Becoming a special education teacher has been a passion of mine for a long time. I was inspired by an individual with autism named Harrison. Harrison is one of my best friends' brothers who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 5. I have spent a lot of time with their family and have had the privilege of getting to know Harrison for many years. Over the years, I have learned a lot about what it was like for Harrison growing up in the public school system. I am lucky that his family talks openly about their experiences with their son while he was in the school system. Harrison had a very hard time in school because he had teachers who would often talk down to him, thus creating a poor support system for him. He experienced a lot of anxiety because of how his teachers treated him in school. His family struggled to find a school where their son felt loved and supported for a long time. It made me very sad for Harrison because his confidence was being torn down throughout his school years. After all of the years that I have known this family, I consider Harrison to be like a brother to me. I am so grateful to have met him because he has inspired me to go into the special education field. I never want anyone to feel the way that he did going to school; every child deserves to have a good experience in school, regardless of whether or not they have a disability. Being a special education teacher is more than just teaching the curriculum to your students. I believe that as a special education teacher you should show your students positivity in your classroom, help your students become as independent as possible, accommodate for your students, make them feel loved and accepted, advocate for your students, create a safe space, work with families to help their child grow within the classroom and outside of the classroom, and always be willing to grow as teacher to adapt to what your students need. It is very important to me that I do not put any limits on what a child can achieve because I believe individuals with disabilities can accomplish their goals with the right support system. There is constantly new technology and methods being developed to help students with disabilities. As an educator, I will make it a priority to constantly try new methods and technology to help my students. Teaching special education is such a rewarding profession and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I have learned a lot about myself during my fieldwork in special education classrooms and the students make me look at my life differently. We take so many things for granted in life, and when you are around individuals with disabilities, they make you feel blessed for being able to do things we take for granted. Those kids have such a positive attitude which inspires me to be better. People always say to go into a career that makes you feel like you’re not working because you love your job. I know that I have found that after observing in a special education classroom because I constantly leave with a smile on my face. I learn just as much from the students as they learn from me which is something that I enjoy about this career. I am learning to be patient in stressful situations, find the best resources for my students, and to accommodate all students. I love that in this field,you are constantly learning new things because education constantly evolves. I am most excited about being someone who always shows my students love and who will advocate for them. In special education, you have to constantly advocate for your students so that they can get accommodations that will benefit them. I will do everything that I can to make sure that my students have the resources that will help them succeed. It is extremely important to me to use positive words to my students and to let them know they are loved because I will have students who are coming from hard home lives. I want my students to come into my classroom and feel safe. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest parts about being a special education teacher because you are far more than a teacher to many of these kids. The statement “I have learned that the purpose of teaching is to bring the student to his or her sense of his or her presence” from Possessed by Memory means that teaching is more than just the curriculum. This quote means that education should teach individuals about not just content but also about themselves and how they view the world. You cannot solely teach content because once students go into the real world they will need to know more than just the subjects that were taught to them in school. Teachers should help students discover more about themselves by helping them find their voice, being able to think critically, express their emotions, build confidence, and recognize their strengths and weaknesses. The quote's main idea is that instead of filling students' minds and only teaching them content, teaching is also supposed to allow students to dive into their minds to discover more about themselves. I am glad that I have found this quote because it describes what I want to accomplish in my future career as a special education teacher. Teaching curriculum is important but there are also other important things about teaching students. I will guide my special needs students in experiencing a sense of their presence by helping my students understand themselves better and advocate for themselves. One of the goals in special education is to get the students to become as independent as possible. Individuals with disabilities will sometimes need modifications made for them so it is vital that they feel comfortable advocating for themselves. In my future classroom I will teach my students to ask if they need help and to tell me what they need. Some students in my class may be nonverbal, so I will make sure that they use their communication device to tell me what they need. Communication devices are extremely important for individuals who are nonverbal because this is their way of communicating with us. A lot of the time, special needs students who are nonverbal will have a device called a “talker,” which is an iPad that has buttons with a word and an image to represent that word. Students will use this “talker” to communicate with peers or teachers. These students who are nonverbal must use their device because this is how they will advocate for themselves. For example, this is not necessarily content, but it is important to me that I do this because it will help my students outside of school. To guide my special needs students to experience their presence, I will have them understand how they are feeling. My students must learn how to express their emotions because once they understand, I can help them find ways to self soothe and request assistance. This is also important outside of school because if the student can recognize their emotions they are most likely able to choose an appropriate way to go about the situation. Including social emotional learning (SEL) into lessons is one of the ways that I will help teach my students