{"id":1163,"date":"2019-02-09T21:02:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T02:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/wordpress\/autisticme\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2023-11-26T16:29:07","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T22:29:07","slug":"podcast-episode-027-struggles-as-a-student-and-educator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/2019\/02\/09\/podcast-episode-027-struggles-as-a-student-and-educator\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast Episode 027 &#8211; Struggles as a Student and Educator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Podcast Episode 0027; Season 02, Episode 13; February 8, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Too often I hear people suggest that education, especially higher education, is somehow the ideal career path for autistics. It might be good for some, but education has proven to be an impossible path for me.\u00a0If I had focused on a more technical field, maybe I would have succeeded as a professor. Unfortunately, I ended up in English departments or judged by English colleagues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I am not a success. I am not an\u00a0academic inspiration story.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I made poor choices. Maybe others can learn something from my mistakes.<\/p>\n\n<!-- iframe plugin v.6.0 wordpress.org\/plugins\/iframe\/ -->\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/8582756\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/336699\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" 0=\"allowfullscreen\" 1=\"webkitallowfullscreen\" 2=\"mozallowfullscreen\" 3=\"oallowfullscreen\" 4=\"msallowfullscreen\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\n\n<h3>Transcript (lightly edited)<\/h3>\n<p>Welcome to <em><strong>The Autistic Me Podcast<\/strong><\/em>. I\u2019m Christopher Scott Wyatt, speaking as The Autistic Me.<\/p>\n<p>This week, I want to address\u00a0education, one of the three topics about which I receive the most questions.<\/p>\n<p>I could write a book about my\u00a0experiences as a student and educator. I\u2019ve started just such a project several\u00a0times, and each time I\u2019ve decided it isn\u2019t helpful since it is one failure\u00a0after another. There\u2019s a lot more to say than what follows, but it\u2019s enough to\u00a0remind people that education is no better than any other path for an autistic\u00a0individual.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d argue education is difficult\u00a0for any disabled person. Higher education is particularly uninviting and\u00a0unsupportive.<\/p>\n<p>The assumption is that because I\u00a0have completed various degree programs, I must have mastered how to succeed in\u00a0higher education. The reality is more complex. Yes, I do have two terminal\u00a0degrees, a doctorate and a master of fine arts, but the journey towards those\u00a0degrees was fraught with academic and social failures.<\/p>\n<p>I did not complete some of the\u00a0programs I attempted. In several instances, I departed universities out of\u00a0frustration. To this day, I regret being unable to complete degree programs I\u00a0had hoped would lead me into a stable career.<\/p>\n<p>I have not had, and am unlikely\u00a0now to have, a genuine career. Employment failures resemble my struggles in\u00a0academic settings, which require the same social and organizational skills as a\u00a0workplace.<\/p>\n<p>And so, I want listeners and\u00a0readers to know that what they consider to be academic success actually\u00a0reflects a series of desperate attempts to find a community and career in which\u00a0I might feel comfortable and somewhat welcomed.<\/p>\n<p>I remember a teacher in\u00a0Bakersfield, where I started school, calling my family \u201ctrailer park trash\u201d and\u00a0that has remained with me. Technically, we did live in two mobile home parks\u00a0when I was young. When we moved, we moved to Ivanhoe, California, a small town\u00a0known for its poverty. I was well aware of the difference between living in\u00a0Ivanhoe and living in the \u201cbetter\u201d rural neighborhood of Oak Ranch.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve known since first grade that\u00a0I enjoy writing and creating things. But, like most people, my career interests\u00a0changed from writing, to science, to technology. The interests merged when I\u00a0realized I could write about science and technology \u2014 and then use technology\u00a0to create media.