ira-407 - Tumblr blog

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GEN 7

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GEN 5

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funniest draft ever. what the fuck was i realizing

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Yes, I concur. I don’t think college students would oppose that!

How to School Me Better: Universal Changes

This will be the first in a series of blog posts about me reflecting on my schooling experience. Each of them will be posted under the "school" tag on my tumblr.

I graduated college two years ago. I haven’t been back in school since then, though I do plan to return about a year from now. My overall school experience was, I’d say, pretty decent. I was certainly not without many personal struggles, whether it was academically or socially, though. Many of my teachers were great and really did the best with what they had. There were a few teachers I had who I didn’t think were good teachers and who failed to really reach me. Regardless, the public American education system is an absolute mess and I think it needs to be fundamentally reworked from the ground up. I don’t think I can find that many people, including current teachers, who would completely disagree with that sentiment. So what I am going to do here is brainstorm ways in which I think said system could be reworked, though more to the point, I am going to list ways in which I think specific subjects could have been taught to me in ways where they actually would have stuck and have been meaningful to me. Now that I am an adult, I have recognized that I definitely don’t have a dislike for learning-in fact, I think most people like learning in some form or fashion-but the way a lot of subjects were handled in the classes I took was in a way that was not very conducive to actual learning. It’s actually pretty wild, thinking back at it, how the people who design these curriculums thought that they were. I don’t mean the individual teachers I had here, for the most part at least. There was a large looming force over most of the courses I took, whether it was standardized testing or having to do grades in a specific way for the school. So these are more systemic suggestions than they are levied at any specific teachers I had, though certain teaching styles and philosophies worked better with me than others. 

Universal changes

More federal funding across the board

Smaller student-to-teacher ratio

The abolishment of homework

More recess/unstructured break time for all grade levels

No standardized testing

No self-contained special ed classes for *anyone*. Actually meaningfully include students with disabilities.

Shorter school days in general, though doing this without also shortening the work day for most jobs would not be optimal

Minimize traditional testing in general

Apply a strength-based approach to how mastery of the subjects are assessed

A lot of these are things already done at private schools and via homeschooling. Which is great! However, most families cannot afford these things. I don’t know that mine could’ve. Private schools and homeschooling are at best, band-aids on the current system we have, and at worst are shelters from the real world for parents who want to mold their children into their particular image of them. Tutoring also definitely helped me, but again, it’s a band-aid. Private schools also tend to have horrific things happen in them because they’re not beholden to the same rules as public schools, though they can also be great for that same reason. Regardless, those are not going to help the most people as opposed to more systemic changes. Other obligations can get in the way of homework if one is involved with extracurricular activities. Now yes, there’s the “school comes first, extracurriculars second” doctrine but I really don’t think it’s that simple.

Extracurriculars are supposed to enhance your learning in some way, and may even utilize skills you learn in classes. Why not leverage that more instead of expecting someone to not break under the pressure of having to juggle so many things at once? There seems to always be the underpinning argument of “this is how the real world works, Better Get Used To It” when it comes to this stuff. Yes, having to juggle obligations is part of adulthood. However, a lot of the time, even then, I feel like it doesn’t quite have to be that way. If this is what I needed to get used to, then why should I be excited to grow up at all? There’s also a point to be made about how a lot of what we even learn in school isn’t stuff we use in everyday life, though I think one way to fix that is to simply apply what we learn to real life more often. 

Strengths-based approach is a term often used in disability services, though I think in a lot of ways, it is applicable to learning as a whole. Some of the very best teachers I had used this approach. They were the ones who really valued growth and connection. The ones who didn’t simply feel like authority figures, the ones who didn’t care as much about the extrinsic value, but rather the ones who actually took time to meet students where they are, and make them recognize that they inherently have strengths that can be utilized effectively. They make the class feel legitimately connected, and the only people who may feel left out simply weren’t interested in the first place. I can tell the difference that makes for a classroom environment. A great example of this was a class I took two semesters in a row, which was for a storytelling ensemble known as Tellers.  One thing I really liked about Tellers was that everyone had their own thing they brought to the table. There wasn’t really a sense of, “oh, this guy is better than the other guy”. The director really has a way of making each performance feel special and becoming of the individual’s skillset. Does that mean nobody in tellers is better or worse than another or that all performances are equally good? No. What it does mean, is that there wasn’t a race to the top. There was simply being the best you. Bringing your best foot forward. Not creating a hierarchy or a sense of competition doesn’t mean nobody gets praised in a classroom. It means everyone’s unique talents and strengths are well recognized. What makes a teacher truly exceptional is the ability to fully realize that. 

