When School is a Systemic Failure

*Names changed, as always...

Well, I thought I had finished blog posts about my school days for the foreseeable future, but then I learned something else that happened during my nightmare in ceramics class that I never knew about. 

A little backstory: in 2014, an old classmate, Annette, looked me up on Facebook. We had never been friends in school, and I don't really recall many interactions with her. However, she remembered the way I was bullied, and apologized for not stepping in. She said it had bothered her the way people treated me, but she also knew that if she stood up for me, she would be targeted next. I said something along the lines of, "The '90s were a more ignorant time, and we were kids. Water under the bridge." We are friends now, and when I visit my parents in Pennsylvania, we often get together.

This week, I sent Annette my last blog post, in which I related being at the mercy of a group of girls who constantly threw large chunks of clay at me in ceramics class. One day, unable to take it any more, I retaliated by hurling a container of water at their ringleader, Kay. She acted surprised and yelled, "Julie, why'd you do that?" loudly enough to get the attention of our teacher, Miss Mitch, who asked me the same question. Kay and her cronies innocently maintained that they hadn't done anything to me and that I had just thrown water for no reason. Humiliated and defeated, I left the room amid victorious cheering. 

Annette told me that she was in my class-- something I only vaguely remember-- and that she recalls that horrific incident. She also told me that sometime before then, she reported the bullying to Miss Mitch. Touched to learn about this, I asked Annette how the teacher responded. Annette told me that she said something like, "Well, what was Julie doing?" as if I must have provoked the girls in some way. Figures. Miss Mitch had told me to "just ignore them," and she essentially asked Annette what my role in my abuse was. 

I am sure you can guess the nickname I used for Miss Mitch for the rest of the conversation with Annette.

I never knew that Miss Mitch had seen me as a problem, but now it's absolutely clear. She probably thought I was too sensitive, that I was provoking the girls, that I was "asking for it" for not trying hard enough to fit in, all of the above, and more. I know there were at least a few teachers who perceived me through a similarly distorted lens-- one that comes to mind is my ninth-grade history teacher, Mr. Frank-- but I began to wonder: if there were two, there had to have been more. Annette told me that she recalls a number of teachers seeming to think I was a problem to manage, just by the way they said my name when they talked to me. Kids are very perceptive. If they picked up on how authority figures felt about me, then of course they felt emboldened to treat me the way they did. 

As Annette said to me in our conversation, "Looking back it is fucking insane that the kid who was perpetually bullied was the problem."

At any rate, it is now clearer than ever that the my issues at the school were systemic. It was not just a couple incompetent teachers and a few asshole kids. It was a total systemic failure that didn't just passively allow the bullying to continue, but actively encouraged it. It is the kind that has historically ensured that autistic kids don't stand a chance. There was an inherent bias against whomever didn't fit the mold: these kids were dismissed as weird, immature, sensitive, a behavior problem... take your pick. Additionally, it's easier to blame one kid than to blame an entire group of kids. If one kid is being disproportionately targeted by dozens of classmates, then it has to be that kid's fault. No way could that many kids be that mean. That one kid must be bringing it on themselves!

1 in 31 kids today are diagnosed with autism, due to broadening criteria that wasn't available in the '90s. There had to have been other kids who were going through similar hell. Or if they weren't, it was because they learned to mask: that is, "fit in"-- pretend to be someone they aren't in order to avoid psychological and physical abuse. My refusal to do this was not seen as a strength and self-understanding, but as a sign of immaturity and stubbornness. 

Many autistic people-- women especially-- from my generation and earlier have come forward about the masking they were forced to do as teenagers. A significant number of them have PTSD. While I don't have enough symptoms to fit the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, my therapist has said that I do exhibit some. My bullies probably don't even remember what they did, but 30 years later, I still remember very clearly. That speaks to the kind of trauma I endured.

While society has come a long way in the past 30 years in awareness of autism, bullying, and the intersection of the two, it is still a problem. Moreover, I fear it will be getting worse in the near future. After all, our current government-- with the worst kind of bully as the most powerful man on earth-- will only serve as affirmation to bullies that their behavior is acceptable. Additionally, I can only imagine how RFK Jr.'s recent disgusting comments about autistic people will give them more fuel for their fire.