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[Duke 2.0]

It was basically, "We can't (that is, don't want to) take the time to investigate or follow up on anything, so we're going to take no action until a fight breaks out, then everyone gets punished equally to make sure we don't judge wrong.  We'll tell you that you should have come to us about the problem before it turned into a fight, even though we'd have told you that we can't do anything unless there's a serious problem. C'mon, socialize and work it out, that's why you're here.  There's nothing wrong with you, is there?"

That got a lot longer than I intended it, but you get the idea.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

I'm a success story.

Simply because the other students eventually overcame being douches and left me alone from then on without any input from me.

[Angel Of Death]

Hell, one teacher even joined in with the class in playing keep-away with my backpack and spreading its contents all over the room one time.

I'm starting to think the Australian public schooling system, for all it's flaws, is still not as bad as people make it out to be.

It depends on the school.

For example:

My primary school: Didn't deal with anything. Would always make the victim get in trouble.

Highschool: Deals with stuff but usually makes the victim suffer, too.

[Vector]

I think this might actually be a bit unfair on the author - he said the protagonist in the book was inspired by 2 people he knew who didn't have any kind of disability, and he said he regrets that the term "Asperger's" appears on the front of the book (Christopher doesn't actually specify what his issue actually is at any point during the novel).

Depends on if the regret is pre- or post-backlash for me to let up on him, frankly =/  Anyone can tell a story when they're in hot water, and the story he told before that hot water has been pretty much universally identified as being about autism (especially given that, you know, in that same blog post he states that he did read articles and such about autistic people while working on his writing).  Doesn't really help that he wrote his other book on parapsychology (hypochondria), either, or that he made the admission that he knew nothing about Asperger's... what, 6 years post-publication?  Wooooooow.  Also the "I slightly regret having that name on the cover."  "Slightly."  He says he thoroughly regrets having put that name on the cover now--and why is that?  Because people keep on asking him to come speak out for Autistic rights, and all he wanted to do was write books about disabilities and stuff.

I dunno, man.  Have a link.

I hope you'll take it as a compliment that you do very well, Vector.  I wouldn't have guessed.  I've found you a bit eccentric, but nothing more.  I thought your interest in the subject was more akin to mine.

Ah, thank you!  I'll have to admit that my main coping mechanism has been "ignore everything but words and a few key gestures," so I've become pretty adept at speaking on the internet and so on.  In person... haha.  I've been found out quite a few times.  At this point, I think the main indicators are the "regulating questions" and frequent inability to come up with comprehensible English sentences when I'm attempting to express myself.  Those are the obvious ones.  The slightly less-obvious ones have to do with routine, sensory stuff, and so on--but you usually don't notice things like "I can't wear fabric made of certain materials" or "I wear medium-height heels because it's more comfortable for my shortened Achilles tendons" when you're walking around the street, now do you?  Well, and the obsessive collection of information on certain subjects, but the subjects have been varied enough and my memory good enough that people don't really notice that

When I'm having trouble in general, though, it's painfully obvious.  Oh, well.  I've really been doing a lot better this semester than I ever had before.

[Zrk2]

Stuff like that makes me seriously consider having kids just so I can bitch out their teachers.

I fucking hate primary school teachers. The vast majority of them are stuck up pricks who think it is impossible for any student who disagrees with them to be right. If you dare to disagree they try to obfuscate and force you to say 'Yessir'. And they stick their fucking noses into stuff they have no legal jurisdiction over. I was in a fight off school property after school hours and the crossing guard saw me throw the other kid to the ground so she forced me to apologize and then the VP of the school called me to his office the next day. He was a bro and so the kid that started it got in a fight, but he still stuck his nose into shit he actually had no reason to be involved in.

[Aqizzar]

They should have lost their job, quickly. That is completely unacceptable in so many ways. It's bad enough to just turn a blind eye to the bullying, but to actually participate? That sounds like it comes from some shitty 80s movie about how evil the establishment is. The last thing a child needs in that situation is for the one person they can look to for protection from the bullying to gleefully participate in it. Stuff like that makes me seriously consider teaching.

