Special Education Interview

After reading chapters one and two of the book “Exceptional lives”, I could more easily understand special education. As a teacher, I will mostly likely have many students with disabilities in my class throughout my career. With

For this assignment, I interview a service provider for special education services. The service provider I interviewed, takes part in the educational team, and provide services. The service provider is developmental therapist. I was able to develop a better sense of the importance of inclusion. After interviewing the service provider, and learning her philosophy of inclusion I have was able to better understand the accommodations and modifications for special needs students.

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” – Henry B. Adams. For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to play a big part in children’s education, which is why I have decided to enroll for an education course. I believe that educators have a lifelong impact on their students and on the development of resilience. Thus, I aspire to inculcate my love for learning into the next generation, by influencing and inspiring children all through their formal education.

I have been a teacher of students with special needs for the last couple of years in alternative settings. The students I like best tend to be the most challenging both behaviorally and academically. Success can be more apparent, yet at times there is frustration. I feel I am good at it, but need to learn more. Most importantly I love teaching kids with special challenges. The key is to be creative and keep trying.

To overcome from these problems, interaction among the teacher and students is required. If the students with disabilities bond with the fully abled students will help gain some self-motivation. And if the students are engaged in frequent interaction with the teacher the environment gets friendlier and the teachers should also encourage them to raise any questions. It will as come as a

One of the reason people chose a career in special education is job satisfaction. Special education teacher perceived their job to be rewarding. They get personal fulfillment and gratification in teaching special need students. “It truly must be passion to continue working in special education because we all know it is a tough job.”(Participate 2010,”Motivational factor towards pursuing a career in special education”)They have the opportunity to make a positive difference in the students’ lives. When the student who is struggling in school graduate it brings great satisfaction to the educator. The most important part of this field is to help a child develop to their highest potential.

I interviewed a woman who has a child with special needs. The child is now in kindergarten. The mother reported having a normal pregnancy with no complications. This was the second child for the mother, who has another child who was five years old at the time. The mother disclosed that during the pregnancy, she was in the process of separating from the child’s father and that this caused a moderate level of stress. At the time of the pregnancy, the mother was also working full time as a waitress in a local restaurant. The mother reported that her job required her to be on her feet for long periods of time. She was able to work until around a week before her child was born. The mother reports that the child was born around two weeks

The special education teacher interviewed, co-teaches algebra into three class periods. She is able to teach up to 50 students. In her classroom she can teach children with disabilities or up to 25 at-risk students.

Teaching students with exceptional abilities requires funding, training and planning. Being in a regular classroom with children from various cultures, ethnic backgrounds and intellectual ability help students learn how to work together toward a common goal: reduce discrimination and stereotyping people with physical and mental limitations. Instructional strategies that break the work down so everyone learns better can improve education as well as reduce cost. This is achieved by including special education students in environments that will allow them to develop normal social interactions as well as receive specific attention to their learning needs. ("What is Special Education”)

In the profession of a special education teacher, a person commits to helping children achieve their best and to help “students overcome their obstacles” while finding a way that the child can effectively learn (Hollingsworth). My mom’s career as special education teacher for twenty-two years, allows me insight and experience into the tougher aspects of this career, but also the rewards to the job. My mom helps me understand that a special education teacher guides a child to expand their strengths, develop strategies to overcome weakness, and to make best use of all available resources. Through helping her, and learning from her experiences, she taught me that a career in special education can not only challenge me, but may also become a

As a paraprofessional, it can at difficult, stressful, and complicating at times. The reason why I say this is because our duties vary from day to day activities, as I can relate to it. One of the major objectives during a day is that I have to remind the general education teacher that inclusion is the best way for my students to learn. It is essential to have a structured system of order, and this means that all students should receive the same expectations in a classroom regardless of a disability. My personal thoughts of inclusion are very similar to majority of teachers. It means to me that students with disabilities will be enrolled in general education classrooms, not just that, but the individual expectations should be similar to other

Teachers will undeniably continue to face the challenge of being able to teach all students who have learning disabilities. They will continue on the journey in researching the availability of treatments, services, and new theories. There are numerous tools available in teaching; however, discovering exactly which tools will work for all with some type of learning disability, will continue to be a work in progress. Teachers will persist in expanding their education on how to effectively teach special needs children, because of the desire and passion they have for their

The modern classroom has many challenges that face it. Shrinking budgets, less parental involvement, higher expectations, and growing class sizes, just to name a few. If this list was not daunting enough you also have the special needs students that have an array problems in your classroom that need specialized attention, lessons and seating. There are many forms of diverse learners from students who suffer from ADHD to physical disabilities to students with autism to ones that are bullied in school. There are so many things going on in our students lives we sometimes forget they have lives, pressures and disabilities that affect their performance and attitude in our class that have a profound impact on how they learn. For this paper I

The key to any successful school district is the administration. Teachers essentially provide structure, organization, and the background of a child’s future. To educate students with learning disabilities, it is essential that the staff has the training and resources needed for the appropriate people, place, and time (Lazarus) (What is Inclusion, 2001, n.p). It is unrealistic to expect that regular education teachers will always be aware of the latest research or be able to readily adapt the school's

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