with A.S. (I voted “No.”)
Wait, however. It gets better. After the contract was signed, the Dept of Ed decided it would no longer provide schools with the extra funds they had relied upon to allow them to hire experienced teachers REGARDLESS OF THEIR SALARIES. Meaning, now schools were stuck paying their teachers out of their own, soon to be further slashed, budgets. And here were a whole crew of teachers with fat salaries thanks to the new contract. Who can blame anyone for wanting a raise – and normally, who would argue with a union for getting them one. But, the DOE’s move put all teachers, especially those whose experience earned put them at the top of the salary scale, in an awkward position. Some of these folks were now looking for positions, their schools having closed. A few of them have a developmental disability that makes it harder for them to handle competition in a conventional market.
The reaction of school administrators was predictable: get rid of the fat salaries we have on board, and avoid adding new ones, at all costs. “Why hire you, when I can get those two teachers for the same, price?” That’s not an easy question to answer if you don’t have AS. If you do, you find yourself dumbfounded. We’re not a population that knows how to shmooze or to do our own public relations. I have a very flat affect. That means that my face seems almost expressionless (except when I am having a really good time, like teaching a lesson and fielding all sorts of questions.) So, not only am I not good at debating my merits, I’m not interesting to look at. My clothes are plain and designed to allow me to move. What are my odds against people at my own salary range, let alone someone cheaper, sexier and less discouraged?
Like the millions of workers over 40 in every other field in this country, I now find myself ready to collar the administrators who look at my resume with disinterest and say, “A man is not a piece of fruit.” Unfortunately, almost none of the new schools have Assistant Principals in charge of individual disciplines like English, so it’s more likely that I’ll be spitting through my teeth at a twenty-nine year old in charge of everything from ordering pens to designing the Curriculum Map for the entire school, and finally, rating all the staff. Even if he or she was an English teacher, there is no space in that circuitry for retrieving common literary allusions. The kid needs to get a slice of pizza, two liters of coke and five goddamned minutes to pick what gets done first while he/she’s busy doing what has to be done right now.
That may be how you run a corporation, but it doesn’t really leave room for managing the education of future voters or the voters who manage them. And being a principal is not the same as being a whiz kid CEO. It’s not like creating Facebook or designing the next cool APP. You can’t do it running on all-nighters while listening to techno and drinking coffee or beers or even organic juice. Even if you could, when are you going to do it and do all the other things which used to be done by a lot of other people?
Remember that the school closings, the budget shifts — all of these changes were made because theold system with all those unnecessary people wasn’t perceived to be working too well for the children. (Talk to any public official about education and count how many times they refer to “the children” as if they were Moses talking to Ramses. Or Charleton Heston as Moses, anyway.)The big schools were cut into many small schools, with fewer administrators and teachers per school, though there are probably MORE administrators in the building overall. Add to this that these new small schools are run by "Education Management Corporations" who are given hundreds of thousands of dollars to MANAGE the schools, but are not in the schools on a day to day basis to help out. So, a lot of money is being spent on a smaller school, with fewer people doing more work. Same class size as before. Smaller budgets. Therefore, to keep costs down, most of the people in the building are young and without much experience or lengthy track records. If you’re a parent, when your children aren’t doing well, do you give them less support while you try to do many more things – on purpose? Would you take your child to a doctor who suddenly took on two new specialties while working the same hours with no additional support or supplies?
Forgetting the altruistic arguments against the new budgetary constraints on our schools, there’s the basic question of survival of the employees. What are all these people supposed to do for work should they not be able to manage? Teaching is not like any other career in one very painful way. The skill sets do not translate to anything else. Yes, I can make arguments otherwise, but try that in an interview. “No, I’ve never managed an office, but I’ve managed 32 kids an hour, taught over 150 kids a year.” It’s sweet, charming, but incomprehensible to someone who is trying to understand if you can order the supplies for all the computers, manage appointments, run the website, etc. The fact is you haven’t done any of those things. It’s possible you could. However, the person who interviewed an hour before you has already proven he/she can. Which is what potential employer after employer said to me when I tried my hand at leaving teaching out of frustration with the changing political climate, years ago. In my mid-thirties. Younger, thinner, less gray and more hopeful.
