“The wisest man is he who understands that he understands nothing.” – Socrates (According to some, this may be a misquote. Greek is difficult.)
I may not be a wise man, but I do fully understand my lack of understanding about most of the world. I am autistic and I have ADHD, both of which have made it incredibly difficult to learn properly in school. ADHD has always caused me to have a hard time focusing, and autism, especially since I went through all of school without a diagnosis for it, caused me to see things I was taught completely differently than educators or other students, often to the detriment of both my social life and my education.
If you were to ask my teachers back in elementary school, many of them would be likely to say that I “knew” the material they were trying to teach but looking back, I was simply good at memorizing random facts. That doesn’t really mean I was understanding the teachings. And with that in consideration could I really claim to “know” anything? I was called “smart” and “gifted” through my childhood, when in reality I was just able to remember correct answers; I was never really able to pay attention and even less able to understand the “why:” “Why is this being taught;” “Why do I need to know this;” “Why did this historical figure do what they did?” I was always confused when I did pay attention, so I kept myself to memorizing the simple facts as that was all I needed when it came time to test the knowledge.
All the while I continued hearing how smart I was to the point that I believed it: all I needed to be super smart was to memorize basic facts. This served me fine, aside from being friendless, until high school. In high school, I was expected to know everything required by the Common Core program from both elementary and middle school. Not just have the bare facts memorized, but understand exactly how, why and when things happened. I was expected to understand analysis of literature (For instance, a question could such as “Poe wrote in detail about the blue of the curtains. What emotion was he trying to convey in doing so?” And I would answer, “I’m not sure, maybe he just liked blue as a color for curtains.” [This is a symptom in males with autism. One of the only things guaranteed with autism is that autistic males are largely unempathetic. They have a hard time putting themselves in the place of others.]).
I quickly started falling behind in my classes in high school, passing with B’s and C’s rather than the A’s I was getting in elementary and middle school (although those were “4’s,” not A’s). The main thing to save my GPA was my theater classes and the extra credit I was getting from performing in the stage productions. Theater had always been my “special interest,” so it came easily to me. And strangely, on the stage I’m able to put myself away and into the shoes of a character despite my lack of empathetic abilities.
Perhaps this is due to my studies of the teachings of Константин Станиславский, the first method actor. His teachings were incredibly matter-of-fact and easy to understand, causing me much less strife than most subjects I attempted to learn in my life. I highly credit Станиславский with my ability to finish high school with a decent (not great, but decent) GPA as, using his teachings, I was able to both be a better actor as well as analyze writing more clearly. This helped me with English classes, which were my main struggle before. I still was unable to empathize, but I was able to act as a person who could. This is likely to be something very few people understand. Even I don’t really understand it, but I am sure many people on the autism spectrum would be able to at least get where I’m coming from.
So due to my disorders, I had a very hard time in school, but with my love of theater and acting I was able to pull myself together. My current hope in life is that I can manage to do the same through college and beyond, so I can get my teaching license and help other students like me to get through their own studies. I really hope I’m up to the task.