Special Education teachers

One of the challenges that my family has had to face for my brother his whole life was finding teachers that knew how to deal with him. Although there are many special education teachers in the world, each student has a different disability and it's hard to know exactly how to meet their individual needs in every circumstance. I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for the teachers who committed to work with children with special needs. It's hard emotionally, physically, and mentally to walk into a building everyday full of kids who have some sort of restriction on their thinking, their speech, or their movement. It's even harder when you don't know exactly how to help them overcome their difficult circumstances to reach their goals.

I am extremely grateful to the teachers who genuinely try to work for the good of their students despite the hardships they face in a classroom where every student needs an extreme amount of attention but all have different needs. However, it angers me when special education teachers fail to realize the importance of their job and neglect their responsibilities as teachers of kids who really need extra care. If you don't have the patience, gentleness, perseverance, and determination to reach out to these students, you shouldn't become a special education teacher in the first place. It's not meant to be a last resort, "backup job" that you go into if all your other career options fail. It is a real, meaningful, and demanding job that isn't just for anybody.

We need to change our view towards special education teachers. They are too often overlooked, left in the shadows, their work unrecognized. No one really understands how hard it is to go to work every day when your students can't tell you face to face if your teaching is making a difference, if you're helping them in any way. It's a job with very little fruit that takes a very long time to sprout.

Teachers, please do not give up on those students. What they need is love. Teach them with love, believe in them, and little by little, you will see the fruit of your work. We applaud you for the efforts that have gone unnoticed for so long.