I just read my last draft (it wasn't even posted) from July 2023, it is now April 2025.
That last draft really took me to another point in my personal history. It was just 2 years ago but it feels like I was another person. I was just losing weight due to a crazy diet and I was hopeful that Sertraline would fix me or help me fix myself faster than it was possible. That draft was about my new job at a Language School that I went to as a kid and then hired as an adult. It was truly really nice to work there. But I was incorrect about it being the perfect job for autistics.
The reason I thought it was the perfect job for me was because they repeated the same thing a bunch of times, and I didn't realize that the reason was because I had no classes to give. It ended up being a very short lived internship about how to teach. Although I lasted one month there, it was good for my career.
Right after I was fired, I tried to absorb everything as fast as I could. I didn't want baggage from the things I noticed. But, as any autistic person would confirm, we have a incredible amount of information input at all moments. And since it was a new experience, I noticed even more shit than I'm used to paying attention to. It took a while for me to digest everything that happened.
I noticed that my autism really put people off. They didn't like that I had a near-perfect generalistic american accent. The kind of accent people are jealous about. They didn't like that I would not feel comfortable participating in gossip about students and their families. I didn't like to know what they thought about me at all.
They didn't talk about rules in an obvious manner, it felt like I had to know things already, and I had to make many questions all the time, or else my "misconduct" would continue with no obstacles, just weird comments that I wouldn't register as a nudge.
At times, I was breaking rules that I didn't know were rules. And at times, things that were not rules at all were being brought up to me as if they were. It felt confusing and like I was being judged constantly.
Above all, I was having trouble with being alienated from the people working there.
They saw me as different. They saw me as a rich kid that was privileged and therefore that made me awkward, not because of autism. (They knew I was autistic). They didn't like that I wore masks or that I was wearing semi short clothes. They didn't like that I was confused. But I learned many things there, of what not to do as a teacher or as communist. Which is ironic.
1. There, I found out that being a cocky bitch makes me a bad teacher.
They pretended to know every word in English in front of the students. In their heads, it made sense to pretend to know everything. "If you don't know everything, then how are you going to show that you're capable/confident?" That's what they told me.
For a moment, I tried to understand what that meant. I obeyed first, but I put a pin on it to think about it deeply later on. When I did, I noticed that just made me seem cocky in front of my students. Instead of answering them when I knew a word, or looking up the word for them, I would instead, just say "this is not the subject we are learning right now" like I was taught to do. And that would make my student shut up, which was the intended consequence, I learned later on.
From that moment, I understood that it was a way to protect my own ego and stunt the curiosity of my students - for them to trust the books they had. It was a way to keep them in line so they can one day know everything via that material,"like me".
Of course, that is not the truth. I don't know everything, moreover, it is impossible to know eveything. Showing my students that I don't know a word hurts! I know that now. It's difficult to admit it. But when I google a word in front of my students, 90% of them feel a connection, because they see I'm a student too and that they can surpass me in their journey, and become more fluent than I am if they go deep enough. It kills my ego just a little, but it empowers a curious student.
2. There, I learned what teachers were not.
The material was loooong. A shit ton of books! And mind you, they were really good! The order of the content presented, the way it molds the teachers to do the exact same thing. The bite-sized "tips", the refusal of calling Grammar by its name. It's all extremely interesting. But treating the method like a God was tiring.
Everything that is mass-produced in this era of capitalism has to follow a pattern, or as the capitalists call it, a quality standard. A Subway store has to have the same smell. McDonald's fries have to have the same girth and amount of salt in every store. And when you sell a method and not knowledge, that has to include the way a teacher teaches. Especially when your school has a fucking franchise in every neighborhood.
In this Language School, teachers had to be walking-talking-breathing ads, not teachers.
We had to sell the books. "If you do as the book says, you'll have perfect English like me". And that didn't feel right, because I'm not perfect and the books weren't either. The books made people think learning was a straight line when it isn't.
3. Not only the students were being lied to, the teachers were too.
In my short-lived intership, I was lucky enough to participate in events I wouldn't be able to if they hired me a month later.
In July, they had a conference for teachers all over the city. It wasn't just my unit, it was all other units. It was a week of training, my colleagues told me it was pretty much the same subjects I was trained to do and that it would be nice for me to relearn everything. I was happy about that but I didn't know what would happen. I was scared and kinda shitting my pants.
"I wanna be a billionaire, sooo freaking baaad" was the first sentence I heard coming from the small auditorium. That song made me remember my sister who was a fan of Bruno Mars when she was a teen. I sat down, and the big boss was gonna start the presentation. After everyone was sat, we all looked at him. He started saying "you guys know those lyrics", because I guess, we know everything concerning English. "It's what I want to be haha, I want to be a billionaire too", we watched in silence.