As long as this subject is still in the air, I had a middleschool gym teacher like that.  His actual Coaching area was men's gymnastics, but he taught the plain ol' P.E. for non-committal people too.  This usually amounted to him assigning all the small people to one team and all the held-back 9th grade guys he knew by name on the other team, which he would then join, and introduce light tackling to any game we played.  Or got more creative, like having his team snap me a football, whereon he tossed me over his shoulder and threw me into the endzone, then had me run laps for being dumb enough to score a touchback.  I tried to get the guy fired for being a dick, or at least get me transferred away from his class.  That turned me into his personal caddy.

The one time that he actually gave me a break was the "final exam".  His "final exam" was playing against him in GoldenEye64.  Win = A, Lose = B, Don't Play = C.  He spotted me a B and let me leave early, just to be done with it.

[Max White]

Stuff like that makes me seriously consider having kids just so I can bitch out their teachers.

I fucking hate primary school teachers. The vast majority of them are stuck up pricks who think it is impossible for any student who disagrees with them to be right. If you dare to disagree they try to obfuscate and force you to say 'Yessir'. And they stick their fucking noses into stuff they have no legal jurisdiction over. I was in a fight off school property after school hours and the crossing guard saw me throw the other kid to the ground so she forced me to apologize and then the VP of the school called me to his office the next day. He was a bro and so the kid that started it got in a fight, but he still stuck his nose into shit he actually had no reason to be involved in.

Fucking English teachers!
Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

EDIT:

As long as this subject is still in the air, I had a middleschool gym teacher like that.  His actual Coaching area was men's gymnastics, but he taught the plain ol' P.E. for non-committal people too.  This usually amounted to him assigning all the small people to one team and all the held-back 9th grade guys he knew by name on the other team, which he would then join, and introduce light tackling to any game we played.  Or got more creative, like having his team snap me a football, whereon he tossed me over his shoulder and threw me into the endzone, then had me run laps for being dumb enough to score a touchback.  I tried to get the guy fired for being a dick, or at least get me transferred away from his class.  That turned me into his personal caddy.

The one time that he actually gave me a break was the "final exam".  His "final exam" was playing against him in GoldenEye64.  Win = A, Lose = B, Don't Play = C.  He spotted me a B and let me leave early, just to be done with it.

FUCKING P.E TEACHERS!

[Zrk2]

And everyone is jesus in purgatory? Welcome to my fucking life.

[SalmonGod]

That sounds like it comes from some shitty 80s movie about how evil the establishment is. The last thing a child needs in that situation is for the one person they can look to for protection from the bullying to gleefully participate in it. Stuff like that makes me seriously consider teaching.

Why do you think I've grown up an anarchist?  I've seen first hand how little the law means if the people in charge want to be selective in enforcing it.  In fact, it becomes a tool in the wrong hands.  I was a wierd kid (for different reasons over time), bookish/raised by intellectual parents, and non-religious in a very very christian fundamentalist dominated small town culture.  There was no one on my side. 

There weren't a lot of hardcore bullies and most people would be basically cordial with me, if extremely condescending.  But when bullies did decide to get active, there was not a single person who wouldn't either join in the laughing or act as if it wasn't happening.

In 10th grade (my last year there) I actually met a small group of other outcasts, and the only non-christians I'd met outside of family or internet in 7 years.  They were a grade or two ahead of me, and there wasn't any inter-grade class mixing until then.  The shit started hitting the fan that year, especially as that was the year the Columbine incident occured.  I'm very thankful that was my last year there.

[Max White]

And everyone is jesus in purgatory? Welcome to my fucking life.

You know what? Maybe that kid is just starring at the giant angel statue because it is a massive statue he has never seen before, and it is some what impressive, and everybody else is just walking past because they has seen it a billion times in the past. Perhaps the director is trying to show that the kid is amazed by the wonders of the modern world. Why must everything be deep religious messages for you, and that we don't respect god as much as we should? I see those rosary beads and crucifix, you zealous bitch!

