I recently informed my whole school staff that I am Autistic. It was a terrifying experience. But what does that mean? How can I function as a teacher?

As with any part of my life, routines are very important. I can not stress this enough. Routines are so important. The less stress I can put on my brain the better.

The school I am at has a 6 day cycle. We work 5 days a week, and the days are cycled from days A through F. So each week is a different combination of letter days. It has taken me 3 1/2 years to get used to this. I am never sure what I am preparing for the next day. I want to have spelling quizzes or short review games every Friday. I can’t. I never know what time I have having class on Friday, or what subjects, or how many classes. Don’t get me wrong. I understand the original reason for this; to alleviate loss of class from special events (usually on Fridays). But it is really hard to get used to. And my Neurodivergent students have this same difficulty.

But here’s the thing, routine changes compounded upon each other make things harder. For example. If I come into class on Monday, knowing it is a Day C for example. I have to plan out my marking time, and printing time. And then we have an assembly. It changes the routine. I don’t get to do my marking or printing at my planned time. My brain starts to Itch. Then I rush to do that at my lunch. I go to eat but discover they don’t have my safe food (Penn Bolognese and Salad). That’s another two routine changes. My brain begins to go into a panic. I have a monthly meeting after school to plan for. I know about it, but since it’s monthly, the routine is not there. I start to panic, and my brain begins to feel hot and swollen. What I am supposed to do or say at the meeting? I start to feel really upset. And then I have a student innocently interrupt my lesson with something unexpected. This could be what causes me to just sit down and shut down for a moment.

I have gone silent on my class. Lately, I have begun to just sit on the floor of my class during instruction time. Not because I want the attention, but I honestly just can’t think, and worry about falling over.

I have been honest about my autism with my students since the beginning of the year. I let them know about my quirks, and loud voices, and shut downs. Some of them took it serious, others are just starting to realize that I was not joking.

But they are just 8 or 9 years old. Should they have to deal with that? I ask myself this a lot this year. I have to remind myself that its not that they are dealing with it. I am dealing with it. They are learning about how to be accepting, and open to different peoples. Or I hope they are learning that. There is no assessment for this. No score. No grade.

I have some amazing students, who guide me back. They shouldn’t have to, but they have taken on the task. They quiet the class down, as much as they can. And they ask me about the subject at hand after I have had a short sit down. Prompting me back to the topic I was teaching. This helps me refocus.

Back to my topic. Routines. I am an adult who has been doing this for 40+ years. I still have this difficulty. So, what about my students? As we get closer to the end of the school year, events increase. We experience more disruptions to routines. “Fun” activities, according to the leadership. I understand they want the kids to end the year with some “fun” memorable events. But my 8 year olds, who are still learning how to manage their emotions, have trouble with their routines. Their routine is disrupted so frequently, that we are seeing more and more sensory issues, that lead to meltdowns.

My monotropic brain freezes up when I face a decision. Do I continue teaching 17 students the lesson on grammar? Or do I go console and guide the student having a meltdown in the middle of the room? I actually freeze up. My brain wants to continue what it was doing (The lesson) because changing gears is difficult. But my heart wants to stop everything and guide them, and calm them. I know the rest of the class should learn from this. However, I get stuck. Then I get frustrated because I need to change gears and can’t.

Imagine, if you will, you are in a mine cart moving along a track. (Minecraft players will like this reference). You are going down a hill, and are enjoying the ride. But you realize that up ahead is a switch you need to hit to change directions. You then pull heavily on the breaks. You slow down your cart so that you can go at a speed slow enough to hit the switch. You can imagine how hard it is to pull that break for the entire hill. You know you need to change track. The one you are on will either hurt someone or lead to a dead end. But do you have the strength? Can you do it in time?

My brain works like that. I need to pull on the breaks heavily to change tracks. It’s so much easier to stay on one track, my routine. Change it and I have to pull that break often. Otherwise, I have to deliberately go slow all day. I often take frequent breaks to accommodate this change.

And the children have it harder, because they don’t have the strength to pull that break for long. Not yet. So what ends up happening is their mine cart crashes. They get hurt. They are not screaming and kicking things and collapsing on the ground because they want to. They are hurt, and they don’t know how to deal with it.

Routines help prevent this. Just let us stay on our tracks, or only change the tracks a very little. And always give us a lot of time to process the change in advance.