I first realized that I wanted to be a teacher almost at the same time when I received my first mental health diagnosis. At the time, I was in an elite institution which counted with the class, impostor syndrome and chronic solitude. I went through ruthless states of insomnia, dissociation and cerebral fog. I was tired and anxious all the time while feeling my heart broken on my condition.
My first year in education, my student teaching year, was incredibly difficult. Giving clear instructions when my brain could hardly understand my environment was difficult. In the middle of my anxiety, I could not read the room during discussions on the scale of the show. I had days when my mind moved a mile per minute and my instructions were mixed, and others when I could barely form a sentence. Most of the time, I stammered when I spoke and I was so uncomfortable in my skin that I could barely project my voice. For weeks, I felt incredibly low, with high energy sporadic days. Instead of looking for help, I would isolate myself and create self -destructive stories about the way I was horrible of a teacher. I felt aware of my failures every day.
To make matters worse, I had a mentor teacher who made sure I knew I was not doing a good job. When the job season has arrived, my mentor teacher said to me: “You are too shy to be hired.” When our time together ended, his last words were: “I don’t know how long you will last as a teacher with everything you have.” I knew that I was struggling, and to temper the tension between us, I chose to be vulnerable and to share my mental diagnoses with her.
I continued to fight with teaching mechanics, in particular the most essential part of being a teacher: presence. I felt more and more badly equipped for this profession. I left my student teaching year by feeling really broken. Everything that was going on with me let me feel inadequate for this very difficult work.
Despite the obstacles before me, I knew that all the anxiety and pain that I felt was not something stimulated by my experience of higher education, but problems that had been there since I was a child. I realized that what I wanted to do with my life was to be there for other people – people who fight in the same way as me, with the same experiences as me. The person I wanted to be the most was the younger version of myself.
The truth is that there was no day in my life when I did not have trouble with my mental health. The only difference is that I now have the tools and the discipline to manage it in a lasting way. When I started education, I wanted to be emotionally there for young people. Now, I realize that it is not only a question of being there for them, but of transmitting the skills I have acquired to live with my Neurodivergence.
The words of my mentor teacher have haunted me for years, but now I am proud to say that I am a fifth year teacher who has not only found a way to live with her NeurodivergenceBut learned to accept it and even adopt it as a tool that helps me provide my students with the best possible education. Not only that, but I was able to merge the scaffolding I built for myself with the scaffolding that I provide to students.
Tools for students and teachers
If there is something I have learned as a neurodivergent educator, it is that a able The world will not expect me, so I should know what I need. In recent years, I learned that I can’t just “do” a course plan. Due to my anxiety, I need to know exactly what I do well in advance to be present to the needs of my students. To be present, I prepare a lot because I accept that this is what I need to succeed.
Consequently, I created a graphic organizer where I script my instructions and Think of Alouds. I write the answers provided to students to find out when I hear what will allow me to assess the understanding of the students. In addition, I color the parts of my scripts in color where I have to take a break and check understanding. I reread my course plans before teaching. I have built systems in my prices planning approach that keeps me organized because I know that I cannot hold all this information in my brain.
I accept that I cannot deliver a quality lesson without significant preparation. With the help of many therapists and psychiatrists, I learned that it’s okay. Not only that, but this level of preparation means that I can share my lessons with others and support new teachers if they need a reference.
Self -awareness and the organization I found are skills Ies Or 504s. We must teach all our students the tools available to them, whether color coding, affirmations, graphic organizers or prolonged time to help them become independent learners. These are all tools that I use daily as a educator.
I now understand that I have to start a much earlier task to finish it in time. These difficult lessons are those that I can transmit authentically to my students, not because I try to give them a hard love, but because I can talk about personal experience as a person who had to find ways to cut off professional expectations.
I still have days when I cannot communicate as clearly as I wish. Since I know, I write the instructions and expectations in a Control list format adapted to students On all my slides so that students can at least reference them if I find it difficult to give coherent instructions. It turns out that the control list format is a recurring accommodation given to many students with PEI and is often discussed outside the context of special education as “rave. “This level of preparation is the one I know that I must have because of my neurodivergence, and not in spite of it.
Finally, although I do not disclose my diagnoses with my students, I am honest and transparent when I spend a bad mental health. I would literally say: “Sorry, you guys, Mrs. E is on the wrestling bus today.” And if the students ask me what I mean by that, I will say: “I am struggling with my mental health.”
As a result, we had honest conversations on certain conditions, such as depression and anxiety. By choosing to be vulnerable and honest, I provide moments of learning disability For my students that they could not get otherwise. By talking to them about me, I open a portal in a world where teachers are humanized instead of being considered as figures of authority which simply distribute the notes at the end of the semester.
Our differences are not charges
If I could go back to the person I was when I started teaching students, I would tell him that all the things that make him different will end up being her superpowers as a Educator – even what seems to be a burden.
I believe that my handicaps are not a burden for my educational practice because I know the importance of scaffolding, housing and Learning universal design. I know what it is to wake up and have the impression that the coming day is impossible and to use affirmations, exercise and meditation to support my mental resilience. I can tell my students the value of strengthening strength in the face of pain because I also live this struggle.
My preparation, my heart and my diligence are all the result of my neurodivergence. For that, I am grateful and proud to say that I write this as someone who found the tools and the strength necessary to stay in education. In the end, everything I needed and continued to use to succeed as a teacher is exactly what my students also need. I now believe that neurodivergent teachers are an asset for class because we have direct experience with the difficulties of receiving information and processing it. We know what it is not to record anything, the teacher said and meet raised eyebrows – as if we are poor students who are not careful. I know that students need patience, compassion, attention and radical curiosity, because that is what I needed as a student in class. In the end, “everything that was going on” with me is what kept me in the classroom and not out of him.
๐ #MR_HEKA ๐
