What I want to be when I grow up....

...or at least this week.

So, after a semester of being in a second grade classroom and working with the children in the class with special learning needs (and seeing how at times the main teacher had a hard time teaching to all the class's needs equally) AND after being accepted to the Integrated Elementary and Special Education program at Wheelock I am beginning to wonder where I may end up one day.

The program at Wheelock aims to educate a new generation of teachers who can teach children with special needs in resource room settings and in a mainstream classroom setting (where the elementary part of the program enters in). In today's world children are being placed more frequently into mainstream classes (if possible) so that they are with their peers rather than isolated in resource rooms.

While being able to work one on one with students with special learning needs is appealing (and next week may be my dream job) right now this new idea of having a classroom teacher who is trained to teach every student in the way they learn best is appealing to me. It is almost a way for me to re-experience school myself. My teachers had no idea what to make of my situation and at times I lost out on the learning experience (or didn't learn the lesson at all). But if I can make a classroom community so special that every student is taught in the way that they learn best - special and non special needs alike - I'd feel like I am giving back. Giving back where I didn't get.

While this may never come to pass, I can dream, and think about how amazing it would be to part of a community of little learners who all feel special and all get what they need and deserve out of the curriculum because I can make sure the curriculum fits each one of them!

But who knows... maybe next week I'll want to be an acrobat (-;