to recognize how they are feeling. For example, if a student in my class is having an aggressive episode and not using safe hands I would tell them to use their communication board to tell me how they are feeling. After they tell me how they are feeling, I will ask them what they can do to make a good decision. If my student does not want to talk about how they are feeling and does not choose an option to help them calm down, I would have them go to the calm-down corner in my classroom. After they spend some time there, I would talk to them about what we could have done to prevent getting super angry and not using safe hands. I would then ask what made them that upset because once they know what made them upset, they will know their trigger for that behavior; if it happens again, they can then respond differently. Doing this with my students will allow them to dive into their emotions and learn how to respond to them. It is also important to me to be positive around my students and encourage them because this will help build their confidence. I think that as their teacher, it is important for me to guide my students in building their confidence. In my classroom, I will have an affirmations mirror with kind words. In the morning, I will have my student go to the mirror and say one affirmation. This will help my students build up their confidence, and once they have confidence, they will be able to find their voice with more ease. This is something that isn’t content, but it is very important in teaching. If I am teaching my students to be kind to themselves and saying positive words to them, it will allow them to discover themselves. It is important to me to guide my students to their presence because this is something that will help them for the rest of their lives. I want my students to discover themselves in my classroom and find their voice because once they do that they will be able to accomplish their goals. Inevitably, my students will go through hard times, but if they feel confident and believe in themselves, they will succeed and persevere. They will discover their voice, which will allow them to advocate for themselves throughout their life, recognize their own emotions, and acknowledge their strengths in my classroom.

Becoming a special education teacher has been a passion of mine for a long time. I was inspired by an individual with autism named Harrison. Harrison is one of my best friends' brothers who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 5. I have spent a lot of time with their family and have had the privilege of getting to know Harrison for many years. Over the years, I have learned a lot about what it was like for Harrison growing up in the public school system. I am lucky that his family talks openly about their experiences with their son while he was in the school system. Harrison had a very hard time in school because he had teachers who would often talk down to him, thus creating a poor support system for him. He experienced a lot of anxiety because of how his teachers treated him in school. His family struggled to find a school where their son felt loved and supported for a long time. It made me very sad for Harrison because his confidence was being torn down throughout his school years. After all of the years that I have known this family, I consider Harrison to be like a brother to me. I am so grateful to have met him because he has inspired me to go into the special education field. I never want anyone to feel the way that he did going to school; every child deserves to have a good experience in school, regardless of whether or not they have a disability. Being a special education teacher is more than just teaching the curriculum to your students. I believe that as a special education teacher you should show your students positivity in your classroom, help your students become as independent as possible, accommodate for your students, make them feel loved and accepted, advocate for your students, create a safe space, work with families to help their child grow within the classroom and outside of the classroom, and always be willing to grow as teacher to adapt to what your students need. It is very important to me that I do not put any limits on what a child can achieve because I believe individuals with disabilities can accomplish their goals with the right support system. There is constantly new technology and methods being developed to help students with disabilities. As an educator, I will make it a priority to constantly try new methods and technology to help my students. Teaching special education is such a rewarding profession and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I have learned a lot about myself during my fieldwork in special education classrooms and the students make me look at my life differently. We take so many things for granted in life, and when you are around individuals with disabilities, they make you feel blessed for being able to do things we take for granted. Those kids have such a positive attitude which inspires me to be better. People always say to go into a career that makes you feel like you’re not working because you love your job. I know that I have found that after observing in a special education classroom because I constantly leave with a smile on my face. I learn just as much from the students as they learn from me which is something that I enjoy about this career. I am learning to be patient in stressful situations, find the best resources for my students, and to accommodate all students. I love that in this field,you are constantly learning new things because education constantly evolves. I am most excited about being someone who always shows my students love and who will advocate for them. In special education, you have to constantly advocate for your students so that they can get accommodations that will benefit them. I will do everything that I can to make sure that my students have the resources that will help them succeed. It is extremely important to me to use positive words to my students and to let them know they are loved because I will have students who are coming from hard home lives. I want my students to come into my classroom and feel safe. