Amy Wingerter

From Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Valparaiso, Indiana all the way to Dunedin, New Zealand Back to the United States to Tucson, Arizona where she stayed just for a few months. Then off she went back to the Midwest to Hugo, Minnesota to be closer to her family and now finally settled in Denver, Colorado with her husband Jeff and daughter Freya because of an outstanding job offer that was just too hard to resist. Never has Annika Pittman been one not to take risks. “Regret is meaningless. I don’t like to dwell on what I could change because I can’t.” Being a teacher of ten years, a wife, a mom, a friend, a daughter, and a sister she has made outstanding accomplishments. Knowing she wanted to be a teacher since kindergarten she had her whole life to strive for

Currently, I am a Personal Care Instructional Aide for a nonverbal Down Syndrome student at West Hempfield Elementary. I work hand and hand with the special education teacher to devise lesson plans to suit the needs of my student. I am responsible for implementing the lesson plans one-on-one with my student in Language Arts, Mathematics, and social skills interactions daily. On a daily basis, I am also responsible for molding and shaping my student's behaviors and prompt when necessary. Working in the learning support room has taught me a variety of ways to incorporate differentiated instruction to suit the needs of all students. It has also shown me the type of teacher I should be, a teacher who adapts content to meet the needs of all learners and the importance of inclusion.

S is a 59 year old African-American female born and raised in Anson County who has attended several institutes of higher learning. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Secretarial Administration from Barber-Scotia College, she later received special education teaching licensure from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Because of her love for learning, S has also taken online classes through the University of Phoenix. She has been a secondary special education teacher for three years and currently works with 8th graders at Anson Middle School.

A lot of people don’t realize the challenges of living with a child who has been diagnose with Autism can be. It is a twenty-four-hour seven day a week job no vacation, no sick time and no pay. From the time the child is diagnosed it is a constant worry especially if the parents don’t know much about the condition. It starts with continuous Doctor visits, social services, and therapy sessions, just to figure out how serious the condition may be and what level of the disability the child has and this is only this beginning. Next, to find the tools the child needs to overcome the disability, like learning development and cognitive process, social skills, comprehension capabilities, and many more depending on the severity of autism.

Originally, I was drawn to speech pathology after my sister’s diagnosis of Autism at the age of three. Watching Diane struggle with language development and acquisition while other children seemed to grasp these skills naturally is what initially sparked my interest in helping families like my own. At the start of my junior year, I set out to obtain experiences working with different populations. Toward the latter half of junior year, I became involved as a clerical volunteer at the Sacramento Scottish Rite Childhood Language Center. By senior year, I was balancing a full course load alongside three volunteer experiences. In addition to Scottish Rite Childhood Language Center, I divided my time between tutoring at a neighboring elementary school in the Twin Rivers School District and serving as an intern at the Autism Center for Excellence (ACE). During my undergraduate experience, I welcomed the opportunity to work with students that struggled with literacy, language, and pragmatic skills. After graduation, it was my goal to obtain additional experience in the field as a speech-language pathology assistant.

The Jane Justin School of Autism provides the right life skills and knowledge that children need to live a meaningful and productive life. How the school makes this mission possible is by responding to the needs of the students and families while respecting and embracing the individuality of the child while maintaining educational excellence. The Jane Justin School also hopes that the students one day may be able to return to a traditional classroom and educational setting with the skills that would make this possible.

Pursuing something new is fun and exciting, especially if the pursuit positively impacts someone else. I am grateful for the opportunity to re-enter grad school, this time at the doctorate level, to realize a dream that I’ve had since the

My contribution to NYC public schools children in education has been extensive. I first began working in NYC public schools as a speech pathologist in 1980. I would examine expressive and receptive language skills of children and through task analyses develop strategies of language acquisition. In short, I was able to gets students to improve their reading and writing skills in order to master grade level competencies. In my educational journey, I was recruited by Principal Louis Rapport to become an Assistant Principal. Principal Rapport ran an after-school program for teachers who wanted to become school leaders. I worked in coordinating summer programs at George Westinghouse Vocational High School in 1986. I worked hand in hand with the principal to build community partners for our school which offered twelve or more trade programs and internships for students ranging form optical to jewelry making. In 1989, I was selected to serve as Assistant Principal of Special Education at Automotive High School, with Principal Steve Gilbert, who has since passed away. Principal Gilbert much like Principal Rapport was my mentors in leadership within the educational arena. With the support of Principal Gilbert, I was able to go to a Harvard Graduate School of Education and participate in a Summer Seminar in 1995. This was the season of “Inclusion in Schools”. Principal Gilbert recommended me for a program, Assistant Principal to Principal Program

Growing up in a small town, it is encouraging to see successful people stem from the same place. Success can be defined in different ways. Most people from my town consider moving to a bigger city and never coming back a success. My cheer coach, Kimberly Truitt, is living proof that success can be defined as growing as a person and overcoming hardships. As a teenager, she atteneded the very same high school that I currently attend, Abbeville High School, where she was also a varsity cheerleader. Ms. Truitt grduated in YEAR and took the first step in becoming what is traditionaly considered a successful person in our town. She went to college in a different state, Florida A & M University. While attending Florida A & M, she pledged Delta Sigma

While in High School, I was involved in the Peer Tutoring program. Although I had already been involved with the several other programs, I knew from an early age that a Special Education teacher was what I wanted to do. Helping students achieve their goals and help them to succeed in life was my true calling. But the desire to help the most challenged student drove me beyond regular education. The memories of my Peer tutoring experience kept me striving to be a

Albernetta Hamilton is the local principal at our intermediate school (grades fourth through sixth). She has served the

I’m writing this letter in favor of Debbie Branson becoming a substitute teacher for the East Valley School District. I have had the pleasure of knowing Ms. Branson for over seven years and have found her to be a very contentious and hard working individual. Ms. Branson has always gone above and beyond my expectations concerning any task that she might be working on.

She currently works with children in grades K-5 and the purpose of her job is to create interventions for students who are at risk of behavioral/academic problems. Her work is very team oriented as she is one of 5 individuals who partake in a student’s academic success. She collaborates with several professionals, occupational therapist, speech-language specialist, special education teacher, etc. to organize interventions for a child at risk of behavioral or academic problems. 3)

“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.

Amy Foster is a short story written by Joseph Conrad which portrays the experiences of an immigrant. As for the reader, the passage is read from the immigrant’s point of view. Although the character Amy may have some effect on the reader but Yanko is the central character in which the story revolves around. As I was reading the story many flashback of my childhood came to mind in which affected my interpretation of the story.