The wrong question
When a neurodivergent staff member is struggling, most schools respond well.
A conversation. A mentor. A coaching referral. A PD recommendation. A shift of classes or roles. A nudge toward counselling or an EAPs session.
The intent is genuine. The care is real. And almost none of it reaches the thing.
Not because the support is wrong. Because the question underneath it is.
The Work Beneath the Work
By afternoon the sensory load has been accumulating for hours. Lights. Noise. Movement at the edges of your vision. The effort of staying regulated in a building that was never designed with your nervous system in mind.
You’re still teaching. Still planning. Still present.
You’re doing it on reserves.
DESIGNED FOR VISITORS
The average student spends around 1,000 hours a year in a school building. The average teacher spends closer to 1,400 -- and carries the residue of it home. Two hundred days. The same corridors, the same staffroom, the same sensory conditions. Not passing through. Residing.
When the environment was designed without residents in mind, the cost of staying in it falls entirely on the people who do.