My interest in becoming a special education teacher is deeply rooted in my personal experience with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). After sustaining a TBI, I faced challenges with concentration, memory, and motor skills. These difficulties asked me to adapt to new ways of learning and thinking, and in the process, I gained invaluable insights into the struggles students with disabilities face. My recovery was a gradual process, relying heavily on patience, therapy, and personalized strategies. This journey not only shaped my own resilience but also inspired me to help others facing similar obstacles. Overcoming the challenges of a TBI has given me a unique perspective on the importance of individualized support, patience, and resilience in learning. This personal struggle has fueled my passion for helping students with special needs, as I can relate to some of the difficulties they face in a way that few can. The understanding I developed through my own adversity has fostered a passion for supporting students with special needs and accommodations. I understand what it feels like to face academic and personal challenges that are not immediately visible to others. As an educator, I plan to use my own journey to create a supportive, inclusive environment where students feel understood and empowered. I believe that every student, regardless of their challenges, has unique strengths that can be nurtured through tailored educational approaches. Education is not just about academic achievement; it’s about helping students grow as individuals, discover their strengths, and develop the confidence to overcome their challenges. My experiences have shaped my teaching philosophy, which centers around understanding each student's unique strengths and challenges, and providing them with the tools they need to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. As an educator, I am committed to creating an environment where all students, regardless of their needs, feel valued, supported, and empowered to succeed. With this scholarship, I will be able to further my education and continue my work to make a positive impact on the lives of students with special needs. This experience has shaped my teaching philosophy, inspiring me to help others who face similar obstacles. In addition to my passion for teaching and my dedication to making a difference, I also face financial challenges as I pursue my education. As a full-time student, I balance my studies with part-time work to help support myself, but the costs of tuition, textbooks, and other expenses remain a significant burden. This scholarship would ease the financial burden, allowing me to dedicate more time to my studies and better prepare to make a lasting impact on students’ lives.

Teaching and learning are continuous and interconnected processes. These moments occur not just within the classroom but throughout everyday life. By breaking away from the traditional notion that education must occur inside the four walls of a classroom, we extend learning opportunities beyond conventional boundaries. I believe that in order for education to be most valuable and effective, it must reflect individual student needs, interests, lifestyles, and pursuits. When students engage in learning that aligns with their passions, they naturally grow and build upon themselves. Everyone has different learning needs. As educators, we can use a combination of best practices, along with offering a multitude of learning opportunities, to construct a learning environment that best suits each child. My job is to foster self-sufficiency by providing students with the resources, tools, and strategies to help them learn in ways that suit their needs. We must trust our students with the autonomy to make informed choices when given the right support and understanding. When our students recognize that their voices matter, they take after that ideology and begin to value their own and others' thinking. This overall leads to higher self-esteem, a higher level of self-awareness, social awareness, and a deeper reverence for all of life. When education centers around student interests, skills, and passions, it empowers students to engage meaningfully and take pride in their growth. Teaching students about themselves—how to value their lives and contributions—cultivates mutual respect, not only for their peers but for all aspects of life. Moreover, schools should serve as places where students gain not only knowledge but also the skills necessary to break free from cycles of inequity. Education should be liberating and empowering, especially for those who have historically been denied opportunities. Schools must be places where students can break free from cycles of inequity and learn the skills they need to change their futures. The power of education lies in its ability to transform not only individuals but entire communities. I am proud to be a part of that process, shaping the future of humanity one student at a time. It's humbling to know the effect and changes for the better that I will and have had on young people's lives, views, and mindsets. Knowing I am taking part in a greater change that will alter the course humanity takes throughout time is powerful. If you ask me, to educate yourself is to invest in not just you but in the human race for generations to come. If there is one thing education certainly is, it is a lifelong process of learning, unlearning, and relearning. I am happy to be a part of it all!

