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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I went to a school reunion today. It was a lunch in a pub in Dorset, and I met people I'd never met before. Shocked one of them by telling him I'm gay. Another one shocked me.
He is on the Aspergers Spectrum. He functions well, lives alone, has a job that he does well, and is a numbers geek with a prodigious memory. He rather monopolised me, but that was fine. At the reunion was a staff member who remembered him. He's 48 now, and he was only diagnosed 10 years ago. Aspergers Man said to me "He remembered me. He also said he remembered I was bullied a lot."
I found that disgraceful. A teacher knew a boy was being badly bullied and did not one single thing to prevent it or to at least comfort the child being bullied at the time. I see that teacher to be complicit in the bullying by his inaction. If I'd been party to the conversation I would have mentioned this to the ex teacher concerned.
The then headmaster was incompetent to create an anti-bullying regime. But a decent, competent, humane teacher would surely, surely have prevented bullying? Surely?
Time have indeed changed.
I wonder what that fine and upstanding teacher would do in the same situation today?
Aspergers Man was deeply affected by his childhood, and the perpetual bullying hurt him. On his behalf I feel angry with that school. The sole thing that makes me choose not to name and shame it is that I believe it has improved sufficiently.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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What is it with this need to label? I know one person who is 'officially' Asperger's, and several more who probably are, too. I was undoubtedly ADHD as a kid, but as ADHD hadn't been thought of back then, I was just inattentive and boisterous - or a normal boy. Thankfully, they hadn't created Ritalin either, or I know not what lurgies and psychoses I would have grown up labelled with.
Honestly, we're all deeply affected by our childhood in one way or another. It depends how far from normal you consider you are - or how you care label 'normal.'
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats." - Albert Schweitzer
It's like Mad Max out here: guys doing guys, girls doing girls, girls turning into guys and doing girls that used to do girls and guys!
- from Alex Truelove
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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The chap I met has become comfortable since his diagnosis. At last he knows why he feels different. Other people reject labels. Who is to say which is right? For him it is part of his identity and thus important. For me I knew the moment he spoke and it was unimportant.
But the teacher is the unpleasant thing. Why do nothing when you know a child is bullied?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Society has changed. A lot. And, mostly for the better. I'm glad your friend is happier now he knows what his problem is. And of course the teacher was an idiot for not dealing with his bullying.
However, when I was at boarding school (70's), the idea of telling a teacher I was being bullied wouldn't have occured to me. We were inculcated with a set of rules that forbade it. You had to deal with it yourself, and a reputation of being a sneak - which is what telling a teacher would have been seen as - would ruin you. I'm certainly not condoning bullying in any shape or form, and it is more than wonderful (and high time) that it is now in the public eye. But it is in the public eye due to changing societal attitudes.
As for labels, I agree with you. But with progress comes a downside: If I had a child I wouldn't medicate them out of their youthful high spirits just because I could. In fact: New research from the UK shows the brain continues to develop after childhood and puberty, and is not fully developed until people are well into their 30s and 40s. The findings contradict current theories that the brain matures much earlier. So what does prescribing Ritalin do to young developing minds?
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats." - Albert Schweitzer
It's like Mad Max out here: guys doing guys, girls doing girls, girls turning into guys and doing girls that used to do girls and guys!
- from Alex Truelove
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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Telling staff was a no-no, but having one know and do nothing about it, that is culpable.
There are very few real cases of whatever Ritalin Deficiency really is. Some are genuine. Most are bad parenting.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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