Virtual Teaching, COVID, and stress. The reasons why I still teach

 

Yes, teaching virtual has it moments of difficulty, but it doesn't take much to remind me to keep going. I became a teacher because I found a connection, a spark. My little brother was the beginning. He was a special education student and got lost in the system.He found ways to mask his reading issues. He learned quickly to adapt to the resources he was given and blend in. I knew my parents would find my decision to go into teaching puzzeling,  I always said I was going into law. My little  brother supported me and said to me, "Help the kids like me, there were so many of us just pushed through the sydtem or left to drop out." So I started the journey to become a teacher, but my journey had stops along the way.  School and more school,  life and eventually  teaching. Along with multiple years of educational teaching experience, I am also a mother of two children. My oldest is a special education child. I have lived through the night time struggles to complete homework assignments, the loss of self-esteem in a child, attempts of a child to hide the disability impact from peers, and the anxieties generated from attendance at IEP meetings. Tempered with these life experiences is an outlook of the special education process from the school viewpoint. The IEP TEAM meeting, assessment reporting, goal writing/measurement, and transition planning are not new to me. I have served as the voice of the special education student in the general education class during their navigation of the seas of the mainstream environment. Lastly, I bring with me an education that spans elementary, secondary, special education, reading specialist, and a Dual masters' degrees in teaching in learning. Each of these aspects assists me in brokering agreements between the parties attempting to make the student a life-long learner.

If I start to forget what started my journey as a teacher, all I have to do is look at my family, listen to my students share out stories or ideas. I have to remember its not about being perfect, only my best.