A Sexist Question - who tries to understand

[Tez]

During A's 11 years at school I can honestly say that I have, for the most part, got on well with his teachers and headmasters/headmistresses and I genuinely feel that most have tried to help him and understand him and have always treated me with respect.

 

There have been three exceptions to this - all very ambitious, ruthless women who had no concern or thoughts about my child and were motivated in their actions by their own ambition. In my experience I have never seen a man act in the cold, ruthless and manipulative way these women did. They took everything as a personal attack on their career and were impossible to work with. I was treated as if I had no right to have an opinion and should keep my nose out of education matters and do a better job of being a mother.

 

In my experience I have never experienced a male acting in such an overtly callous, vicious and manipulative manner and just wondered what others experience was?

 

Edited to add (My own vote is that it is a matter of attitude because despite the only major problems being caused by women, A has had some really caring male and female teahers.)

 

Apologies if some find this offensive, it's not meant to be.

Edited October 8, 2005 by Tez

[annie]

Hi Tez,

 

Great idea for a poll

 

I don't find it offensive a all. I'm interested to what others answer too.

 

I answered more to do with attitude because all through Alex's education, he has only ever had 1 female and 1 male who ever understood him. The female was a primary school teacher was a really caring lady who didn't judge or listen to what other teachers thought of my son. The male was at the school that I took Alex out of earlier this year. He wasn't actually a teacher but was attached to a big organization that worked in the school with children with behaviour problems. He had worked in youth services previously and still works some evenings in a youth club.

 

I remember getting a call from school and being told that Alex had had a meltdown and run out of school. When I got there, the staff were flapping about all over the place. The man in question told me where Alex was (hiding over the school sports field), he had been keeping an eye on him and sat and talked though things with Alex. This man was the only person in the school that Alex trusted. The others, because of their lack of understanding of him, only made things worse.

 

On the bad attitudes of staff, we've had it from male and female. In his last school, a couple of teachers in partlicular (1 female, 1 male) acted towards him in a manner nothing short of pure spite.

 

Annie

XX

[lil_me]

I haven't had experience with my son of male teachers, we only have female teachers at the mo in our primary school, when the last male teacher left there was an expressed preferance for a male teacher to be employed but I don't think any male teachers who were suitable applied

 

The teachers I have had the most problems with are the older more 'experienced' ones who belive they know best regardless. Stuck in their ways and not willing to listen to anyone elses opinion. My sons new teacher who is much younger I have found much more helpful, we went through some things with the ASD team and she immediately did some of them and seems keen to learn new ideas, but she goes on maternity leave soon so dreading whats going to happen next, I am happy for her of course but I think parents on this forum will understand my concern.

[Tez]

lil-me,

 

The 3 women I referred to were all the older more experienced ones who don't really belive AS exists.

[annie]

Tez/lil_me,

 

The 2 really spiteful ones were older teachers. They didn't believe that Alex had Asperger's either.

Edited October 8, 2005 by annie

[nvapid]

we have only ever had ONE male teacher and only for 3 months so I cannot give an opinion and all of his assessors have been women

[puffin]

I have also had my most trouble with an older teacher - approaching retirement who 'had taught the same way for 30+ years and wasn't going to change it now'. It was only after we moved M to a different school that all sort of other parents came out of the woodwork to tell us there had been complaints going back at least 20 years!

 

 

However one thing that I think can be a problem is that often women are scared of the outbursts and meltdowns. Whereas male teachers are usually confident that they will be able to deal with the problem in a physical sense some women teachers worry about how to cope. However I do find it more to do with attitude.

[Zemanski]

at primary level it was definitely women we had problems with and it was a combination of young inexperienced and older mature teachers (the 2 best teachers he had were mature) but then he didn't have a man till Y6 by which time his support and diagnosis were in place.

 

at high school it seems pretty 50/50 but we have noticed that it is the men who do not back down or make adjustments once things are explained, although one female LSA is a particular problem to the extent that we have had to ask that she doesn't work with Com at all, and she is known to be a stickler for rules

[Canopus]

At junior school I had two hopeless teachers both of which were women. One was straight out of teacher training college and I was in her first ever class. She was incompetant, disorganised, preferrred to act as a classroom supervisor rather than teach, and didn't know how to handle me and ny problems. The second was an older teacher with a really old fashioned Victorian attitude and an obsession with silly outdated etiquette and handwriting. She refused to believe that dyslexia existed.

