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Because she’s brave enough to post stories such as this one: Asperger’s at work: Why I’m difficult in meetings

Eighty percent of adults with Asperger Syndrome do not have full-time work. This not because they can’t do the work. It’s that they can’t manage to be socially acceptable while they get the work done.

Countless studies show people would rather have pleasant and personable co-workers than a co-worker who is always right. I try to keep this in mind each day, and consequently, I spend a lot of time planning my interactions.

But sometimes my plans fail. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, I’m going to walk you through my most recent parent-teacher conference. Which was a disaster. And while it was a meeting in a second-grade classroom, it could have been a meeting with anyone, anywhere.

Read the rest.

to breathe a sigh of relief as the work week begins to wind down, and you’re getting some things done (though never enough) and you’re on your way to pick your child up from school, the cell phone rings. And it’s the school teacher to tell you that your special needs child has injured herself with a pair of scissors, possibly seriously enough to need some stitches, and how far are you actually from the school right now?

Those were the longest four minutes of our lives. (The longest six minutes of our lives was the day we got the call from school while we were at home about her first seizure.)

It’s all good in the end: we talked child down from screaming, wailing shrieks of panic when the teacher unwisely said “stitches” in front of her. I was able to finally examine the wound (two slashing cuts on her index finger) and ascertain that the bleeding was slowing down nicely. We decided that hours in the emergency room for the unwelcome prospect of a stitch or two weren’t warranted, instead stocking up on some gauze pads and wrap.

An hour and a half perched on the couch with her bandaged finger elevated while mother and daughter watched her beloved Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie has made it all better.

But if you’re wondering why I don’t have the last of that bunch of tutorials marked or all of the panels organized for the graduate scholarship board, well, life happened and I’m just happy that we made it this far.

Oh, and the other child likely has the flu. (Swine flu has been confirmed in at least one student in our program, too.) Ain’t life grand?

Julie Meloni shared an inspired teaching tip at ProfHacker: Wordles, or the gateway drug to textual analysis.

I love this and am going to share it with my seniors in the seminar who’re doing lots of close readings of their various sources. Here’s an example from one of the texts we’ve used this term, Jane Anger’s Her Protection for Women:

There’s no release date for this, but it is coming out in North America in English at some point so we’d better be ready: Pope Joan the movie, co-starring Johanna Wokalek, David Wenham and John Goodman (engage cognitive dissonance):

(trailer on YT with English subtitles)

Oh, staircase, how grand an aid you would be
If your treads were not made carpet-free!
But being wood
Is not so good
When I must quickly give marks of A, B, C or D
To all the papers students handed into me.
I make my way to the stairs and pray,
that you can help me in your way.
I toss the papers downward, but the lot just slides into the hall;
Damnit, stupid staircase! I have to mark them after all.

(Note: no papers were marked in the composition of this poem which means that I really need to get cracking. See you all in January, I fear!)

I’m sick.

The first cold of the term is rather like death and taxes, isn’t it? It’s not a matter of if, but when.

Which is now and the timing really sucked because it’s Thanksgiving weekend where, instead of enjoying a relaxing and productive visit with my in-laws, I was felled with a migraine and nasty sore throat the entire weekend. Which really isn’t effectively any time off since I don’t teach on Mondays and I’ll be in the office extra long hours all the other days of this week for meetings and the like.

Bleargh!

Or “Adventures in Navigating the Special Needs Services System.” Also, possibly, why parents need a Ph.D. to navigate and endure the difficulties in just trying to get their child the support they need.

Long story short, youngest was formally diagnosed with autism over seven years ago. Being that she’s soon going to be a teen, we’d like a new assessment. (We don’t expect they’ll tell us that she’ll be “cured” of autism; we’d like an accurate snapshot of her abilities and her problems to aid her high school and post-secondary instructors.) At a marathon meeting in June with one of the umbrella agencies that administer to special needs children in our part of Ontario (where I had to go over all her file and paperwork which, somehow, never completely tracks from one agency and system to another), I made the request.

The agency bounced the ball back in my court early in July, suggesting that, since our daughter’s in the school system, that perhaps the school system could get her seen to more quickly than they could manage (though they’d put her on their list, anyway). I had to bide my time until fall to put the request to the board since they’re closed for vacation. When I did so at our September school meeting, I hoped that we’d hear something soon. Well? Today, youngest’s school agenda contained an email printout from the school board offices. Apparently, I should contact the agency that told me to contact the school board, because this is their job, not the board’s. (That’s news to the agency, I am sure.)

This afternoon, I left a message with the agency staffer, double-checking that they have, as promised in June, put her on the waiting list for reassessment. In any case, it’s going to be a long wait and a lot of work just to keep on top of it. And this is just one of the bureaucratic boondoggles we have to face on her behalf. The people that we meet with are all caring, thoughtful and concerned individuals. Collectively? The systems frustrate far more than they function.

Our faculty union negotiated this benefit with the university a few years ago to have our workspaces audited for ergonomics issues. One of my department colleagues had the dubious honour of having his office declared the worst in the university (for ergonomics, mind you — it was not unkempt or poorly maintained) and getting an entire ergonomic makeover for chair, desk and lighting.

One of our union leaders has frequented my office with a disapproving glare at my beloved desk. He was greatly disappointed that I didn’t book an appointment last year and reminded me of this year’s go-round. When the notice arrived, I actually picked up the phone (cue shocking intake of breath for there are few things that I loathe more than telephones) and booked an appointment.

Between now and that hallowed moment at the end of the month, I must make up a floor plan of my office and take some photographs of my workspace so that the ergonomics expert can weigh in on my working habits.

The expert is likely to have kittens about my workspace, though. Read more »

Wow! Tonnes of contributors met their deadline for yesterday (or close enough as makes no difference). This is awesome news, however, I am stretched to the limit, processing entries (entering them into the database, making sure the format is correct, profusely thanking the contributors for their awesome jobs) as well as trying to write my own and, of course, cope with the endless torrent of marking.

I’m hoping to be on top of all the encyclopedia submissions by mid-month so that I can get another call for contributors out (know an early modernist? Send them my way!) since I still have the last few hundred entries ready to be assigned including a few high-profile topics.