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve written before about my\u00a0shift into the Mentally Gifted Minors and then Gifted And Talented Education\u00a0programs. Simply moving from one city to another, from one school district to\u00a0another, led to significant label changes. I went from receiving one type of\u00a0supports for struggling students to receiving supports for being gifted. Often,\u00a0students rise to meet expectations, and I\u2019d like to imagine I did better\u00a0because it was expected of me.<\/p>\n<p>The resource specialist for the\u00a0elementary schools introduced me to the Apple and Atari computers. Eventually, I\u00a0would own a Commodore VIC-20, a Timex-Sinclair, and two IBM-compatible\u00a0computers, a Tandy 1000 and an Epson AT. Computers make sense to me, even when\u00a0people do not. I learned to program because I wanted to create more things with\u00a0the computer. I coded text editors, art programs, and even simple music.<\/p>\n<p>People do forget that technology\u00a0was rare in the 1970s and early 80s. Personal computers became common when I\u00a0was in high school, with the releases of the IBM PC XT and the Apple IIe.<\/p>\n<p>Though I might have seemed normal\u00a0or okay to adults, I knew I wasn\u2019t particularly liked by peers. A young girl, a\u00a0fifth-grader when I was in sixth grade, ran a campaign that helped to elect me\u00a0school president. I thought this meant I might have friends or be more liked in\u00a0some way. If anything, being student body president in sixth grade made the\u00a0isolation of junior high even harder to ignore. Younger kids had liked me,\u00a0while my peers considered me helplessly weird.<\/p>\n<p>Even worse, I didn\u2019t know how to\u00a0relate to the young girl who had managed to get me elected. She was really\u00a0nice\u2026 so, of course, I didn\u2019t know how to get to know her and show her any\u00a0respect. She did the impossible, even if it became something of a joke.<\/p>\n<p>I was a difficult student. I\u2019d\u00a0speak up when a teacher made a mistake. My parents were told I might not amount\u00a0to much. School was a challenge because I was smart and socially inept, even\u00a0with teachers.<\/p>\n<p>High school was a social\u00a0struggle. I didn\u2019t go to prom or seriously date. I struggled with depression\u00a0and skipped more classes than my parents probably realizes. Without three good\u00a0mentors, I would have stopped at high school.<\/p>\n<p>The value of mentors cannot be\u00a0overstated. I need those people who will remind me to do things I dislike so I\u00a0can later do what I love. Though I prefer to be alone, ignoring the world, you\u00a0cannot do that and succeed \u2014 at least not usually. Finding journalism helped. I could write and use my technical skills. I helped set up computer labs and\u00a0configure software. I could be a geek and a writer.<\/p>\n<p>Other people were better\u00a0reporters and I wasn\u2019t the best writer because I would rush. But, I was good\u00a0enough that I had a plan for college.<\/p>\n<p>When I entered college, I assumed\u00a0I would be a technology or business reporter, and use technology in the\u00a0workplace. Computer science was more theoretical and mainframe-focused in the\u00a01980s, so I focused on journalism. I added an English degree when I learned\u00a0that to teach journalism in California you needed an English education\u00a0credential. Teaching was supposed to be a safety net at first, but by my senior\u00a0year teaching journalism was my intended career path.<\/p>\n<p>The only reason I managed to\u00a0complete my undergraduate degrees was that I was in the honors program at the\u00a0University of Southern California. The honors housing, known as\u00a0Faculty-in-Residence, meant I had a stable community and faculty mentors to\u00a0help me navigate the foreign world of the university. I also found comfort\u00a0working at the University Computing Services, where I could learn about IBM\u00a0mainframes, Sun Workstations, and various programming languages. I learned more\u00a0at work than in classes.<\/p>\n<p>Again, I had two great mentors at\u00a0work, another reason I was able to complete the two undergraduate degrees. At\u00a0work, I was reminded of the value of any degree. Most of the programmers didn\u2019t\u00a0have technology degrees. They had studied fields including philosophy,\u00a0classics, art, and music. To be a computer geek, you didn\u2019t need a computing-related degree.<\/p>\n<p>I finished the undergraduate\u00a0degrees in December of 1990. My goal was to complete my teaching credential\u00a0that spring.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, I did not finish the\u00a0teacher education program.<\/p>\n<p>I came within two courses of\u00a0completing the credential and regret not doing so to this day. Instead, I had a\u00a0conflict with the professor overseeing student teachers. My high school\u00a0journalism instructor was about to take a sabbatical for a documentary project.