Personal Narrative: My Interview With A Special Education Teacher

I was diagnosed with Autism when I was 2 years old and it has affected my entire life more than anything else I have experienced. It has impacted the way I socialize and communicate with people, the way I think and understand the world,and it also affected my speech and development when I was younger. Autism also affects the way other people see me and I’m often misunderstood. I don’t remember everything about my life at that time, but I do know that I struggled a lot to get to where I am today. I’m also aware that it will impact my future and force me to work harder than my peers. Even though I have Autism, I will always know that it doesn’t define who I am and that I will improve no matter what.

By working in a public school setting, I hope to integrate aspects of assessment, counseling, research, and skill training to create individualized intervention plans, and provide an optimum learning environment for all students. After receiving the opportunity to work with children with exceptionalities at Camp MATES and the social skills groups, I was stunned to discover how underserved that population is. I was appalled by the obscene amounts of money parents pay for their children to receive services tailored to them and their exceptionalities and how difficult it can be to get into those programs. As a School Psychologist, I hope to make academic success more attainable for all students despite their socioeconomic background. My goal is to assess students who are struggling academically to find an educational method that suits their individual differences and be able to refer them to community resources if needed. My dream is to bridge the gap between home and school and promote supportive environments in both that migrate seamlessly. I hope to provide students with strategies, such as social skills training, they can use to be successful both in and outside of the classroom. I aim to learn more about Learning and Intellectual Disabilities and interventions that improve the academic success rate of students with those

I used to work for Fort Wayne Community Schools as an assistant teacher for an elementary school. I know there are several Human Services Professionals who are riddled throughout the various facilities in our area. I was able to secure an interview with the school counselor at Towles Montessori/New Tech Middle School. The school counselor’s name is Joyce Paige. She has been in the school system for the past 20 years and seen many different changes within the Family and Marriage therapy. I was interested in the many things we discussed and a few of the suggested questions led me to ask some questions of my own.

Examining the information obtained in the interview and the roles and functions of the school psychologist in Burr Elementary School, I would first like to investigate the client basis in Mrs. Montgomery’s practice. With the client focus centered on the children and teachers, as well as the social system, it can be seen through Mrs. Montgomery’s open door policy that she puts herself out there so that students and teachers know they can come to her for guidance and support. Not only does Mrs. Montgomery’s spend time with a student in a 1-to-1 setting, she also meets with students through the many instructional, social skills and outreach groups. For example, she incorporates small group meetings during lunch, to confer with students on various grade levels. This allows Mrs. Montgomery’s to cycle through students who are not on her caseload. Spending observation time sitting-in in classrooms, Mrs. Montgomery is able to consult and collaborate with teachers and administration about students who are struggling or who need extra

For this assignment, I chose to interview Ms. Lisa Parker, who is a Math co-teacher and resource teacher for grades K-5 at Krahn Elementary which is a part of the Klein Independent School District and is one of the teachers I have been observing for my field experience. Ms. Parker has been a teacher at Krahn Elementary since 17 years. She started as a 1st grade teacher and was moved to 3rd grade after three years. The administration saw that she was really good with management and math, so she was given the below average, special education students and kids with adaptive behavior after seven years of teaching. With this, she adopted a style for teaching kids with special needs and decided to get a certification in Special Education. Ms. Parker has been teaching specifically in Special Education (SPED) since five years now and the special populations served by her in Krahn elementary include Gifted and Talented students (GT), students with Autism, students with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), students with Learning disabilities (LD), students with Other Health Impairments (OHI) and Emotionally Disturbed children (EBD)

The special education teacher interviewed, talked about this goal to meet each child’s need is challenging to her especially in eleventh and twelfth grade. The teacher tries to strive towards their educational goals, their need areas, and work on their strengths.

Being a special education teacher is not just about helping the students and teaching. Special education teachers have more responsibilities than a general teacher. Not just anyone has what it takes to be a special education teacher. This article, “It’s not easy teaching special ed.,” by Lee Hale tells his story why he only lasted a year in a special education classroom.

I think that both knowing the subject and knowing the skills is important. In regards to special educator I believe it is more important to know skills because that is the area students in special education struggle with. As a secondary special educator I was assigned to teach science content with only have one course of science during college. I felt so lost when I first started, but when I focused on the unit I was teaching and how to teach it too my students things got easier. I collaborated with general science educators to help me learn the content and now in the middle of my second year I feel very confident teaching the material. It is more important for me to teach the skills of how to learn the material than it is to help the material

Ever since I could remember I had been labeled the learning disabled child and asked myself what if I challenged that label. My story begins sometime around the end of my seventh grade year when my grades band had been offered the opportunity to march as an eighth grader in high school band. The auditions were set one week from that date in which I figured I would try out and see what happens.

Through my field placement I have had the opportunity to engage with individuals with a developmental disability with my interactions and experience being overall positive. A common occurrence that I have been subject to and observed is that upon meeting a new casework or staff member, the individual with the disability will try to show immediate affection by hugging or saying “I love you” to the introduced stranger. In these situations, the client is experiencing a needy pattern of transference with the recipient of the positive affection, myself included, experiencing countertransference of trying to care for or do more for the client. According to Goldstein (1984), “transference reactions sometimes disrupt the working alliance. The client

When I was asked to reflect on my experiences in EDSE 316 and the fieldwork, I had to think long and hard on how I would sum up four months of classes and fieldwork into four pages. I have learned so much about the various disabilities and how it has change the world of special education. I think a better term would be the “endless possibilities of education”. It wasn’t too long ago when children with disabilities would be stuck in a room in the back of school only to be seen in the beginning and end of the school day. They were the ones who rode the other buses and no one really talked about. This class has allowed me to speak of my own family and how special education impacted my life. I have a brother whose whole life was spent in the special education class, and my own sons with speech and learning disabilities who are now receiving special education services. It also allowed me to reflect on my own participation in the special education program in my early elementary years when I was struggling with my own speech disability. This class gave me the chance to see the timeline of special education, from its earliest beginnings to what it is now.

Most of my experience was spent working as a Learning Disabilities teacher for grades K-4. I managed IEP caseload, set up conferences, chaired IEP meetings, and participated on the diagnostic team. It was also my job to help the regular classroom teacher with proper modifications for the IEP students. During my last few years, I was transferred into the regular classroom setting to teach 1st & 2nd grade. I quickly found out that my special education experience was put to good use, helping to identify future students with possible special education needs.

On May 19th of 2016 one of my biggest goals had been accomplished. This showed a sign of success and hard work. On this day I had tested out of my IEP. That moment was so amazing and surreal it made me feel as if transformed for a child to a man. Many teenagers struggle with learning disabilities, I didn't want to just be another statistic so I worked as hard as I could to get where I am. One of the best way to keep myself focused was athletics.

My focus of disability is Autism Spectrum Disorder. The challenges I had with completing the form are, making sure the goals provided are manageable and easy to obtain with reinforcement due to the child’s disability. As I wrote the goals I thought about is this really a problem for the child, (not being able to wait), yes because some children become overwhelm and inpatient with the idea of just waiting, when they are in the need of doing something immediately at that moment. Also, proving the percentage that are accurate to

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