Before my senior year of high school, I sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI). It was life-altering, particularly as I prepared to pursue college studies in writing arts and elementary education. I healed for months, reworking the ins and outs of how my body operated. The physical challenges were tough, but the harder part was confronting my shifting sense of self. I worried about how my TBI might impact my teaching career. What I didn’t realize at the time was that education would play a pivotal role in my recovery. It became clear that accepting the scope of my injury would become the first step in transforming my adversity into opportunity. My fear gradually faded, replaced by the courage to pursue my goals. Although it didn’t happen right away, I did begin to find a balance. Damage to my frontal lobe-responsible for reasoning, emotional regulation, and motivation-left me struggling with tasks requiring executive functioning. However, my intellect remained intact, and as I learned more, I recognized that getting well was about working together with my present self. Grounded in my understanding of neuroplasticity—the brain's capacity to change-I adapted practices to strengthen my mental abilities and came to terms with my new body. Suddenly, the routines I’d made a habit of before the injury were vital for my success. I discovered that working in classroom environments mirrored behaviors key to my healing process. Teaching demands focus, emotional management, and the organizational skills necessary for effective execution. I developed strategies to support myself based on my childhood love for reading, writing, and puzzles. Including taking small steps, maintaining consistent practice, and embracing self-reflection. Rather than shy away, I adapted, viewing my hardships as opportunities for growth. My career in education became more than a goal, but a tool for self-development. It’s the canvas on which I’m able to paint a new picture of myself. Teaching helps rebuild my cognitive flexibility while adapting to new daily environments. Each lesson helps me refine my skills and strengthen executive functioning through strategies I call “teacher tools.” These tools look like breaking tasks into manageable steps, using schedules or checklists, setting timers, embracing repetition and reflection, and utilizing visual aids. This is how I’m able to thrive despite my TBI. Eight years later, I continue to see the lasting impact my TBI has had on my planning and motivation. I no longer see my TBI as a barrier, but as part of my journey, telling me to be patient, disciplined, and reflective. These experiences have shown me adversity is not something to avoid but to engage with. While my journey has been arduous, it has strengthened my resilience and commitment to both my career and self-development. I’ve come to know that meaningful development is about confronting difficulties with curiosity, understanding, and patience. Through teaching, I am continually evolving—learning, unlearning, and relearning what it means to grow both as an educator and as a person learning to navigate the effects of frontal lobe damage. The skills I developed through education help me overcome my TBI obstacles and contribute meaningfully to the communities I serve. Teaching isn’t just what I do; it’s a lifeline.

The educational system was built with bias; a bias in deciding where to put funds; bias in material taught, and bias towards who should expect quality education. Today, our schools still teach many of the same values, but with yesterday’s methods. Somehow, we've come to measure success using only standardized tests, ignoring individual qualities, strengths, and interests of students. Instead focused on following arbitrary tasks, largely aimed at training students to pass standardized tests. Because standardized tests have become the foundation for education, creativity in classrooms is stifled. Not only do these tests dictate the curriculum, but also what's deemed important for each given level of education. Standardized tests do not take into account learner differences, out-of-the-box thinking, or the individual qualities, talents, and passions of our children. Requiring students to pass subjective, pre-determined, pass-or-fail scored tests, disservices our entire society. How can we encourage learning, innovation, and preparedness for the ever-changing world if we discourage creativity and individuality? Lumping students together, teaching if they are one, teaches students conformity. Only teaching them what to think, not how they think. Unfortunately, many teenagers drop out due to frustrations and lack of motivation. I saw much struggle among my classmates, the majority on free and reduced lunch, not having internet at home, left with no parental support, and some, like myself, were even battling homelessness. My drive to become a teacher came from my own dismal educational upbringing. I found motivation in attempting to fix these problems. My goal is to reform and fix what I can about our school systems. If I can change the outcome of the educational experience for the better, beyond teaching outdated skills designed for the industrial era, and ignoring modern history; a modern history that will dictate the path that civilization will endure, I will!

My job as a teacher, will be in a few words, to teach students, children, people, to best learn how they learn best! Everyone has a different process of thinking and growing which changes the way their learning process takes shape. There are many factors that contribute to how and what one learns. This creates various levels, styles, and perspectives of learning and growing, based on the combination of each person's individual experiences. The process of learning is unique for every individual and changes over time. It's my job to help students reexamine their ideas and consider learning to relearn, when the situation calls for a change in thinking. If there is anything I know, it's that there’s always more than one avenue towards success for everything. In order to reach that "outside of the box" thinking and find these alternative avenues, we must become open-minded, and aware of the varying levels and perspectives that people can view life from, including perceptions we hold towards life ourselves. My role is to work as a mentor, encouraging students to explore various perspectives on current social problems existing now in our world. Teachers provide information and tools to explore social problems and inequalities. This creates more aware, open minded, and socially conscious people, with skills to determine and navigate our social and emotional worlds. Skills such as problem solving, solution finding, critical thinking, technological skills, along with other 21st century and beyond modes of thinking or learning have become essential to our survival, because let's face it, things will continue to change and develop, so the ways in which we teach people must as well! To achieve this, I will continue to broaden my educational horizons, further expanding my professional development. An effective teacher must always remain a student to life.