The average teacher leaves the system in the first three years of his/her career. Does he/she even have anything more to show for it, besides interesting fodder for his/her Law School application essay? Suppose he/she doesn’t have the funds, energy or liberty to go on for more education. Start at the bottom of the salary ladder at something else, kid. It’s like you spent three years traveling through Europe. Worse, because you didn’t even learn a new language.
Where does that leave me? Now, I have never been good at mastering some of the major social skills of adulthood. I pay my rent and utility bills and I respect others’ space– that’s not what I mean. I mean, I don’t press my shirts and I am often rude when I am trying to get something done. If my students need something, I’m going to be pushy. I will apologize profusely, afterward. Years of teaching have also inured me to the expectations of “normal people.” Did I miss a button on my shirt? Should I care? I can teach someone to pass the English Regents from scratch. I can teach Othello off the top of my head. I can revise my lesson plan mid – air. My jokes aren’t funny anymore, but the slapstick of my hands and eyebrows helps me break up confrontations. My students have done well. I know what I’m doing, mostly, whether I “look smart” or not.
But, all proof of this has disappeared. My school closed. Many of my colleagues, retired, including two principals whom I served. Sure, I have had excellent results in my career, but who can verify my role in an overall school’s achievement, now? Even if I convert all of my records to data on a computer, who will believe me? And there is that, nagging reality that I don’t look like a corporate success and as soon as I start to boast of my work I become self-conscious. I don’t fit the “dress for success” themes of many small schools. My work used to speak for me. Now I just look like the common stereotype of the enemy: a slovenly, hippy-type academic, inefficient and laden with old-fashioned sentiment toward the students. No matter what I say, the principals who interview me don’t hear me. It’s the same rationale that used to make superintendents severely punish schools if they saw students wearing hats inside the building. “If you can’t get them to obey the ‘hat rule,’ what can you get them to do?” Sounds reasonable but the impulse to wear a hat isn’t driven by just one or the same reason in every kid. There is nothing which says a kid who wears a hat won’t study, be respectful, or enjoy learning. He/she just really likes hats. “Why you stressin’ it?” And I really, really don’t like my clothing to be tight, so they are looser than some might consider fashionable. That doesn’t mean that I can’t teach English.
Those questions aside, the reality of the thousands of displaced teachers like me begs the simple question of where are these people – we – supposed to go? Education reformers talk about experienced teachers like we are pariahs. All right, suppose we were all in need of re-tooling? If we were selling cell phones, we would be given training every year about each new batch. Suppose we all need new training. Isn’t it cheaper to do that than just fire all of us and start again with new teachers? A colleague once told me that a superintendent once responded to that very question with “it’s cheaper to buy a new car than fix an old one.”
Since that very superintendent was replaced a month later, I wonder if how he sees himself as a “lemon.” Where did he go? Another school district and another. When does he start building a learning curve? Or, is he just going to be passed from one unwitting owner after another, until they discover he doesn’t drive. Why not fix him? He isn’t a car, after all, which can be harvested for parts. Neither am I.
Undoubtedly, some of my readers might ask, “Why can’t you just learn to dress in a corporate manner and to be polite? Look in the mirror before you leave the house, at least.” Here’s my frightening response. I did. I tried. Before I continue, I want to ask you to think back to some of your best teachers. Wasn’t at least, one of them, slightly awkward, a miserable dresser, and, a bit brusque sometimes? I can’t believe that not one of them had all or some of these characteristics. Here’s an even harder one. Think back to some of the great teachers you had that you thought were “mostly normal” ? Like the fantastic geometry teacher who wore so much Bloomingdale’s Tea Rose perfume that the air was yellow and you felt surrounded by honey that was a little too sweet? She was so terrific that you got used to the smell, even cherished it. And you could tell that she couldn’t live with the air being one touch less fragrant. But, all right, she was a bit, eccentric in this regard. Why am I so touchy about this – couldn’t they, too, have been polished up? No. Because I’m guessing that the person who you remember was already doing his or her level best and that, like me, he/she had Asperger’s Syndrome. Teaching was one of the rare professions which offered to people with A.S., who are developmentally disabled in key areas of socialization but are often highly intelligent in many areas of academic/theoretical difficulty, the rare opportunity to utilize their minds without the intrusion of social norms they could not fulfill. I’m not talking about people who could hurt your children. I’m talking about people who, like Albert Einstein, couldn’t comb their hair to anyone’s satisfaction. People who didn’t notice the stain on their shirt until someone pointed it out. People who yelled at an adult for not helping a student enough. In general, Aspies don’t yell at kids. It doesn’t make any logical sense – it won’t help. And, Aspie’s are logical creatures to a fault. Part of what is mystifying about socialization is it’s lack of logic. (Does it really matter if I part my hair to the right?)
