Now that I have completed my 2nd and 3rd week at Ballard High School I finally feel like jumping into the water. I have really connected with a couple of the students and they even have thanked me multiple times for taking the time to help them with their school work. I feel like I am actually being used in a good way which is a very nice feeling. This experience is also solidifying the fact that I made the right decision in choosing to teach high school. I think one of those reasons is that these students are hard to work with, almost all of them lacking self confidence and feeling like they are less than what they really are. It just drives me to help them more. I love the children who are the hardest to work with because they are the most rewarding.
Another thing during these weeks that really made me happy to become a special needs teacher was with 5th period both weeks we where really working on social skills. I think that this is an area that gets looked over as something that is not very important to teach students, but I think that everyone would benefit from having a social skills class available. Not to mention during these weeks we where working on asking for help. Easy task you would think, but it is not. How hard is it for you to ask somebody for help with a task that you think you should be able to do yourself? Sometimes people even d situations where they might need to ask for help so that they do not have to, so the fact that we where working with these children on asking for help made me feel like I was really better preparing them for their future.
Thank you for reading!
Hannah Hawley
Inside The Teacher's Mind 