My name is Martina Forbs, I am dual majoring in Elem. Education, and Writing Arts at Rowan University. I have huge career goals to majorly transform what happens with our children and teachers in our schools and classrooms. All people are different, diverse, dynamic, you name it; the human spirit is full of vast creative potential! When people pursue the things they are interested in, they grow and build on themselves naturally. There is no one single defined template for learning, that works for all people. Just as there is more than one way to reach many students, in various ways, everyone has different learning needs and requirements. In my eyes, much of learning and growth comes through personal experiences, hands-on situations, or is applicable in real world relationships, situations, and circumstances. I believe that the learning done in schools has to be by the students and for the students, as they take on their own responsibilities of learning. After all, it is their world to inherit too, as much as it is yours or mine. Overall, I'm aiming to transform the way our education system looks and operates, by changing the light in which we view and give credit to ourselves and each other. Through challenging people's ideas of what intelligence and creativity looks like and means for different people living various ways of life in numerous cultures, we find ways to become more inclusive to our diverse society. All of this, begins with completing my degrees, becoming a certified educator, and continuing my education.

Reading a Spoken Word Poem ~ Written and Performed by: Martina Forbs Listening for me, is when my mouth remains still but my ears take off, grabbing a hold of your hands, as we walk through it all again, and again, and again. Thoughts trailing onward, towards new discoveries, beginnings and endings as you recount for me about how, “many years ago when you were a boy”, and about how, you’ve seen so much more than you'd care to admit. But you tell me about it anyways, because really, you’ve never told a soul who'd ever take you seriously before, never mind, give you the time and space to speak up.. And so I listen. Listening, is how I know the trees, and the wind, and the birds, and the bees, all communicating in harmony, through the rustling of leaves, and the swaying of breeze, at the tip top of when fall comes rolling around. Usually around that same time, things start to fall apart for the both of us. The dead weight gets heavy, words get fumbled. When our worlds clash and tumble, Often leaving troubles, I listen anyways, because I know, life’s not through with me, or you, just yet. Listening to me, feels like a warm cup of hot cocoa, on a dreary afternoon. Where the fireplace roars, and there's only space for two in the room, and your mind wanders to something we’ve never spoken about before now. Where you envision yourself in the next 5 years, I question where you will lead, whether or not you know, and whether or not that even matters, but still, I remain silent, observing, open, listening for you to make your move.

With the world increasingly moving more connected and digitized, it's important that people and future generations are able to ground themselves in strong foundational knowledge, such as literacy, math, communicative skills, and the like. Students also need to know where to begin when it comes to living online, with the internet and global communities. They're met with learning to navigate digital citizenship, virtual, and augmented reality, and other new advancements coming into the 21st century. Education is vital for the development of our human species, especially since survival in our world is largely becoming more dependent on how creative and ingenious a person manages to get. I believe people are naturally quite capable of great intelligence and meaningful creation; unfortunately, many people are taught to believe the opposite. They think very little of themselves, or see very little to no value in life itself, in turn, hopelessly believe they are worthless, and that there is no reason to try to explore; to stay, to learn, grow, and remain curious. Oftentimes, the ways we are taught to doubt ourselves is through looking at "making mistakes" as such a negative problem, when really, making mistakes is a perfectly natural and healthy part of any learning process you can think of. Many young children are wrongfully educated out of their ability to creatively think and problem solve because they get stuck in thinking that by failing, or not being "perfect", that they are a failure, and by being a failure, they are no longer of high value, no longer "good enough" or very "smart". This is oftentimes seen through the "one size fits all, standardized testing", when people get into a frantic, hectic, anxiety-ridden frenzy, and start to get high-strung over low scores or the possibility of not receiving such a high one. I believe that testing is important, but it should not overshadow the whole point of what we are testing to see and look for in the first place, whether or what a child has learned or is ready to learn at a certain level. Mistakes and wrong answers cannot be reacted to so harshly during the delicate process of learning, as they are a natural part of it, and can cause such a problem when looked at this way, that students sometimes would rather not even try at all, than risk being in the wrong. Education is important to me because I feel for all the children who are underrepresented, undermined, undervalued, misunderstood, misled, and taught to think less of their own abilities. Learning and teaching strategies and ways to think about how we process our world are how we foster a community of innovative thinkers, and restore the world's balance, allowing our species to continue to thrive alongside the rest of the world.

When I think about self care, I don't think about all of the things I could physically do, but instead, I think about slowing down from doing all the things that I do, and taking the time to breathe. I've learned to accept that in order to be great, I can't be such a workaholic, I have to take a break. I oftentimes have struggled in the past with overworking myself, not ever really knowing when to stop, or what was too much for my body and brain to handle. This sort of obsessive work mentality led me to oftentimes becoming worn and burnt out, both mentally and psychically. Even though my work came out alright, I know it will always be better, and I could always get more done, if I had just taken the time to stop and recover. I think self care is about making some quiet time for myself, a safe and comfortable space to just dwell and sit in my own stillness. A moment to reflect, to analyze, to take a break from all the daily motions of life. A space to reset, and recover in order to be back at my best for the next time I get back to doing anything. Taking a break from the busyness of life in the 21st century is extremely beneficial in ensuring my peace of mind in this crazy, hectic, complex web of life I've gotten myself spun into!