\u00a0I hoped to take his place for the year while finishing my studies.<\/p>\n<p>My conflict with the USC School\u00a0of Education was largely because the professor considered me too rigid and too\u00a0format. She wrote that I was unlikely to connect with students, even though I\u00a0knew my subject materials. In her view, I was not ready to enter a classroom.\u00a0Instead of trying to negotiate, instead of arguing that I should be allowed to\u00a0prove my abilities, I left USC and drove home\u2026 insulted and hurt that someone\u00a0would say I shouldn\u2019t teach because of my personality.<\/p>\n<p>I did take the temporary teaching\u00a0post, but the work at USC in education was largely wasted. I went from being\u00a0eight weeks from earning a credential to starting over. Now, I had to enroll in\u00a0another education program while teaching. That\u2019s how I entered my second university. My goal became teaching and earning a degree in education so I\u00a0could continue doing what I loved.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, instead of staying\u00a0in my temporary post, I accepted a permanent post in another district for the\u00a0fall of 1991. That post quickly fell apart after conflicts with my assigned\u00a0mentor at the high school. He was abusive towards me and inappropriate towards\u00a0students, but he was popular. Times have changed a lot since then, thankfully.\u00a0I resigned my position, unable to continue in what was a toxic environment for\u00a0me.<\/p>\n<p>And there I was, with yet more\u00a0education coursework completed and no job. I left the graduate program, feeling\u00a0worse than I did when I left USC. Now, I had failed twice to clear my\u00a0credential to become a teacher.<\/p>\n<p>In the years ahead, I would try\u00a0two more teaching credential programs. I left both programs unable to do the\u00a0same work I had done twice before. I understand there are residency\u00a0requirements at universities and they want to ensure some quality within degree\u00a0and credential programs, but I wish there had been more flexibility.<\/p>\n<p>Taking courses that aren\u2019t of\u00a0interest to me isn\u2019t easy. Taking the same course twice has proved impossible.<\/p>\n<p>I tried a graduate program in\u00a0journalism, and really wanted to succeed in that program. Unfortunately, I was\u00a0older than other students and felt incredibly isolated away from friends and\u00a0family. A residential life advisor told me I made other students uncomfortable\u00a0with my late-night walks around campus. I was told classmates considered me\u00a0\u201ccreepy\u201d and \u201cweird.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My body gave out, from pain and\u00a0emotional exhaustion. Once again, I exited a program. The depression that\u00a0followed was severe, but I had no idea what to do next.<\/p>\n<p>I did make another attempt at a\u00a0teaching credential, at the same university at which I completed two graduate\u00a0courses while teaching high school journalism. But, I quickly became disgusted\u00a0with the low quality of instruction and the even lower quality of the students\u00a0with whom I found myself.<\/p>\n<p>That was four attempts at a\u00a0California high school teaching credential, each ending in a failure to\u00a0complete the program. Nothing was working out, and I was thirty years old by\u00a0that time.<\/p>\n<p>Thirty. No career. No practical\u00a0college degree.<\/p>\n<p>Emotionally, I was a mess. The\u00a0toll on my relationships was severe. I was good at school work, a good teacher\u2026\u00a0and a complete failure at jumping through the hoops to become a credentialed\u00a0high school teacher.<\/p>\n<p>It was at that time that I tried\u00a0to seek help from a therapist specializing in educational supports. Neither the\u00a0therapy nor the medications helped. If anything, my relationships deteriorated\u00a0more, along with my self-esteem. I nearly lost the friendship of the one person\u00a0who has been beside me through each educational misadventure, my wife.<\/p>\n<p>Technically, I did lose her. We\u00a0married and promptly divorced because I wanted her to find someone better. I\u00a0hated everything about myself. The psychologist had suggested I might be in the\u00a0wrong relationship for the wrong reasons; finding the \u201cright\u201d relationship\u00a0would somehow fix me and set my wife free to have a better life.