I continued my educational training yesterday with yet another workshop. Last year was a learning year for me because I was in a new county, and a new school, and a different self-contained class. This summer, I have yet to shut my brain off because I’m planning for everything I want to have in my classroom moving forward this year.
Self-contained rooms are my true passion and I love being in them until I physically and mentally need a break. This year I have to learn to give myself grace, take a break, let go of things not in my control and give more time to my private life than my work life.
My goals for my students will be:
- Continue their independent learning
- Embrace their own learning styles
- Create more social interactions
- Increase their communication skills
- Include their parents in as many activities as I can
- Lessen unwanted behaviors
The above is a long list, but totally achievable with the right people and correct tools.
I am a perfectionist. I am type “A” personality. I am anal and I have 30+ years of experience. Through my own experiences since moving to Florida, my struggles have been working with people w/o my experience who don’t want to learn.
I’m coming from Connecticut where being a special education teacher included having my own classroom, scheduling meetings with parents, giving evaluations for students and then scoring them and then writing reports on them, creating an IEP and then copying it so that downtown had a copy, school had a copy, and the parent had a copy and that IEP had to be sent home prior to the IEP meeting and then finalized within a certain amount of time after the IEP meeting. My special education role included providing social work services and OT service services, PT services and speech services which the provider put in place and I was required to continue and follow through when they were not there.
In Florida, there’s an individual job for all of what I just mentioned. We have a person who runs a meeting and does the paperwork. We have another person who does the evaluations and writes that report.
I can be a teacher and focus on my classroom students and their education. It’s funny though because people who have these individual jobs, don’t know how good they really have it and complain about having so much work to do. I’m used to doing all of their jobs because it all fell under the Special Education umbrella.
Working with different cultures is very exciting for me because I learn something new all the time. The younger generation is also very experienced with technology, which I am not. They help me on a daily basis. My daughter has helped me create some new tools for the upcoming year and I’m excited to implement.
I have goals for my students and myself. My other goal is to help my parents. I am advocating for them and will continue to do so. I am trying to reach as many people as possible. Please reach out to me if you need help. I’d love to advise you.