As the slides changed, it was clear the presentation was about him. And AI. He was having a debate inside his head and making everyone listen to it. "AI can do what you guys do. It's so much cheaper. I wonder if any of you teachers are any useful, if I'm spending too much money on your salaries... is there a reason to keep you lot around?" He kept going and going and going. Boring as shit.
Other teachers also had presentations to give, they were all much better than whatever bullshit was going on with the wannabe billionaire. But I was wondering when we were gonna talk about English. I mean, that's what we were selling, right?
No. It was the books. The method. The app. The material with the logo on it. The quality of our knowledge was never brought up. But I kept wondering: How do you teach, when you're unwilling to learn more?
I understood that Grammar was not the thing we were selling to the students, I get it. But why were we not learning any of it as well? I studied in that place for 5 years or so, I don't know shit about grammar. "And I think I need to learn something, guys!" I kept thinking, weekday after weekday.
But the jig was up after that week. The teacher ego is not to be touched, even between teachers. They believed their own lies. No shit there was a massive impostor syndrome going on with almost every teacher I interacted with at that conference. We were walking-talking-breathing ads, not teachers. And the more you trusted the books, the higher your position was. The least imposter-like you felt, the higher you were. Authority was it, no questions.
4. Training about special needs students or older students is necessary
One day, I was brought to the room where they had a new modality of teaching. The DIY follow-the-audio modality. The students sat down on their individual desks, put their headphones on and started their audio lesson. My job was teaching the students for 5 minutes each. I had to ask them privately how they were and do a short activity so they can go back to their original spots, put the headphones back on and continue with their "AI" lesson. Most of these students are bored out of their minds with those audio lessons, because they are doing it by themselves.
Whatever. I was trying.
I had to talk to this 9yo student, a little boy. My colleagues told me he would purposefully misunderstand commands, skip homeowork, and skip the audio. I mean. I would do the same if I was 9 learning by myself, but I digress.
I asked him how he was. He answered plainly, while almost closing his eyes: "I'm good, I'm ok". So I continued, I gave him the command and he did it flawlessly. It was great. Second sentence... he forgot the command. I gave him the command again. He did it flawlessly. Third sentence... he forgot it again.
So I changed my approach. I gave him a shorter command before every sentence, so he remembered it.
It worked. Took a couple seconds more, but it was efficient for this one student. He was fast! But my joy fell on the ground after my colleague said:
- You shouldn't repeat the command
- Yes, but he forgets it
- It takes too much time to do it like that
- Yes, but he compensates. He goes faster than the average students when I give him the cue.
- But you took too long.
- OK. - I said. I didn't want to continue the argument because he had more experience than I did. Years ahead of me. But I was itching to answer "I only took more time because this was the first time I had to pause to figure out a new command".
After that, I kept being pushed to this student, in part because he was harder to deal with and the teachers were avoiding him. I was gentle to the little dude. Considering he was skipping the audios, he had a shit ton of time to kill at the end of the classes by himself. So, the other teachers asked him to do his homework. He did it, and then he forgot to do the other side of the sheet. I took my time to tell him what to do and that he always had to check the other side of the sheet. Sounds simple, but it isn't. He genuinely forgot.
He did a great job after 2 weeks. He was doing his homework.
Third week came by, he showed up a little later, a little more hobo and less chic than normal. He was more tired. When the class started, he threw up. Everyone showed up to help me. My colleagues took the students out of the class, and I took that boy to the bathroom to clean his shoes from the puke. It was all a mess. And he was sick and dizzy. Suddenly, everyone was wearing masks like me. The cleaning lady cleaned everything. While I cleaned his shoes, I got was worried about his parents sending him sick to class. And about him being dizzy. Until it dawned on me he might be autistic too.
Then, I remembered everything he couldn't do and how no teachers were willing to make him understand anything. Maybe that was why his parents sent him to class, he might not have known he was sick. You need body awareness to notice you're gonna throw up, which many of us lack.
The world is tough for autistics and that experience was all about learning to be human. I sometimes wish I had stayed there for that kid. I wish I could have taught him to speak English so he would be proud of himself.
In conclusion, if you're adapting the material to an autistic or adhd student, you're going against the rules, and that can make the student resent the method and the teacher. It will add one more stress to a student that already has plenty of shit to deal with at school. No fair.
This is too long of a blog post
- Just because your boss is your boss, it doesn't mean they know what you do at all. In fact, most bosses have never been in your position and they actively want you to suffer if that means more money in their pockets.
- AI should be used to make our lives better and not worse.
- I'm glad I have a micro company now and that I get 4 times more money than I did for a fraction of the work
- Bye
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