So, lemme be clear, I'm 36 and this is long passed in my life. However, it did suddenly come to mind just how screwed up my schooling situation was back then. As far back as I can remember, I rode the short bus to school. Not that I knew of the stigma it had back then. Come middle school, I was put into a single class compared to the students who would change classes every period. I guess after they found out I was autistic (back in 2000), I was then sent to a specialized class in a school way out of town. 45 minute bus rides were the norm. Some other kids were taken from one town to another and most of them have much worse behavioral issues than I had. I didn't cause scenes on the bus at least.

In 2001, after this whole going out of town thing, I probably had the worst teacher I could have had. I would bring a Pokémon magazine to read because long trip. I swear the teacher had it out for me. It was always something I was doing wrong in his eyes. This was the smallest class I was in, I think just 4 other students. So he flat out trashed that magazine when he found it. What the hell?! I wonder if it were something for older kids, he would have done the same thing or if it was specifically because it was a kids thing, Pokémon? I wasn't allowed to go to a school play because he really hated my hand writing. He was replaced with another teacher came the next school year. The replacement teacher said he quit or something, when in reality, she wasn't being truthful. I would find out in 9th grade when I met one of the students I used to go to that class with that the awful teacher was arrested I think for assaulting his wife. And briefly on that note, In either 7th or 8th grade, I had a therapist who I later found out was straight up killed by her abusive husband.

Come 2003, I moved. I ended up in a specialized school program place because they didn't know where else to put me. Oh yeah, I also didn't get any high school credits again due to no fault of my own. I thought I was in 10th grade, but turns out I had to repeat 9th grade. So the system already had me set up to fail, lovely. It better not be like this anymore, how many talented kids got held back because of a terrible system? So I was in this program that was one step away from kiddy prison. There were less than 20 other students. I had no business being in this program especially since I got in the least trouble compared to every other student. At least this was much closer to home and I didn't have to ride out of town to reach it.

2004, I finally started to mainstream into a nearby high school one period at a time before late 2004 where I finally got out of that program I never should have been put in the first place. I can only hope that program is shut down today or at the very least that being autistic isn't an automatic trip to it. So here's the other thing. Although I was finally doing multiple classes just like everyone else, I realized something else was going on. There was a high school very close to home, like less than 10 minutes away. However, I ended up going to a further away high school, still in the same town at least. Why? Well, my best guess is because of race. Now I can't prove this for sure and I really don't want to be one of those people crying racism at stuff if it truly wasn't the case. I'm black and the further away school was majority black students and staff, so maybe they sent me there instead of the closer school because of that. Again, I don't know for sure and it's not like I can go back to ask, as if they would be completely honest.

About a year after mainstreaming into proper high school, I effectively rage quit high school. I made some friends over time and I would get into some really stupid arguments with most (but not all) of them. And then also numerous issues with the other students. They knew I was making some of the highest grades in the classes which would lead to them wanting me on teams for a few special events and even at least a couple of cases of students trying to cheat on my home work. First time was someone behind me looking over and second time was when a sub teacher was in and one of the students flat out grabbing my paper from me. I ended up skipping more and more days till I effectively stopped going entirely and in 2006 I would be homeschooled. And then came summer of that year and I think I would have to do summer school or something. Yeah, no. I was in 11th grade still at this time and 18 years old when that should have been my final school yeah if I wasn't screwed over by the system. Anyway I don't recall exactly how it happened, but I got set on a path toward getting my GED, which was effectively the same thing as a high school diploma.

I can only hope my nephews and niece, whom at least one of them is possibly autistic, doesn't go through even remotely similar situations I did. But this is the 2020s so maybe education on autism is much better understood.

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I mean, I also didn’t have the most good experiences in school, in first grade through third grade, I was put into a school where they said it was inclusive, but it wasn’t, mind you I have a physical disability, and then after I left that school, I was put into a school for the mentally disabled for seven years, and I was relentlessly bullied for seven years, and was too scared to even tell my mom 10 years later.

And the things I experienced in that school, whenever the teacher was out of the room, our bully would force us to watch porn on the school computer, and she told us if we looked away, something bad would happen, and we had this one severely autistic boy in our class, and every time the teacher went out our bully would hit him across the face until he cried but I couldn’t say anything about it because if I did, I knew that something bad would happen to me.

Now mind you all of this is still happening in Germany to this day, there is no inclusion and no schools for normal students and disabled students like in the US, and don’t even get me started on the stairs that I still get from people when I simply go out, especially young kids now I’m 24 but back then it was awful.