Sarah is a teacher for Special ED, who goes to work and helps them understand many different things in which she has to accommodate since her students have many disabilities. I will be interviewing her because she has an interesting story about her job that she would like to share.
Panther Press: What do you do for a living?
Sarah Walsh: I am a Special Education teacher, and I work with cerebral palsy kids. Mainly right now, middle school children that have multiple disabilities.
Press: Do you enjoy your job?
Walsh: Yes, I do. I actually think my job is very rewarding. It comes with a lot of work, but when my students accomplish goals, it makes me very proud to see how hard I’ve worked to help them achieve these goals.
Press: Can you please tell me something interesting that happened in your classroom?
Walsh: Lets see, well over the years I’ve been working with certain students on certain goals. Just recently, a student of mine made a big accomplishment where during morning meetings, the student has to reach out and make a choice, hold it in their hand, and pass it to somebody else. After working on this goal for about a year, the student was able to accomplish this goal.
Press: How did you react to it?
Walsh: I was overjoyed, that I might have almost teared up a little bit because this was a big deal for the student and the student had progressed so well over the last couple of years that I had the student in my class.
Press: Did anyone else notice your reaction?
Walsh: Oh my goodness, yes the entire class did, well mainly my TAs. A lot of my students are non verbal, so they can just express by looking and smiling. But my teacher assistants, that’s what TA means, they noticed my reaction.
Press: What did they do after they noticed?
Walsh: Well one of them was like, (they said), ‘Sarah what happened?’ and I told them, and they were overjoyed too. They said, ‘Sarah , wow, you’ve come a long way working with this.’
Press: What did you say to them?
Walsh: I told them I was just so happy and they were (also) so happy too and they just kept praising the student.
Press: After, did you notify anyone about the situation?
Walsh: I ended up telling my principal later that day, since it was a big accomplishment. She was very proud of me.
Press: How did that person react?
Walsh: Like I said, she was very proud of me, I also told the student’s parents. They were very excited to hear the good news, and very proud of my hard work.
Press: Did you both share the same emotions?
Walsh: Oh yes, it was a lot of positive vibes.
Press: Do you think you will ever forget this?
Walsh: No, this is on of the memories I’ll have because I work so hard to achieve goals with my students, and for me to accomplish this goal, is a big deal not just for the student, but a big deal for me and making sure that I continue to teach and do the best I can for all my students.