Next, I want to go by individual subjects, since I had my own share of strengths and weaknesses in each of them. Generally speaking, I struggled the most with STEM subjects. I think some of this has to do with how my brain is wired. I’m definitely not a very logical point a-point b thinker. However, I also don’t at all think I am incapable of learning these things. Most, probably nearly all, of my former teachers and professors would likely agree that I was capable of learning what they taught me and I generally would absorb it pretty well. What I struggled with were the assignments themselves, and keeping up with the pace at which the content was taught. The most common ways most subjects were taught didn’t work for me. Some of what didn’t work about how these subjects were taught also affected how well I did in literature and humanities courses too, even though those were usually my stronger subjects. Since I don't want to put everything into one giant, long blog post, I am going to split these up into parts. Next time I will be discussing math, but for now, I would like to know what you think about what I have discussed so far, as well as your own personal experiences, should you feel comfortable sharing.

TL;DR: My schooling experience came with a myriad of challenges. Many of these were because of my disabilities as well as how the system is not properly designed for people like me, and is inherently flawed in general. There are many systemic changes that should be made that can improve the overall experience for everyone, students and teachers alike. There are also specific changes that could made which would benefit students like me.

[ira-407]

hi i’ve seen your post about aspie supremacy and i’m genuinely curious, why is wanting audhd to be recognized a problem? isn’t adhd a very common comorbidity?

Glad you asked. It's not so much that recognizing the intersection of the two is an issue-it's not-it's that people are basically creating their own sub-category of autism (and by extension ADHD) out of it that is very reminiscent of the Asperger's "profile" of autism. Hope that helps.

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Punchy Words

There are many words in the English language. There are many different ways to use said words. While words are supposed to have a definition, particularly if they appear in the dictionary,  not every word or term necessarily has one. Words are an important part of our communication, but they don’t tell us everything. I think more than anything, words and especially definitions are guidelines, but not always definitive or objective. 

Adjectives are one way we describe things. Anyone who’s been to elementary school (or has watched Schoolhouse Rock) should know this. There are strong words often reserved to describe strong feelings-such as horrible, amazing, gorgeous, or hideous. Someone may see something they think is bad and call it horrible and vice versa. Words can be important, but are not everything. 

There are words in particular-mostly adjectives-that people will use to describe things in an extreme way. Sometimes I think it’s justified. Other times, I think people look for the harshest label because they either think that strongly of something and/or they think the stronger the adjective, the more right they are and the more wrong the other person is. I describe these as punchy words. Here are a few examples:

Bigot

Nazi

Pedophile

Hate group

Genocidal

Groomer

Monster

Epidemic

Disaster

Bully

Abuser/abusive

Thief

Grifter

Plagiarist

Liar

Torture

Sometimes these are accurate descriptions. Many times, they’re not. In some cases, they are somewhat true but missing important context or nuance, and because of that, everything is reduced to a punchy word or a collection of them. Some examples:

Calling someone who you simply don’t get along with your abuser or abusive

Calling a condescending and ineffective organization a hate group

Saying that a person or a company who hasn’t spoken out in favor of a countermovement to a country’s invasion is “complicit in genocide” or worse, an active enabler of it

Saying anyone who still hangs onto Asperger’s is a nazi or complicit in nazism

Trying to convince someone that a therapy is bad by calling it conversion therapy and/or abuse and/or torture without elaborating much if at all

And really, that last part is key to these punchy words. People use punchy words specifically as a way to persuade someone to change their mind. The thought pattern is as simple as “if I use the most extreme adjectives imaginable, that will automatically make them change their mind and come to my side”. In actuality, this is very rarely an effective tool of persuasion. For some people, this may work. For most, it does not. It actually makes it *less* likely they’ll want to listen to you. This is not respectability politics or tone policing. This isn’t me saying “I can see where you’re coming from, I just wish you’d be nicer about it”. This is “I think your argument is ineffective and is not going to convince most people to do what you are advocating for them to do”.  The “cooler head” in an argument is often considered the “winner”. While this is by no means universally true, there is a point to be made that the more informed you are about something, and the more nuanced of an understanding you have, the more likely you are to sound calm and collected. 