[Duke 2.0]

You know what? Maybe that kid is just starring at the giant angle statue because it is a massive statue he has never seen before, and it is some what impressive, and everybody else is just walking past because they has seen it a billion times in the past. Perhaps the director is trying to show that the kid is amazed by the wonders of the modern world. Why must everything be deep religious messages for you, and that we don't respect god as much as we should? I see those rosary beads and crucifix, you zealous bitch!

Fucking angle statues!

 And while I agree that one shouldn't force viewpoints upon somebody it's still a valid interpretation, especially in the western world where such themes are very common.

[Earthquake Damage]

The one time that he actually gave me a break was the "final exam".  His "final exam" was playing against him in GoldenEye64.  Win = A, Lose = B, Don't Play = C.  He spotted me a B and let me leave early, just to be done with it.

lolwut?

Also, RE the whole subject, I must've saved the world in a past life.  I only dealt with anything I'd call bullying in 8th grade.  Prior to that and afterward I was in different school districts.  Apparently I attended the only two schools in the country with ordinary decent people.  Karma FTW?

[ToonyMan]

My social life pretty much got a lot better starting around Junior year of High School.  At that point I gave up on being a stressed out lunatic and relaaaaaaaaxed.

[Cthulhu]

My least favorite thing in the world:

When people say "That's not x, it's y" where x and y are synonyms but y has a negative connotation.  See:  Circumcision arguments, parents instilling values in their kids (Specifically values the arguer disagrees with) arguments, etc.

[fqllve]

As long as this subject is still in the air, I had a middleschool gym teacher like that.  His actual Coaching area was men's gymnastics, but he taught the plain ol' P.E. for non-committal people too.  This usually amounted to him assigning all the small people to one team and all the held-back 9th grade guys he knew by name on the other team, which he would then join, and introduce light tackling to any game we played.  Or got more creative, like having his team snap me a football, whereon he tossed me over his shoulder and threw me into the endzone, then had me run laps for being dumb enough to score a touchback.  I tried to get the guy fired for being a dick, or at least get me transferred away from his class.  That turned me into his personal caddy.

The one time that he actually gave me a break was the "final exam".  His "final exam" was playing against him in GoldenEye64.  Win = A, Lose = B, Don't Play = C.  He spotted me a B and let me leave early, just to be done with it.

I bet all the favorites thought he was the coolest teacher they ever had too. That's how stuff like that seems to go. And whenever any protest is made the teacher is cast to look like a fun guy who's just trying to bond with his students with his own brand of masculine playfulness. Of course it's the small kids' faults for being overly sensitive. He just wants to toughen them up for the real world!

It occurs to me that this topic might be worthy of its own thread, since it seems people have a lot to say about it.

[Leafsnail]

Depends on if the regret is pre- or post-backlash for me to let up on him, frankly =/  Anyone can tell a story when they're in hot water, and the story he told before that hot water has been pretty much universally identified as being about autism (especially given that, you know, in that same blog post he states that he did read articles and such about autistic people while working on his writing).  Doesn't really help that he wrote his other book on parapsychology (hypochondria), either, or that he made the admission that he knew nothing about Asperger's... what, 6 years post-publication?  Wooooooow.  Also the "I slightly regret having that name on the cover."  "Slightly."  He says he thoroughly regrets having put that name on the cover now--and why is that?  Because people keep on asking him to come speak out for Autistic rights, and all he wanted to do was write books about disabilities and stuff.

I dunno, man.  Have a link.

Bolded: So... the fact that, at some point in his life, he's read articles about autism (and at a point when he wasn't researching for his book) means that the book has to be about autism?  And that seems like a perfectly valid regret to me - he wanted to write a book about someone who is different, and people got the impression that he was an expert.

I mean, if you go in assuming he has ill intent you can treat everything he says as a lie, but I'm not seeing it.