Why Teach?

I want to be a teacher because I love working with children with special needs. For ten years, I have been working with children in various disabilities as a babysitter, counselor, caregiver, and therapist. I have been working at my current job as an ABA therapist for children with autism for three years now. I love it, but I know I can do more and make a greater impact on the growing number of children with special needs being born today. Throughout my job as an ABA therapist, I have had the privilege of being on teams with several teachers of various levels of experience and specialty. Although these teachers are good at recognizing the difficulties these children face, I have noticed that some teachers are unaware of the support that parents need. I have also seen that some teachers lack the awareness to provide parents with resources and direction to help their child succeed in school subjects outside the structure of the classroom. I want to be a special education teacher because I believe I can bring my prior experience I have, working with children with disabilities, as a therapist.

I am currently a graduate student and plan to teach middle school special education for grades 4-8. I am excited be working with this age group because I work with many of these children currently and see the amazing and diverse range of abilities they all have. I know that because of my creative background, I can bring a fun environment and a new approach to teaching children. I have a huge passion for creativity, the arts, singing, dancing, and acting.

In applying to have a degree for teaching, I am reminded of all the amazing mentors I have had in my life that went above and beyond for my education. I remember my great 5th grade teacher who was incredibly supportive of me. He was always someone I could go to when I was being bullied or had problems going on with school. I continued to check in on his classroom after I graduated and went to high school because he always had such great advice. I also am reminded of a great history teacher I had in high school, who told world history in picture drawings scribbled all over her whiteboards. I remembered how awesome it was that I got to draw pictures in a history class. I remember the brilliant AP English teacher who would review my latest new poem I wrote over his lunch break and during group time in class, would call me over so we could discuss its improvement. He was also the teacher that, when I told him I wanted to be a doctor, told me, “Come back when you decide to be a teacher”. When people ask me why I want to teach, I think of being a teacher like those teachers that impacted me. I want to be inventive, supportive, understanding, flexible to the different personalities and study habits, and most of all, be just like the mentors I grew up with. I can’t wait to have my own classroom someday so that I can create a fun learning environment for kids to express themselves and have fun at school, as well as applying the knowledge I have through ABA to make these kids successful in every sense of the word.