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest parts about being a special education teacher because you are far more than a teacher to many of these kids. The statement “I have learned that the purpose of teaching is to bring the student to his or her sense of his or her presence” from Possessed by Memory means that teaching is more than just the curriculum. This quote means that education should teach individuals about not just content but also about themselves and how they view the world. You cannot solely teach content because once students go into the real world they will need to know more than just the subjects that were taught to them in school. Teachers should help students discover more about themselves by helping them find their voice, being able to think critically, express their emotions, build confidence, and recognize their strengths and weaknesses. The quote's main idea is that instead of filling students' minds and only teaching them content, teaching is also supposed to allow students to dive into their minds to discover more about themselves. I am glad that I have found this quote because it describes what I want to accomplish in my future career as a special education teacher. Teaching curriculum is important but there are also other important things about teaching students. I will guide my special needs students in experiencing a sense of their presence by helping my students understand themselves better and advocate for themselves. One of the goals in special education is to get the students to become as independent as possible. Individuals with disabilities will sometimes need modifications made for them so it is vital that they feel comfortable advocating for themselves. In my future classroom I will teach my students to ask if they need help and to tell me what they need. Some students in my class may be nonverbal, so I will make sure that they use their communication device to tell me what they need. Communication devices are extremely important for individuals who are nonverbal because this is their way of communicating with us. A lot of the time, special needs students who are nonverbal will have a device called a “talker,” which is an iPad that has buttons with a word and an image to represent that word. Students will use this “talker” to communicate with peers or teachers. These students who are nonverbal must use their device because this is how they will advocate for themselves. For example, this is not necessarily content, but it is important to me that I do this because it will help my students outside of school. To guide my special needs students to experience their presence, I will have them understand how they are feeling. My students must learn how to express their emotions because once they understand, I can help them find ways to self soothe and request assistance. This is also important outside of school because if the student can recognize their emotions they are most likely able to choose an appropriate way to go about the situation. Including social emotional learning (SEL) into lessons is one of the ways that I will help teach my students to recognize how they are feeling. For example, if a student in my class is having an aggressive episode and not using safe hands I would tell them to use their communication board to tell me how they are feeling. After they tell me how they are feeling, I will ask them what they can do to make a good decision. If my student does not want to talk about how they are feeling and does not choose an option to help them calm down, I would have them go to the calm-down corner in my classroom. After they spend some time there, I would talk to them about what we could have done to prevent getting super angry and not using safe hands. I would then ask what made them that upset because once they know what made them upset, they will know their trigger for that behavior; if it happens again, they can then respond differently. Doing this with my students will allow them to dive into their emotions and learn how to respond to them. It is also important to me to be positive around my students and encourage them because this will help build their confidence. I think that as their teacher, it is important for me to guide my students in building their confidence. In my classroom, I will have an affirmations mirror with kind words. In the morning, I will have my student go to the mirror and say one affirmation. This will help my students build up their confidence, and once they have confidence, they will be able to find their voice with more ease. This is something that isn’t content, but it is very important in teaching. If I am teaching my students to be kind to themselves and saying positive words to them, it will allow them to discover themselves.

Hi, my name is Morgan Gibson and I am from Louisville, Kentucky. Growing up, I had an amazing role model—my mother. My mother is the definition of a strong and independent woman. My mom is a single mother and raised my sister and I by herself. I watched her work very hard in her career so that she could provide her children a great life. Looking back on my childhood, I don’t know how she was able to manage working two jobs and taking care of two children. I am grateful because her determination instilled in me the knowledge that I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to with hard work and dedication. After all, she was able to accomplish her goals while being a single mother and raising two healthy girls. Being an athlete was a big part of my life growing up. I started cheerleading in fourth grade and stayed in that sport until I graduated from high school. Being a part of a cheer team taught me how to work with other people, keep a positive attitude, be a leader, and push myself to be a better athlete and human. This sport has truly shaped me into the person I am today. I plan on making a positive impact on the world and my community by working with the younger generation and offering them encouragement, support, and inspiration to achieve their goals and dreams. I recently finished my first season coaching a 7 to 8-year-old girls cheer team. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to coach these athletes because I was able to make an impact on their lives in and outside of the sport. Many of the girls felt discouraged if something was not going well in the routine and they would become less confident as well as less lenient with themselves. I taught the girls to communicate with me how they were feeling so that we could work through their emotions. I always made sure that I had a positive attitude during practice and encouraged my athletes. I wanted my cheer team to feel supported by me and to know that I was always proud of them. I want to continue coaching because I know that as a coach I could have a positive impact in my athletes’ lives. I know that my coaches growing up had a positive impact on my life and I want to do the same for my future athletes. I am currently going to school for special education for a similar reason. I think that with this career I will be able to make a big impact on my students' lives. I chose to pursue special education because I am very passionate about working with children with disabilities. Not only do I believe that I can help these kids further their education, but I believe I can assist these students in becoming more independent and learning how to advocate for themselves. One of the biggest things I’ve learned majoring in special education includes teaching your students to advocate for themselves and being as independent as possible. I will work with my students on life skills that will help them reach these goals. As a teacher, I will always support my students, advocate for them, be a positive person in their lives, and allow them to feel safe in my classroom. My goal is to have a positive impact on my students' lives and teach them life lessons that they can carry forever