It’s much easier and takes less effort to use punchy words to try and win someone over to your side. However, it’s more effective to give a more detailed explanation and more importantly, to meet the other person where they are and work from there. That feels much more like a genuine conversation than it does mudslinging. 

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Real

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10-27-2022

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Enough autistic influencers what about autistics who can't even influence ourselves

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occasional posts from users

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Oh that's what it means is it

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The average eighteen-month-old autistic child who is exposed to 40 hours of ABA per week will be expected to surpass the severe threshold of the PTSD criteria within six weeks, given 1.5% lifetime exposure. The average three-year-old autistic child who is exposed to twenty hours of ABA per week will be expected to surpass the severe threshold of the PTSD criteria within five months of ABA exposure. The average five-year-old autistic child who is exposed to ten hours of ABA per week will be expected to surpass the severe threshold of the PTSD criteria before their seventh birthday.

from kupferstein, 2018, "evidence of increased ptsd symptoms in autistics exposed to applied behavior analysis"

like, i knew this, but actually looking at someone having done The Math about it is staggering.

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can someone give me $100,000 I won't pay you back

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You're telling me a gar* licked this bread?

*a North American freshwater fish of the family Lepisosteidae

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What is Aspie Supremacy, Actually?

A lot of people know what aspie supremacy is, but don’t seem to actually know what it means. For one, its origins can be traced back to Mel Baggs. It’s possible someone else used the term before sie did, but the framework for it that people are most familiar with originated with hir. Mel also coined autistic supremacy before that. They’re not necessarily one in the same, but I don’t think it’s bad to use them interchangeably, especially since one is often accompanied by the other anyway. It's a similar idea to the disability hierarchy and "My Mind is Fine" doctrine that preceded it, and is directly related to these things.

Autistic Supremacy is an autistic person acting like or outright stating they’re superior to non-autistic people. This often comes in the form of what was called “NT-bashing” in the usenet days. I personally don’t see it as different enough from Aspie Supremacy for the distinction to really matter, but it was something Mel came up with before Aspie Supremacy and is linked to it. Someone is an autistic supremacist when they make a space that is only for autistic people and they don’t even allow cousins in. Autistic spaces are important, but I think what makes a space autistic space vs. not one is who is in the majority, and moreover, who is in control. So I don’t care so much if it’s all autistic or not. I feel like that mindset does more damage than it helps. “By and for autistic people” doesn’t need to mean “autistics only, sorry”. It’s part of what made the Facebook group Just Us Autistics so bad. Anyway.

Aspie Supremacy is autistic people acting superior to other autistic people. This was much more blatant when Mel devised the term but is absolutely still a thing. It runs a lot deeper than I think most people are willing to admit-or, to be more specific, the people who are perpetrating it. As much as I’ve mentioned Mel already, I don’t think the definition of Aspie Supremacy is beholden to Mel and Mel alone, and I don’t think sie would think so either. Based on what I’ve observed, I think the examples I’m about to give are very much things Mel would have agreed qualify as Aspie Supremacy regardless. Aspie Supremacy isn’t simply when someone declares themself an aspie or when a person clings onto the Asperger’s diagnosis despite its extinction. Sure, that counts as it, and many people who do that also do other things, but that’s just the most apparent form of Aspie Supremacy. There are more covert examples that I argue are more insidious, and are done by people who would be very quick to denounce Asperger’s, but only because the person it’s named after was a nazi and for no other reason. 

Examples of Aspie Supremacy:

 Failing to mention anything related to disability in your advocacy-ergo, talking about autism as its own thing or solely as a cultural identity

Moreover, failing to contextualize autism within the scope of the broader disability community and rights movement. MAYBE saying something about ADHD but that’s it.

Doubly so if you ignore the I/DD-led Self-Advocacy Movement

Not centering people with I/DD in your advocacy at all

If you do mention people with I/DD, it’s brief and basically an afterthought. Perhaps as a statistic or vague example of something.

Separating autism as its own thing from the rest of the neurodivergent umbrella

Saying you “stand with nonspeakers” and do nothing to actually engage with them beyond sharing their stuff on social media

Saying you “stand with nonspeakers” only to say very stigmatizing things about them

When being called out for this, you don’t listen and perhaps try to argue that you’re actually right. Bonus points if the person you’re arguing with has I/DD and/or is nonspeaking.

