Gary

‘If we’re not positive about neuro divergence, then these kids are going to keep suffering. That’s what I’m here for, I just want to try and help the future for these kids.’

Gary is autistic and has taught in more than 100 high schools as a permanent and causal teacher.

He told the Royal Commission he is fed up with the way autistic students are treated in school.

‘They’re put in the “too hard” basket, they’re being taught rubbish,’ he said. And they are regularly being suspended.

One of Gary’s year 8 students, Frankie, was suspended four times. Each suspension lasted for two weeks which meant he missed eight weeks of school.

In the monthly staff meeting teachers complained about Frankie, saying ‘he’s horrible, he mucks up, he throws things around the room, he throws tantrums’.

Gary felt the suspensions were unnecessary and possibly even illegal.

‘I found this kid was absolutely brilliant … great in my class,’ he said.

Frankie’s behaviours were a result of Tourette syndrome, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism. Gary explained to his colleagues, ‘He’s not mucking around, he’s having a meltdown and Tourette rages’. He encouraged them to provide more support.

But the school leadership refused to provide support for Frankie because he hadn’t been diagnosed with autism. Gary couldn’t understand this reasoning and suggested they treat Frankie as an autistic kid anyway – he did.

In Gary’s class there was a quiet corner with a comfortable couch. Frankie loved fishing and Gary allowed him to sit on the couch and practice tying fishing knots.

Gary told Frankie, ‘The only thing you need to do is sit there and listen to everything I say because I know you’re going to absorb this information.’

Frankie excelled, scored 94 per cent in the exam and topped the class. But Gary’s approach was dismissed by the other staff.

‘If they’re not neurodiverse themselves, they really don’t understand it,’ he said.

The suspensions really affected Frankie and on a science excursion ‘he had an absolute Tourette’s rage, pushing kids and was very upset’. But the teacher blamed Frankie, labelled him undisciplined, saying Frankie knew what he was doing.

Another time, Frankie was thrown off the school because he was swearing loudly, which is part of his Tourette’s.

Gary said, ‘These are the sort of things these kids are experiencing every day. No wonder they’ve got mental [health] issues.’

No one was listening to Gary about Frankie, so he started to post messages on the school’s internal message board – for example, ‘this kid needed extra help’ –  to let staff and other students know what was going on.

The deputy principal demanded Gary remove the posts and gave him a formal warning about his performance.

‘It was like they were trying to find something to get rid of me,’ he said.

Gary felt it had been this way since he told the school he was autistic. Almost as soon as the school agreed to his list of reasonable adjustments they began to ignore the agreement and use the list to bully him. At times Gary felt they deliberately did things they knew would provoke him.

Then another autistic student told Gary he was having a birthday party after school and was anxious his friends would miss the bus. Gary was thrilled for him and told him to leave five minutes early and go to the bus stop and wait with his friends.

The deputy head saw the boys at the bus stop and immediately emailed Gary telling him this contravened school rules and gave Gary his second formal warning. Gary tried to explain, to no avail. He involved his union and the school offered him a package to resign, which he accepted.

‘It’s the best thing I ever did.’

Since then he has been teaching casually in schools with specialist autistic units. He hopes to get a permanent job.

Gary wants to change the way autistic students are educated, starting with the curriculum. His advice – replace life skills with topics the student enjoys.

‘Each individual autistic kid just … concentrates on what they are really good at because, honestly, if you find what they are good at, they will be the best in the world at it.’