<\/p>\n<p>In 2004, after my wife and her\u00a0family had supported two different attempts at self-employment, I returned\u00a0again to graduate school. This time, I entered Fresno State\u2019s master of fine\u00a0arts program in creative writing. I knew from teaching part-time at the local community college that an MFA was a terminal degree and with it I could teach\u00a0college.<\/p>\n<p>Within the first semester, I\u00a0realize the MFA was not for me. I love writing. I write all the time. But, I\u00a0didn\u2019t like the MFA model of reading and critiquing each other. I also\u00a0discovered that I don\u2019t love contemporary literary writing as much as my peers.\u00a0Give me my pop-lit and mass-market fiction. Also, I still prefer poetry that\u00a0rhymes \u2014 however odd that might seem. Free-verse can be good, but I didn\u2019t\u00a0understand most of what was being read\u2026 or written.<\/p>\n<p>I switched my degree to an MA in\u00a0Rhetoric, so I could focus on screen, stage, and new media. I enjoyed the\u00a0cinema and the drama courses much more.<\/p>\n<p>There were, however, still\u00a0struggles. I couldn\u2019t memorize dialogue from a play as easily as others. I\u00a0couldn\u2019t walk across campus some days without serious pain. I struggled in some\u00a0rooms with fluorescent lights. Pushing through some days was painful.<\/p>\n<p>Luck was on my side, for once,\u00a0and I again stumbled into a great mentor. He was at Fresno State only a short\u00a0time, but he was there for my two years and helped me finish the master\u2019s\u00a0degree. He was the professor who encouraged me to meet with disability\u00a0services, since I had a diagnosis of ADD\/ADHD and suffered from severe back\u00a0pain.<\/p>\n<p>After I graduated from Fresno State,\u00a0with distinction, my wife and I remarried. We relocated to Minnesota where I\u00a0was offered a fellowship in Rhetoric, Scientific and Technical Communication.\u00a0My goal now was to combine writing and computers, with more focus on the\u00a0technology of writing. I could study how we use computers to create texts and\u00a0other works, including audio and video compositions.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Minnesota\u00a0experience was horrible. There\u2019s really no other way to describe it from my\u00a0perspective. It was everything the USC School of Education had been, and worse.\u00a0The only difference is that my wife was with me. Without her, I would have quit\u00a0and walked away from everything.<\/p>\n<p>There was the job lost because I\u00a0made people uncomfortable. I was called a \u201cgimp\u201d one day in the building that\u00a0housed tutoring. I don\u2019t know who said it, but that was demoralizing. There was\u00a0the meeting with a faculty member, who declared I was a lot of extra effort. An\u00a0expulsion hearing because a faculty member claimed she was afraid of me.\u00a0Changes in advisers, adding to a sense of rejection\u2026. And so it went.<\/p>\n<p>I was evaluated, at the request\u00a0of the university, in 2007 and my diagnosis became high-functioning autism. I\u00a0was asked to meet with a university counselor, which was a waste of time and\u00a0counterproductive yet again. At some point, I canceled any future visits \u2014 but\u00a0I cannot recall why. It\u2019s probably best that some parts of Minnesota are\u00a0forgotten to me.<\/p>\n<p>My first job as a professor was\u00a0as bad as the Minnesota experience and reminded me of the \u201cpermanent\u201d teaching\u00a0job that derailed my second attempt at the teaching credential. We mutually\u00a0agreed to an early exit right after extremely positive reviews become extremely\u00a0negative. The hostility of the work environment again made leaving a matter of\u00a0personal wellbeing.<\/p>\n<p>The second job was better. I\u00a0served as a visiting professor and loved where I taught. But, when they hired\u00a0someone else for the permanent post, I decided against remaining as a part-time\u00a0instructor. Though I loved teaching at the university, and I enjoyed most of\u00a0the students, I did not get along well with the colleagues on the hiring\u00a0committee. I assumed teaching was again a dead dream, this time in higher\u00a0education.<\/p>\n<p>To make my way back into media,\u00a0which was the purpose for my journalism degree so long ago, I enrolled in an\u00a0MFA program in Film and Digital Technology. That experience was less than\u00a0great. I ended up with a series of medical emergencies and a surgery that\u00a0disrupted my studies. My wife and I were new foster parents, she had just undergone\u00a0cancer treatment, and my health collapsed.<\/p>\n<p>As with other situations, a\u00a0mentor helped me complete the degree. He let me take independent study courses\u00a0so I could catch up around being a new parent and physically ill. I still had\u00a0to pay for an extra semester, but now I had the MFA and could teach in a\u00a0journalism or media program.