Dear _____________

I have recently come to understand a few things about my brain that have made me come to the realization that I need to make some changes in my life in order to get healthy.

I have spent most of my teaching years utterly and completely exhausted. I know that being exhausted is common for a teacher, so for a long time I attributed it to that. I have been to doctors and done tests and tried many different things. 

In the last year I have been doing a ton of research and have come to the realization that I am a high masking autistic. It’s only in the past few years that autism research has looked at and discovered that there are a lot of undiagnosed people who fit being autistic but are overlooked. They are overlooked because they have learned how to repress their autism and learned, through observation, how to play the role of a non-autistic person. (I made a 9-minute video on it here if you want to know more. https://youtu.be/nCRIM7LVlYs It also includes some of my own personal experiences. You really don't have to watch it though)

One of the main problems with an autistic roleplaying as a non autistic is that it takes a lot of extra brain power in the prefrontal cortex to do so. I’m really good at reading social cues and following all the right social rules, but it takes a ton of energy from my prefrontal cortex to do so, whereas non autistics do it all intuitively and subcortically. One of the most common and predictable effects of being a high masking autistic is “autistic burnout” which they are now starting to do more research on. (You definitely don’t have to click on the links; it’s kind of an autistic thing to include them. Additionally, I know that I am not the only one who is working through this among the staff at Rampart.)

I mask at a pretty high level because I’ve studied human behavior for so long (very common for high masking autistics). In many ways I’m teaching with a whole invented persona. I love teaching and I have become really good at it so I definitely want to continue. I teach with a lot of energy, and I spend a lot of energy reading the room so I can teach according to where everyone is at. In some ways, ironically, I think being an autistic has made me a much better relationship’s class teacher, but at the same time it’s killing me. I wrote about it here on a blog (again no need to click on it).

So, the bottom line is that I really want to continue teaching, but I think I may need to cut back in order to survive. What I’m wondering is:

Would it be a possibility for me to teach at Rampart at a reduced FTE of two classes per day, four classes total per semester putting me at a .67 FTE? 

Also, if there are other things that could be done in the building that don’t require teaching a class but could up my FTE, I would be very interested in them. I also have thought about possibly teaching an online class to supplement teaching in-person less than full-time. I was going to check into other online options for maybe an online class or two, but I really do love in-person teaching, so I would not want to go to teaching exclusively online.  

The very idea of cutting back on in-person teaching is heartbreaking to me because I love it so much, I’m good at it, and I feel like I’m able to help make the world a better place, which is all I’ve ever wanted to do. It has taken a lot of soul searching (and researching) for me to eventually come to this point where I would actually ask for a different teaching option. I love being a teacher at Rampart! I have loved teaching the students here for almost 24 years, so this is why I am hoping that my request may be possible.

I would be happy to talk about this in person if you feel it would help.