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Schools need openly neurodivergent teachers students can look up to, Sydney panel said
In short
Panellists at the 2024 Sydney education session argued for visible neurodivergent staff and autistic experts in schools, and described three local examples of schools starting to make that change.
Read it instead, 5 minutesThe transcript
The story
Students need to be able to see adults like them in the school, a panellist told the education panel at the Autistic Pride Day Symposium in Sydney in June 2024, and too many of those adults are hiding. There are too many helping professions, the panellist said, in which people are scared of coming forward as neurodivergent. Schools need open representation, and openly neurodivergent teachers “where their kids can look at them and say here’s my role model. Here’s someone I can look up to.”
Kyriakos Gold, who hosted the session, added that the same problem had come up at the first event the year before, where the discussion had turned to how much stigma there was in the health professions. People looking for a neurodivergent professional, he said, found very few who would say they had that experience, and so did not know who to connect with.
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Sources the story draws on
- What are the views and experiences of autistic teachers? Findings from an online survey in the UK (opens in a new tab), Disability and Society (Taylor and Francis), vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 47 to 72
- 2024 suspensions and expulsions (fact sheet) (opens in a new tab), NSW Department of Education
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