A New Career As A Special Education Teacher

Time is passing and opportunities are opening for more students with special needs. Many students in college are getting more interested in Special Education as career that will allow more organization to have more workers with a big potential that will have an important impact on these kids with disabilities. However, this will require more training for the students that organizations around the country can give them. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,“the career outlook for special education teachers should remain steady through 2024, with an increase of 6%, the national average for job growth in the United States. The median salary for this position is just over $55,000 annually,” (“Master in Special Education”) The approach the

Preparing regular education teachers to address the diverse needs of children with special needs in inclusive set up.

Another way I plan to develop students’ critical thinking skills is by including more information-based texts in my curriculum. An article in the Early Childhood Education Journal discusses how two second grade teachers incorporate this into their classrooms (Calo, 2011). My favorite way that the teachers used informational texts was by choosing readings related to what was going on in the students’ lives. In one classroom, they had weekly visits from service dogs, so the teacher chose texts about dogs. For elementary students, this is a great way to get them engaged, ask deeper questions, and promote critical thinking.

I completed my field experience at Cedar Crest High School in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Since I serve the role of building principal, I am exposed to many different special education situations on a daily basis. Through this leadership field experience, I have learned a few additional things. It has taught me to stop and listen to what is occurring in our special education classrooms. By completing classroom observations, I was able to focus on the students, instead of rushing through a classroom observation on a teacher.

Teaching higher order thinking skills is not a recent need. It is apparent that students, at all levels of education, are lagging in problem-solving and thinking skills. Fragmentation of thinking skills, however, may be the result of critical thinking courses and texts. Every course, especially in content subjects, students should be taught to think logically, analyze and compare, question and evaluate.

Colleges strive to implement a curriculum that encourages students to think critically as developing this skill is crucial for them to be able to evaluate information from various perspectives through questioning to arrive at a conclusion. Since applying the familiar to the unfamiliar, analyzing situations from different points of views and digging under the surface level are skills that require practice to be learned, critical thinking should be tightly weaved into the reading and writing aspects of each course in college. According to The Perry Model of Intellectual and Ethical Development, students begin with dualistic thinking and “generally believe knowledge is certain and unambiguous” (Thoma). This explains how some people are afraid to think critically, because they are stuck with the mindset that there is only a right or wrong answer. As the students advance each stage in the Perry Model, they begin to accept multiple contexts and eventually come to accept the lack of certainty in the world. The need for answers from teachers or authority diminishes, and students realize the need to use complex reasoning to understand the uncertainties of the world instead. Hence, critical thinking skills develop over time, in which teachers act as catalysts for students to step out of their comfort zones. If

Autism Speaks. (2012). The Federal Response to Autism. Retrieved June 17, 2012, from HYPERLINK "http://www.autismspeaks.org" http://www.autismspeaks.org.

In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.

“Special education labels don’t define children; Children define themselves” (Dalien, 2015). I am interested in becoming a special education teacher because I have always loved being around children, and I have a soft spot for kids with autism and other disabilities. The first time that I ever thought about working with special needs children was when I was in the fifth grade. My mom worked at my school as a teacher assistant in a first grade classroom, so in the morning I would go to her classroom and wait for the bell to ring. A little boy named Alex who had Cerebral palsy and a spinal problem, came into class early as well. I immediately connected with him, and began going to my mom’s room every morning to play with him before class. It soon became the highlight of my day. Alex could not talk very well and could not walk, so we rolled cars around the floor, traced shapes on to the whiteboard, or sometimes crawled on the floor chasing each other as monsters. I loved seeing how me playing with him made him smile so big and become more outgoing. My dream is to give kids like Alex a reason to smile and help them reach their full potential. In this speech you will learn all about special education teachers, including, but not limited to: What they do, where they typically work, their environment, how much they get paid, benefits the job entails, the education and skills required to become a special education teacher, and information on the job outlook.

According to Supon, one of the fundamental purposes of teaching critical thinking is to enhance the abilities of students to become critical thinkers. Corporate leaders, educational researchers, employers, and parents have continually pushed teachers to assist their students in the development of critical thinking ability. Critical thinking is a skill that ?involved not only knowledge of content by also concept formation and analysis, reasoning and drawing conclusions, recognizing and avoiding contradiction, and other essential cognitive activities? (Supon, 1998).

Although schools have recently incorporated requirements to help the development of critical thinking, it remains a skill that is often learned outside of the classroom. Through the program of Common Core, schools have created an environment of higher standards and problem solving courses. Along with critical thinking, abstract thinking looks at the deeper meaning of things, and they both begin in young ages in children. The jump from concrete to abstract and critical thinking comes with time and lessons from not only the classroom, but everyday experiences. How do schools help children develop critical thinking skills and move on from concrete to abstract thinking?

The program of studies at the masters’ degree level is intended to expand the professional capability of a classroom teacher and provide the coursework required to meet standards of teaching (Master of Education). Teachers are prepared to understand roles as professionals with remarkable teaching skills and desires to better their future students. Students will work strictly with faculty and fellow classmates to explore and handle educational research, and enhance their writing and presentation skills.

Being a special educator, there are different roles and responsibilities separate from a general education teacher. As a special ed teacher, you need to be able to be more flexible and open-minded when it comes to teaching. These students, whether in a self-contained classroom or an ICT class, will have such differing needs than their counterparts. While they may still have some same needs, most of them will be different and individual. Even though we may have several students with the same disability in our class, that doesn’t mean that we can treat them the same; each student has differing abilities that we must figure out individually. This is one huge problem that I see prevailing in schools today. Teachers tend to think that if a child has autism, they have the same issues and needs as another child with autism but this is not the case. One child might need headphones for noise-canceling features while the other child might be ok with sound but need more social interactions skills. The ability to discern what a child needs based on their own performance is a crucial aspect to supporting every student equally. As a special educator, we need to not only look at their deficits but their capabilities as well. To define someone by what they can’t do is such a negative point of view. If we go into the classroom trying to find what is wrong with a child, we may never notice what exceptional skills they may have. For example, in class when Mark Sarabian came to talk about the

The person I chose to interview for my assignment was a special education teacher, and her name is Eloise Kerbs. Eloise is my supervising teacher at the elementary school that I work at. I have worked with her for a total of four years now. She however, has worked at Eudora Elementary School for total of eight years this year. She has been a special education teacher for a grand total of thirty-two years. She got her Bachelor’s degree from Fort Hays State University. She also received her Masters’ degree from Newman University.

When defining the term “critical thinking” it can seem overwhelming and daunting, especially for young learners. In laments terms, you are teaching your student how to think for him or herself when it comes to problem solving. Instead of giving the student the answer, you give them the tools to discover the answer him/herself. Critical thinking is an important component of any classroom. No matter the age group, these skills stay with a child for the rest of his or her life. As a teacher, it is important to understand what critical thinking pertains to and how to structure part of your lesson plan around developing critical thinking skills.