I remember a weird polemic I got into at kindergarten. This is late eighties.
I was already reading at a... I don't know what level. I never understood what "reading levels" were anyway, I mean, if I can read, I can read, right?
Well... Turns out none of the other kids apparently were able to read, at least not openly, and reading was actively discouraged by the staff there. There was a storybook hour where everyone picked a story book with illustrations and PRETENDED to read.
I found out when the teacher lady noticed I was actually reading the thing and pulled it away from me, telling me I wasn't supposed to actually read the book with, you know, words printed on it. The justification was "if you read now and get good at it, you'll have a terrible time being bored in first grade when all the other kids are still trying to learn."
Lady, I don't think you understand how reading works. I can't UNLEARN how to read once I learned it.
This is still within my top five unfathomable school experiences.
@CynAq@actuallyautistic I remember it must have been around the sixth grade we were given a vocab list to learn how to spell and define certain words. One of the words was "sarcasm", which I still barely understand most of the time.
Every time I would try to turn it in my teacher would very sarcastically tell me that it was wrong...and I'd do it again. I did it probably a dozen times before stopping. It was decades before I realized that she was trying to teach me sarcasm, not spelling.
@roknrol@CynAq@actuallyautistic a dozen times seems excessive and a little unkind, to be honest. It doesn't seem reasonable to keep applying the same technique that many times when it clearly isn't working.
I would have thought twice, maximum, especially if there's a risk the person might be teased or feel inadequate.
@CynAq@actuallyautistic I remember going to ask the teacher how to spell words I wanted to use in the story I was writing, age about 6, and her suggesting simpler words that I knew. But I wanted to use those words and I wanted to get them right. Why stifle the urge to learn? Things seem to be very different for my kids now in primary school - they are encouraged to write phonetically for any word they don't know how to spell.
@CynAq@actuallyautistic omg that's so stupid. Not quite the same, but I always got in trouble for not napping at nap time. I stopped taking naps at like age 3, and to this day have a very hard time napping. They thought I was just being disobedient.
I guess so! My mom tells me they always talked to her about it. All I really remember is being really bored and feeling awkward, not wanting to get noticed and get in trouble. I don't think they were mean about it but they surely said stuff like "How come you're not asleep? Go to sleep. You need to be asleep right now." etc.
@dyani@CynAq@actuallyautistic I thought it was BS because it always took me twice as long as the designated time to even begin to slow my mind down, and I assumed it was the same for everybody else. Do NTs just switch off their brains like that?
@stephenczetty@dyani@CynAq@actuallyautistic I thought it was standard in kindergartens! Me and my sister hated the “nap time”. Sometimes I could sleep out of boredom though🤣
@Georgy@dyani@CynAq@actuallyautistic I don't know if this is a common thing or not, but all through grade school, when anybody was finished with their test or whatever before everybody else, they were supposed to put their head on their desk and take a nap. It seemed as dumb to me then as it does now. I wasn't allowed to do anything productive at all with that time. I'm pretty sure I spent around 75% of my school time (before college) in enforced idleness.
@stephenczetty@Georgy@dyani@CynAq@actuallyautistic I used to keep a walkman in my pocket. I'd run my earbuds up through the sleeve of my jacket so that when I'd "put my head down" I could get them close to my ears and listen to music.
@roknrol@Georgy@dyani@CynAq@actuallyautistic Okay, so I guess that makes me officially old then. I didn't have fancy things like "earbuds," just clunky (and terrible sounding) over the ear headphones. Sounds like a nice lifehack though. 😃
@dyani@CynAq@actuallyautistic hello, a fellow noncompliant napper 😅 i distinctly recall explaining that i'd like to do something more interesting with my time than pretend to be asleep. my request was denied.
@CynAq@actuallyautistic Gosh. That's fucking silly as hell. She should have let you be and let you fucking read. You shouldn't be penalized bc you can read and the rest of them can't.
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