<\/p>\n<p>I soon applied for an assistant\u00a0professor post at a nearby state university. It was the job I always wanted \u2014\u00a0in a program with journalism and media production. I didn\u2019t get the job. Nobody\u00a0did, as the line was canceled. Somehow, I did end up teaching at the same\u00a0university, in the English Department, for a fraction of the salary a professor\u00a0with the same teaching load would earn.<\/p>\n<p>My current contract is for one\u00a0year, as an instructor. I\u2019m teaching courses I\u2019m not comfortable teaching. I\u00a0thought I was buying a year while my wife and I waited to adopt our daughters.\u00a0Then, I\u2019d re-enter the job market before 2018 ended and we could move for\u00a0whatever I located.<\/p>\n<p>The adoption has been delayed,\u00a0for legal technicalities. Knowing I do not want to teach English ever again,\u00a0this year has led me to conclude it is time to call it quits.<\/p>\n<p>Once I turned 50, it was clear\u00a0there was never going to be a teaching career. This year, I realized I don\u2019t\u00a0even want to teach part-time if I\u2019m not teaching in a media or technology\u00a0field. I\u2019m doing my best to learn as I teach, and I hope I\u2019m performing well.\u00a0But, I am unhappy and disillusioned.<\/p>\n<p>I chased the dream of teaching\u00a0journalism and media production since 1987. It is now 2019 and I have to accept\u00a0that the dream needs to end. At best, I can freelance in media and do my own\u00a0projects. Teaching journalism, photography, audio or video production wasn\u2019t\u00a0going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, I have published\u00a0several academic articles, two book chapters, presented numerous conference\u00a0papers, and co-edited a book.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m going to be unemployed\u00a0again in May.<\/p>\n<p>Every diploma and degree I\u00a0completed was due to the efforts of my wife and several mentors. I have let\u00a0them all down, in the end.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I am not a success. I am not an\u00a0academic inspiration story.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This has been Christopher Scott\u00a0Wyatt, speaking as <strong>The Autistic Me<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>The Autistic Me on Social Media<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Blog:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/\">https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Podcast:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/autisticme.libsyn.com\/\">https:\/\/autisticme.libsyn.com\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Facebook:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/autisticme\/\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/autisticme\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Twitter:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/autisticme\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/autisticme<\/a><\/li>\n<li>YouTube:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/CSWyatt\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/CSWyatt<\/a><\/li>\n<li>LinkedIn: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/autisticme\">https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/autisticme<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Podcast Episode 0027; Season 02, Episode 13; February 8, 2019 Too often I hear people suggest that education, especially higher education, is somehow the ideal career path for autistics. It might be good for some, but education has proven to be an impossible path for me.\u00a0If I had focused on&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/2019\/02\/09\/podcast-episode-027-struggles-as-a-student-and-educator\/\">Continue Reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Podcast Episode 027 &#8211; Struggles as a Student and Educator<\/span> <i class=\"fas fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5,10,13],"tags":[223,244,345,554,699,742],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-employment","category-podcast","category-writing","tag-discrimination","tag-education","tag-higher-education","tag-podcast","tag-teaching","tag-universities","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2023\/11\/Podcast_Banner_800x400.png?fit=711%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfivLC-iL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3647,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions\/3647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tameri.com\/autisticme\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}