Where, especially, are these Aspies, who have a fairly high unemployment rate, supposed to go now? I’ll tell you where because it’s on my list: disability. Having a condition which makes it impossible for you to fulfill the requirements of almost any job is one criteria for qualification. And what are reinforced to me in all of the results of our most recent contract, are my inadequacies. It really could be possible that people like me, who once contributed meaningfully to the economy and society, could be rendered incapable by a culture which is unwilling to respect or pay for our experience and which attends more carefully to the loose cuffs on my shirt than to what I am saying. (Based on a true story: I had an interview with a principal who could not get his eyes off of the fact that my shirtsleeves were loose and a little to long for my jacket. Meanwhile, I was trying to engage him in a discussion about how to help the children at his school.
Never mind the reality that some of my colleagues look like movie stars, but if they have over ten years of experience, fat chance of anyone picking their fat salary up. Take a pay cut, you say. Sure – if you give me back my Seniority rights.
Meanwhile, there are many of us Aspies among the Absent Teacher Reserve. Meaning, they are floating around between schools, waiting for someone to take them on. Each week, we go to different schools. That wouldn’t be easy for anyone, but for someone who has difficulty adapting socially, it’s a nightmare. Forget what it feels like once we get to the school. The ANXIETY that knowing you will have to face different people every week can produce in a person with Asperger’s Syndrome would probably be unfathomable to most people. Imagine you were crippled by the realization that you had been misunderstood at a meeting – that you unintentionally insulted a colleague or friend. Think of what it would do to you to know that you will have the opportunity to make that mistake again and again and again. That you will feel like everyone is speaking on a slightly different radio wavelength from yours. And when you finally think you’ve just about got it, you have a whole new one to learn. That’s just the adults – what about all these new children.
This morning I go off to my weekly assignment. Each week I am moved to a different school in which I substitute for absent teachers, help new ones (ironically), team teach or all three. In any subject. Why? I’ve been given several reasons. None of them even pretends to ignore the reality of how difficult this practice is for the teachers, administrators and, of course, the children. You know how you might have bonded with someone and worked with them – especially if they were lucky enough to be in a room with another teacher so that they could give you more attention? Forget that. I’m leaving Friday. No risk of co-dependency. Or trust. Or of long-term intervention. Or being taken seriously. As one student said to me, candidly, “You don’t carry much weight.” I can cajole. If I’m lucky, I’ll be put in a room where I might actually get to teach something I know, English or a familiar part of another discipline. In the best of circumstances someone has left a lesson plan which is actually relevant to what the kids are doing. In the worst, there is nothing and no one. Twice, I have covered classes in other disciplines which are without teachers and have been since the first day of school. I’ve interviewed for English jobs at schools which still don’t have anyone. (Ok, they can’t afford me, but they can’t afford anyone? It is frigtening to think they might be waiting to see if someone cheap comes on the market, like a baseball team looking for an extra reliever who won’t cost too much if he doesn’t work out.) Let me tell you, the children are, understandably, not amused. For those of us 99 percenters who happen to be experienced teachers in the New York City public schools, we are not just prisoners of Wall Street, but prisoners of the children of Wall Street and its prisoners. And they are, in turn, prisoners of an educational system which is supposed to be preparing them for their right, as Americans, to have the opportunity to join the ranks of the 1 percent, should that be their dream. I think they know that there’s a punch line coming.
