Christmas may be a particularly stressful time for special education teachers. You may have IEP's, especially if a child was identified soon after the beginning of the school year. December is when those IEP's all come due. There are personal obligations and responsibilities to our own families. We may have to walk our students through the holiday music program at school and still find time to buy the red turtle neck sweater and get to our own childrens' programs.
Our lives don't stop because of the responsibilities we have at school. But . . .
If there were no rewards would we do it? Let's face it, teaching has some pluses; nine months a year, good health insurance, and no need to dress up every day. Still, there are lots of things we could do and make a lot more money. We teach because we love working with children. We teach because we love seeing young people succeed. But we teach because we find some joy in what we do.
We teach because we see the light go on behind their eyes when they learn a new school.
We teach because someone slides a small hand into ours when we are accompanying the class to a special.
We teach for the little notes with words misspelled, and we are usually drawn as taller or thinner or fatter than we really are, but it's the "Ur my Favrit Teacher" that makes it all worth while.
One of my students in Pennsylvania was had Fragile X, a chromosomal abnormality that leaves boys with symptoms much like autism. His previous class had not been a good fit: he would sometimes spend whole afternoons wailing outside the classroom. He was a different kid in my class. We jollied him up and dealt with his idiosyncratic behavior. He loved to help out. When I would ask him to do something, I loved his answer: "Okay Buddy!" And I loved being his buddy.
What gives you joy?
