Reflective Essay On Individuals With Exceptionalities

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.

I had no professional experience dealing with special need children. However, my aunt had Down Syndrome and watching her mother dealt with issues relating to her Syndrome allowed me to understand the challenges she faced.

People are thought as child to dream big and reach for their goals. Throughout grade school to high school there are often asked what inspires them. Some people dream to become police officers, dancers, lawyers, and doctors. There are some people who chooses to become an educator. As they journey through college, to pursue the knowledge needed for their career, their passion leads them to special education. These teachers fine this career to be job satisfying, have empathy for the children, and the vacancy of the position viability. Not all teacher feel the same however, over time their dissatisfied with their job and leave because their brunt out.

After struggling with the department of education and guiding my son through the right path, I decided to become a paraprofessional for children with special needs. I absolutely love my job. Being able to help other children by accommodating their needs is a true blessing. Providing children with the tools necessary so they can accomplish given goals and expectations according to their specific needs makes me feel like a successful assistance. I have learned to be patient, understandable and resourceful for both children and families in my classroom.

I always thought I would be a teacher and I would make differences in lives and it would be the greatest experience in the world for me, yet being a teacher wasn’t enough, I had a need to expand my education. I decided that perhaps I needed a new career, however, I felt certain education remained my passion. I began to explore new areas of education and I realized I still want to be a member of a classroom, a school and curriculum. I aspire to guide those leading our classrooms.

My interest in special education came about when I got a job at a private preschool for children with autism. It’s the most rewarding job seeing those little ones smile when they mastered a new school. It is also rewarding knowing that you are changing that child’s life. Although, I have seconded guessed my degree multiple time I have always came back to education, but went with a broader field in psychology to expand my availability to careers. I always enjoyed kids and from a little girl I had a skill to teach my peers and for them to learn.

Every mistake I have ever made doesn’t seem to matter when I am around the children, every sad moment is forgotten when I get to spend time with them. Special needs kids never see the evil in the world, they are so full of love that their is no room for hate and although they are supposed to learn from me, I can learn so much more from them. I can learn to love unconditionally, never to be afraid to make a mistake, love myself for who I am, and to give everything I do with 100% effort! I am full of love for these kids, they see everything in such a pure form and deserve the best. I truly believe I could be the best teacher for these kids, I believe that not only my experience but passion, love, and patience for them would guide me throughout my career as a special education teacher. Spending time with the kids gives me a sense of purpose in this world and I want to be able to make the most of that feeling for them. I hope to be able to not only teach but orchestrate special olympics days, create sports teams for them, and create a happy, healthy environment for them to learn and

So you want to be an elementary school teacher? It’s a challenging career, requiring patience and social skills, as you have to be able to wrangle a room filled with rambunctious children. Once you get through the tough stuff, the career is filled with immeasurable rewards. Being an elementary school teacher is not just going into a classroom and teaching kids how to add numbers, where something is on a map, or how to write. This career is far deeper than that, you will build a relationship with each and every student and ultimately build the foundation of the students’ future education. Elementary school teachers guide their students through a crucial period in their lives. This career is a good choice for people who want to make a

To say that "I am extremely passionate about working with children" would be an enormous understatement in regards to my personal experiences, ideologies and self-proclaimed purposes in respects to working in public schools. Being passionate about ones every day line of work is a huge deciding factor for most of us when it comes to “what we want to be when we grow up.” Conversely, it was quite simple for me, you see the rewards of teaching truly lie in the outcomes of one’s teaching. Knowing that from the first day of school, what I do and how I do it will have a domino effect on hundreds of lives throughout my career as an educator. In hopes to not only work in a field that I both admire and aspire to be a part of, I am also driven to one day be that teacher in which my students can look back and say “Miss. Chadwick really motivated me to be a better learner, artist, writer” and hopefully “a better person.”

What did you like or not like about being a Preschool Teacher? I love working with preschoolers; their innocence is so refreshing. What influenced your career change to an Instructional Assistant? That sounds so rewarding. What age group of special needs do you work with? I haven’t had a lot of experience with those of special needs, but a few years ago I volunteered for Easter Seals respite care program. The children were always full of energy, curious and intelligent. The best part of my evening was at the beginning,

Not until very recently did I realize my passion for teaching. I did not think I was capable of teaching because of my past experiences of having a learning disability. How could someone with a learning disability become a teacher and help students who have learning disabilities. To me, becoming a teacher would belike the blind leading the blind, but the past few years I have realized this is not the case. In these past few years, I have realized what I am truly capable of, and that a past IEP does not define me. I have struggled to get to achieve, but that struggle makes me realize I could be a remarkable teacher. I personally know how it feels to be behind, and how some extra encouragement from teachers can help students achieve milestones.

Helping the youth in my community is important to me as growing up I dealt with and have seen other deal with not having support whether it was at home or at school. So I became determined to help the lives of our children. I hope to do so by getting my bachelors in Elementary Education and masters in Special Education. With this degree, I hope to become a Special Ed school teacher in a high-poverty elementary school. I have always wanted to become a teacher because I can tackle many of the issues our children are dealing with as I am teaching. I would love to center my focus on Special Education because I want to get to the root of any issues and provide support. Although being a Special Ed Teacher is a load of work and stress, there will be no

Fourteen years ago, I was enrolled in the Early Childhood Program at Hudson Valley Community College while being a mother to my two year old daughter and wife. As a child, my dream was to become an elementary teacher but as time went by that changed. I knew I loved encountering with children but when I was doing my student teaching at the placements, I became unsure. Did I really want to be in a classroom setting?

Every school year I have had the pleasure of working with a variety of new students. I have worked with special needs students with varying from mild to severe. Furthermore, within Child Care we have students that have some health concerns, such as diabetes and allergies. Within my family, I have a special needs sister, diabetic brother, ADHD/OCD cousin and another cousin who was born without an arm. I am lucky to have such a diverse family, it has enabled me to be capable of working with students from different backgrounds.

Since childhood, I was secretly an extreme introvert. Others may have presumed that I was an outgoing child, however, internally I struggled immensely with the complications that aroused from having an introverted personality. The most troublesome manifestation of my introversion was the inability to voice my opinions and advocate for myself. This flaw lingered with me as I developed into an adult and ultimately continues to influence my life today. In fact, this factor impacts the way I learn from experiences, as it fundamentally constitutes the way I choose to act in everyday situations. Hence, in this paper, I will depict a learning experience in which my personal factors influenced my learning style and subsequently dictated the way I handled the situation.