[Kathryn]

It is a question of personality and attitude rather than gender, I think. Of the two senco's my daughter has had at secondary school - one was defensive, cold and didn't want to know about her problems. The other was caring, sensitive and open to suggestions. The first was female, the second male.

Edited October 8, 2005 by Kathryn

[Suze]

Hi we,ve had a mixed bag, some good, some biased, some who don,t believe the condition exists.

[Canopus]

I had a bad experience with the director of studies at university. He was arrogant, old fashioned, out of date, out of touch, and hell bent on safety regulations and probably took out insurance against being hit by asteroids. His car was a big Volvo that undergrads referred to as a padded cell on wheels. He had done no research since the mid 1970s and taught only two trivial first year courses. The rest of his time was devoted to admin duties such as curriculum development that was best defined as teaching things that had been obsolete and out of date for over 10 years. He also wouldn't take the responsibility for obsolete material and blamed it on the lecturers. The lecturers blamed it on him for setting the curriculum.

 

Worst of all, he was very unhelpful if students had problems and threatened them to study social sciences rather than engineering if they struggled with the course. I handed him a box file containing photographs, newspaper clippings, circuit diagrams, and bits of paper about my involvement in electronics and computers since I was 10 years old to show him that I really took an interest in the subject and he still didn't care less.

[Zemanski]

the worst teacher I ever had was on my advanced diploma.

 

one to one he was a clever, thoughtful, bumbler but in class he was flustered and if asked for support had no idea how to give it - I asked him to slow down turning the pages in copious notes which he read from because I'm dyslexic and couldn't keep up so he used to turn the page and then come to me, even at the back of the room, and flick the sheaf past my face, apparently to show me where we were, then turn and carry on.

 

ironically he was our SEN lecturer and when we covered pragmatics he stood out like a sore thumb - he was definitely AS but almost certainly undiagnosed and unsupported.

 

I quite liked him, he was just such a dreadful teacher though, don't know how he ever managed in a primary school.

 

Zemanski

[Canopus]

I had some terrible lecturers at university and suspect one of them had AS. He couldn't teach, his notes were an incomprehensible mess, he dressed badly including untity hair and could mathematically prove that 2+2=5. Yet he was an expert at electromagnetics and a Linux enthusiast. His room was the most disgusting rubbish dump I have ever seen. There were piles of paper and bits of machinery everywhere. The presence of a Rubik cube on a table covered with dirty coffee cups gave the game away that the room was the domain of nerds and geeks.

[DaisyProudfoot]

I voted for females but that's because I have never dealt with males and Martin's AS yet. All the school teachers are female, all the medical folk are female. The only male was an educational psychologist about three years ago when I first brought Martin's problems to the school's attention and he dismissed it after one questionnaire, didn't even interview Martin.

 

Martin is now dx AS, but no males have been involved (apart from hubby of course!)

[nightingales]

Had to vote 'male' here, as C's male teacher last year was outstanding. It's not that the other (female) teachers don't try, but he was the most caring, thoughtful, calming and trust-inspiring teacher a child could meet. He exacted respect and instantly suppressed attempts at teasing C. By the end of a year, C was relaxed in a way he'd never previously been at school, and Mr X described him as 'witty, challenging, but a real pleasure to teach.'

 

He's now left to train for the church -- or perhaps instant sainthood!

[UltraMum]

Since diagnosis we've had one male teacher who tried hard to understand and one male teacher who listened to our concerns, said all the right things and then went away and either didn't change a thing or started something but let it drop - totally inconsistent. However it was during J's time in his class that the school decided he really needed to be assessed by the LEA so there was a silver lining there! You have to if not I'd be

 

This year (Y5) he has what I consider to be the best teacher in the school, so things are looking up - HOWEVER ... the school has had a change round of teachers and the awful male teacher is now in charge of Y6

 

Still ... if it's a dire year we may get some extra support for the first year of secondary - however I'd much rather J had a good year.

[Surrey]

Ive had both. Good and bad in both sexes. However, in my experience the women tended to 'mother' my son a bit, giving him little rewards etc. Men tended to be more matter of fact about things. As my son is getting older I think male teachers will be better as he has to learn to cope with life on his own. Just my personal experience I guess.