Skip to main content

I am an Inconsistent Employee

"I'm taking lessons with you because my friend took lessons with you last month, and he said you're the best instructor in [company name omitted]. He highly recommended you, and, when I saw that he got high scores on his exam, I was encouraged to contact you."
That's what a new student told me this morning, and, to be honest, I was surprised.

It's not that I'm a bad teacher. My unique way of thinking seems to work very well for most students, actually. Because my brain translates most things into the kind of thought-process involved in mathematical proofs, I'm able to assess a student's strengths and weaknesses and customize the curriculum for their needs as we go. My mind also works very systematically, which means that I present the material clearly and thoroughly, highlighting the "why" behind my recommendations. This also lets me provide detailed written feedback on each lesson.

I'm not a bad teacher, but I'm inconsistent. Autism, chronic illnesses, and mental illness get in the way of being the reliable employee that I want to be. Sometimes, I miss lessons due to asthma preventing lengthy speech, seizure-like spells, migraines, or total exhaustion (beyond normal tiredness). Other times, I open everything for class and sit at my computer but either panic and leave before the lesson starts or partway through the lesson. Still other times, autism has thrown me into a meltdown, sensory overload, shutdown, or semi-verbal spell that prevents me from doing my job. Finally, executive dysfunction can get so bad that I forget the lesson, come to the lesson but cannot operate my computer to log in/do anything, log in but cannot think enough to open the material, or set everything up but cannot think enough to give clear/coherent instruction.


I don't usually tell my students this. Despite my qualms about lying, I follow my work's recommendation that I blame the inconsistency on technical issues and other benign causes most of the time. Most students are surprisingly accommodating, although some, understandably, are not.

Honestly, I feel really guilty about my inconsistency, even though I know I do my best. I moved to the city in which I now live 2 years ago and started working intensely with a new team of doctors and mental health professionals to try to stabilize myself enough to work full-time. I truly thought that with enough effort and intervention, I could do anything I wanted. After 2 years, my team is telling me that's probably not the case. They are shifting their recommendations from workplace accommodations to SSI with part-time work of no more than around 10 hours per week from home.

I love what I do, and, even though there's no shame in having a disability, I'm still working through a lot of internalized ableism and guilt.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Autism and Teaching English

In many ways, autism makes me a good teacher. I explain things clearly and systematically. I keep detailed notes on each student because I have to do so to remember. I have formulas for everything and provide data-based feedback on student progress after every lesson. It also makes me a good English as a Second Language teacher. I pinpoint specific, recurring issues in students' speaking (accent, pronunciation, and oral fluency) and take a structured approach to addressing these issues. I do the same with academic writing (structure, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, coherence and cohesion). However, it makes me a lousy literature teacher. I'm good at poetry, but stories are not my thing. I take them at face value. It's hard for me to see symbolism behind the words. A story about talking rabbits ( Watership Down ) is, to me, just about the talking rabbits, and I'm totally into the narrative of those rabbits. I also cannot empathize with character emotions unless I...
Post a Comment
Read more

I Jiggle When I Dance: A Poem

TW: Fat (reclaimed), eating disorder recovery mention, obesity mention, body image issues mention  I've been posting a lot of poetry lately because that's the content my brain has been able to produce, but I'm going to try to get some regular content to you soon. In the meantime, there is far to little fat positivity on this blog, as I grapple with my own eating disorder recovery, obesity, and body image issues. In that vein, I bring you my new fat positivity poem, "I Jiggle When I Dance". I Jiggle When I Dance When I dance My stomach wiggles side to side Even after I stop moving   The movement of my breasts Is really obvious And I’m learning Not to try to hide it   My feet on the floor Would make creaks and thumps Except   If I move my lower half My joints scream in pain And I have to stop dancing   So I dance with the top of me Jiggles and all And I’m learning to be free   To love myself more freely To live ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills Part 1

All posts in this series reflect working through  DBT® Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets, Second Edition . All quotes come from this book unless otherwise noted.  Deciding to Study Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills: According to the book, the reason for practicing interpersonal effectiveness skills is to "be skillful in getting what you want and need from others", "build relationships and end destructive ones", and "walk the middle path". There are some factors that can get in the way of interpersonal effectiveness: lacking the skills you need, not knowing what you want, being too emotional to be skillful, forgetting long-term goals because of what you want right now, "other people... getting in the way", and having thoughts and beliefs that get in the way. The thoughts and beliefs that were getting in the way of me practicing interpersonal effectiveness skills were: "If I ask for something or say no, I can't stand if so...
Post a Comment
Read more