Personal Narrative: Early Childhood And Special Education

When I was just 4 years old I went to Funtastik Preschool and Daycare. I went there for an entire year. It was a very fun school. Usually in the mornings I would get dropped off with all the other kids and all the kids would get to play inside with toys. Then we would have breakfast. After breakfast we went outside and played on the playground. After the playground we went inside to have a nap. Most of the time after a nap we would go and watch a movie on the carpet. Then we would go outside once again. At the end of the day we would go back on the carpet and watch another movie and wait for our parents to arrive to pick us up.

I have been a preschool teacher, teaching mixed age children from 18 months to 5 years, for over 10 years. I started as a work study employee, while attending the Community College of Philadelphia in 2006, to a part-time teaching assistant while attending Temple University in 2010. This led me to a lead-teacher position after graduation and then to a program coordinator. I have developed effective working relationships with children in the past years. This position has helped me improve my teamwork and interpersonal skills by cooperating with other teachers in planning teaching materials according to the Reggio Emilia approach and by sharing teaching resources. I decided that working with children, understanding and assisting in their education,

I was adopted by my Grandfather, David Crawford, when I was 11 years old. Along with me (is) my two younger brothers, Nick age 15 and Caleb age 14. Nick has autism and every August through October Saturdays for the past 5 year the whole family has participated in Challenger Baseball, an non profit organization set up in different towns around the United States that provides a positive environment for children with disability to play on a baseball team against other challenger teams. My grandfather actually set up the Bond County district after finding a love for it when Nick played in Edwardsville, Il. Aside from the players there are buddies that help each individual play, buddies help their player bat, run around the bases, play catch, and

I am Carla Sittig and have taught for 19 years. I began my teaching career in Louisiana where my husband and I are originally from. We moved to Texas in 1998 and in 2006, Hurricane Rita prompted us relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina. We have lived in New Bern since 2008. My experience includes elementary, middle school science, publications, video productions, and school level tech facilitator. I served as a media coordinator for the past three years until moving into the role as a Digital Teaching and Learning Coach for Craven County Schools. My husband and I have two children. Our oldest attends ECU with only three semesters left and our youngest is a senior in high school.

My whole life I felt love, but never like the love I experienced three years when I walked in the Lawrence County Developmental Center. The LCDC is the special needs program for the student of East Lawrence and I was chosen to be an aide my sophomore year. Most of the kids could not speak, if they could speak they still had problems communicating. I felt like I had walked into a totally different world, and that made me want to spend every free moment in the LCDC. My three years with those kids taught me the most incredible lesson: your life is what you make it.

My experiences working with children officially began in 2012 when I started working for One of A Kind Progressive Early Education. I worked with children of all ages, primarily toddlers and preschoolers. While working at One of A Kind, I assisted the lead teachers as much as possible. I helped develop daily routines of activities, lesson plans, nap, and toilet-training times that seemed most effective for the students. I worked with parents during pick up and drop off times to make sure they were happy with the schedule and care their child was receiving. I was in charge of maintaining a safe environment for the students at One of A Kind.

Like many people everyone wants to find their calling and figure out where they belong. My parents moved to the United States risking their lives on a boat from Haiti but soon separated while in america . My mom did a great job raising four kids on her own and I being the second child took part in raising my two younger siblings. In elementary school I struggled in many subjects but excelled in art, when I finally learned to read and went to middle school my grades were high enough to have honors reading and social study classes and even apa classes in highschool. I continued to excel in a lot of my classes, turns out I was smarter than I thought and all I need to do was learn to read and have people who took the time to teach me.

For the past nine years I have been involved in a program called Jamestown Community Center, an after school enrichment program serving kindergarten through eighth grade students. I started out as a student in the program and became a teacher assistant as a highschool student. What got me into becoming a teacher assistant was seeing other high school teacher assistants be able to be strict with us, but at the same time be our friends. I admired their maturity at such a young age, and noticed how Jamestown was very supportive with each of the teacher assistants. Last year, I was assigned to be the teacher assistant to a first grade class who had just gotten a new teacher. I advised her to give the kids tasks in order to get the students to get

In my earliest years, I can recall one of our projects with my 1st grade teacher. It was very memorable for me, because we went all out for it. The project like most of us in that class remember was to write a story. The story was Flat Stanley. I was mostly ahead of my game in my early years. Then, there came my 5th grade year, The teacher i had in that class always got on me, for not paying attention. I almost got held back that year because i couldn’t focus. That year onward, was a struggle for me.

Aged just 9 years old, I encountered something that would go on to shape me into the person that I have become today, however minimal of an accomplishment that may be. The Gifted program tested and accepted me into their ranks.

During my junior year at Santa Teresa High School, I was in a class the required us to volunteer at selected locations and I had decided that I would volunteer at Edenvale Elementary. I was designated to a second grade classroom where I would be assigned to work with five students who were falling behind in the class. There was one student from that group that had a major impact on my decision of becoming a teacher; for his privacy I will call him Jeremiah. He is a student who has trouble at home, often absent or late to class, and has difficulty with reading and writing. One day I was grading papers for the teacher and Jeremiah was having a rough time understanding what his assignment in class was. He approached his teacher and asked for help,

Throughout my life, I have lived on four continents and four states. After receiving my bachelor’s degree in Communication Disorders with a minor in Special Education from Auburn University and a Master’s Degree in Special Education from Alabama A and M, I applied for employment with the Department of Defense School Systems. I have worked in schools in such diverse areas as Lajes, Portugal and Ft. Rucker, Alabama. Currently, I am working at Seoul American Middle School in Seoul, South Korea. This is an American middle school, which serves the school age dependents of United States military and civilian personnel living in Seoul, South Korea. At the end of this school year, I will be moving to Rota, Spain with my wife and two children.

Middle school has proven to be an unpredictable time in the lives of many teens. I found this to be the case for myself as well as many of my classmates. Although, it is also a time of self-discovery and trying to figure out where one fits in. Throughout my first year, I noticed some kids were being excluded. These were kids who had disabilities. People that went to my middle school were neither accepting nor pleasant towards people who differed from them. I decided to make it my mission to befriend the kids with disabilities and try to change the bullies' perspectives. I got involved in a program called peer insights which gave kids in the program a chance to get to know kids that might not be in their everyday classes. The 'mentors' (this

There are many things that can help me make the most of my learning. I am afraid to ask questions because I don't ask the right questions or sometimes I do ask a lot of questions. It would be nice if you ask me after class to see if I have any questions or see if I understand it. I’ve been in special ed all of my life for math and english, realizing that i'm in this class means I didn’t understand enough to be in a normal classroom. I can read really fast but also I have a hard time comprehending the materials that I read. I'm terrible at writing papers since in special ed you don’t really write papers, so I struggle with it and having a hard time learning it. I get frustrated a lot when I don't understand the material, I hate making mistakes

I was born in Austin, Texas as the youngest of my parent’s three children. My mother is from San Bernardino, California and is a Political Science professor at Texas State University. My father is from Temple, Texas and is a contract manager for the state of Texas’s Health and Human Services department. My two older sisters attend the University of Notre Dame, one is a freshman and the other is a senior. Having a mother that is a college professor has greatly impacted my life, mainly my education. With a desire for us to learn, my mother taught my sisters and me how to read, write, and how to do simple math at an early age. I excel in school and I always give the credit to my mom, since she instilled my love of learning. In the past father was in the army and was a police officer/ detective. Due to his years of service and law