Mental Health Awareness week: Silencing the ‘neurotypical’ critic in my neurodivergent head - an ‘insider’ view
Should I be teaching if I am dyslexic? Should I be teaching if I am dyspraxic? What if I spell something wrong? What if students find out I am neurodivergent: Will I lose credibility? Will I be dismissed as cognitively deficient?
These are some of the questions I battled with during my time as a teacher in the further education sector. I can recall on more than one occasion berating myself when I spelt something wrong, or couldn’t recall an important word or concept, or pronounced something incorrectly. One time, after teaching three lessons in a row, I came back to the staff room in tears because I realised during a lesson on ethnic identity, I had spelt ‘assimilation’ wrong, I had spelt the word as ‘assimulation’.
I felt frustrated with myself and experienced a sense of guilt, I felt like I had let my students down, all because my ‘stupid brain’ could not work out the error in time for me to correct the mistake during the lesson. Fortunately for me I worked with the most fantastic and supportive colleagues, who reminded me that regardless of cognitive processing, having just taught three lessons in a row these things can happen-Twenty-six pairs of eyes staring back at you while you ‘perform’ as a teacher is stress inducing, and the ‘mistake’ did not define who I was as a neurodivergent person, nor as a teacher.
The empathy and support from my colleagues got me through the rest of the day, it was so good to be reminded that teaching as a profession is stressful and all consuming, and that I needed to be kinder to myself, to release myself of the burden to aspire to be the perfect ‘neurotypical’ teacher, as such perfection does not exist outside of performative policy rhetoric.
At the end of the day I went home, I decided to give myself the evening off, no marking or lesson preparation, just rest and a good night’s sleep, I recharged and went back in the next day feeling more positive and relaxed, and continued to be the committed teaching professional I had always been.
So, instead of my usual form in suggesting what college employers could do to accommodate neurodivergent teaching staff, I will simply end by reminding all teachers and managers in the FE sector that…
· Your mental health matters – do not let the profession consume all of you
· Take time out, to step outside of the classroom, to step out of the building, at break and lunch times – go for a 5–10-minute walk, take deep breaths, eat your lunch!
· Accept you are fallible – everyone is
· Have a term night off – give yourself one night in the week to go for a bike ride, yoga class, read a book (non-academic), cook a nice meal, or simply do nothing
· Neurodivergent teachers, you are such an asset to the college you work for, to the students you teach, never forget that…
· To all teachers, you are AMAZING!