Tokenize nonspeakers and silo them into their own special subclass of the autistic population

Use “Medium/High Support Needs” as a stand-in for “low functioning”

Assert that you are nothing like people you deem to have higher support needs

Using your autism as an excuse for racism and calling people ableist for rightfully criticizing your behavior because “[the racism] is one of my autism symptoms”

Wanting more autism subtypes to be officially recognized like AuDHD or PDA

On that note, using PDA as an excuse for shitty behavior, ESPECIALLY if you consider it a “pervasive drive for autonomy”

Trying to rebrand PDA as a “pervasive drive for autonomy”

Your advocacy being highly academic and intellectual-sounding with no effort in making it sound more accessible

On that note, not engaging in the actual community that is outside of academia's ivory tower, unless it's for academic research

Being against the idea of autism or ADHD being considered a disorder

Caring significantly about the distinction between “disorder” and “disability”

Forcing people to exclusively use identity-first language and not even considering person-first language’s origins

Talking about the social model of disability in the misunderstood concept of “people are only disabled by societal barriers”, denying the existence of disability that comes from personal impairments at all

Supporting the removal of autism and maybe ADHD from the DSM but only those because they’re “identities” 

Thinking that autistic people are direct descendants of neanderthals 

Armchair diagnosing people with mental illnesses just because they don’t do things you like

Denying the legitimacy of someone because they use FC, RPM, or a similar method to form words

Saying things like "that's not autism or intellectual disability it's apraxia" or some other form of that statement

There are definitely more but these are all of the examples I could readily think of. All of which I have observed from other people. So as you can see, these are things that are actually quite common in autistic spaces. Really, most of these are signs of being a generally indecent person. It’s pretty damning how many people I know do this, and to be clear, they aren’t people I like. At this point, I have zero tolerance for Aspie Supremacy. It’s one thing to still be in the learning process and having a commitment to doing as good by certain people as possible, but it’s another thing to do the stuff I listed above *and be proud of it*. As for one particular example, I will say there’s nuance to saying you’re not like another person and some truth to it. Where I take issue is when you do this with another autistic person in a way where you’re saying you don’t even have the same disability as them, especially if you’re saying they don’t deserve the same rights and basic respect as you do. That autistic person who doesn’t speak and has an intellectual disability is likely more like you than you think, and to deny those similarities is wrong and exclusionary. 

TL;DR Aspie Supremacy sucks. It’s something people need to check within themselves. It’s also a lot more prevalent than one may think, and denouncing the specific labels of aspie and Asperger’s does not recuse oneself from it. 

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My opinion about the Illymation versus Think before you sleep drama

I think this drama is stupid as fuck. Like I feel so bad for illymation. Like imagine this from her perspective like 1 day you Make a video about how kids shouldn't be going into drastic diets because of how they feel about their body. And then some random ass Conservative Youtuber makes a whole ass video about how your indoctrinating children and that you're trying to make people fat. And because of that random ass conservative Youtuber, you're getting harassed by his fans. you get so much harassment That you have to turn off your comments on that video you made. And then After a while of this, you decide to respond Like an adult By making a post on Tumblr Telling your fans not to watch the video and to just report it. And then Out of nowhere. Conservative Youtuber decides to make a 32 minute video Pissing and shitting himself over the fact you dare to make a tumblr Comment Telling people not to watch the video. And in that video he directly tells his fans that you're cyber bullying him And you're trying to censor him and you're trying to censor people with disagreeing opinions. Which makes the harassment much worse. And you're just stuck in limbo not being able to do much about it because if you try to say anything again he's gonna make another video about you which will create more harassment. I want to become an alcoholic cuz of hearing this whole situation. I cannot imagine what it would be like being her in this situation. if By any chance illymation is reading this I just have to say I am so sorry that a Whiny conservative Manchild Is doing this to you. I don't know how to end this sooooooo um byeeeee

[ira-407]

Your parents are not "narcissists". They're typical authoritarian assholes who treat you like their property because society allows them to.

Your ex boyfriend is not a "narcissist". He's a typical misogynistic douchebag who treats women like shit because society allows him to.

Your boss is not a "narcissist". They're a typical classist dipshit who thinks workers' entire purpose in life is to generate profit because society allows them to.

And even if they happen to be a "narcissist", that's not what gave them the power to get away with abuse.

So stop blaming mental illness and start blaming society's normalization of abuse. Stop acting like someone has to have a mental illness in order to do something cruel when ordinary people have been doing atrocious things since forever.