Many of you may not know, my original major was elementary education. At the end of my junior year, I was in a position where I needed to take some extra classes to stay full time but I could not graduate early due to pre-student teaching and student teaching having to be in separate semesters. I was advised to pick up an additional major of ESL or special education. For my high school friends, you know Spanish class was not my area of talent. (Anyone remember all of the craziness in that class?) So, I picked Sp. Ed. I was only doing it to be "more marketable". I did not know that it would be my passion years later. However, no one told me I would stick out like a sore thumb one day.
I plainly remember my first job, which I was not passionate about sp ed at that time. I was standing in the hall of a middle school open house talking to another teacher. A parent walked up to us and said, "You all must be the special education teachers". I was a little angry. I looked down to double check that I didn't have mismatched shoes or socks. I wanted to know if I had a special ed sticker on my head.
I also wasn't told that other teachers look at "us" differently. Every school, I had to prove myself. I later realized, some sp ed teachers are lazy and get into the field to do nothing. Therefore, we often get a bad reputation.
Anyway, all of that mumbling to get to my current story. I went to Walmart to shop. That was stupid, I know. I was talking to a teacher I worked for last year before I got my full time position. She was out on medical leave. As we were talking, a lady my age walked up with a bag of instant potatoes wanting to know how to make them and were they healthy and was there something else healthier because her kids were huge (my word not hers) and needed to lose weight. It was obvious she was unable to read nor comprehend. For the next hour, I was helping her get salt, noodles, cheese, etc for some recipe on the back of a box of whole grain noodles. She had passed numerous people to get to me. Had it been 1999, I would have been offended and been looking for the label, Special Ed teacher, on my head. However, I now see it as a chance I had to help a lady. Todd and Jackson could not have been any better. I got more looks in that hour than I get in 10 trips to Walmart. Some looked at me like I was crazy. Others looked at me like I was sick and some looked compassionate. At the end of our trip, she looked at me and said, "you must go to church". I told her I did. We exchanged the names and denominations of our church, which happened to be the same. She then said my church must have many nice people, which we do. Then she began telling me that she had tried to get help in another store and no one would help. My heart almost broke for her. How challenging must it be to try to fix healthy food when you can't read or understand the food pyramid.
After we were done, I was able to talk to Todd about helping her and that being the nice thing to do. We also talked about the fact that she knew we were Christians because we helped her. We were all tired but I was thankful I had that label on my head and that God had provided me with the abilities to help her!
These verses came to mind when I was helping her...
Matthew 25:34-40. (Where Jesus says what you did for the least of these you did for me.)
4 comments:
Isn't it nice how good you feel after you do something nice for others. I am so glad you were there to help this woman.
"Do unto others...'"
I'm glad you were able to help!! I think I probably would've been too caught up in self-consciousness to help her.
This is a beautiful story. I am a 2nd grade, regular classroom teacher and I have to admit that I look at the special ed teachers in my school differently.
In my experience special ed teachers have unending fountains of patience and make the kids that are "special" feel like they are just kids too.
The special ed teachers at my school have always helped me out with kids, whether they are special ed or not, whether they see them or not. I have the utmost respect for special ed teachers, it takes a very wonderful, caring, and giving person to successfully do everything that is required of that position. I certainly could not do it, so thank you for taking it on!
Carrie you are special ed not because your students are special but because YOU are special. Your story was wonderful. I needed it especially today. I didn't know you had a blog all this time. I have had one for years. I can see Evette doing what you did this day and I thank you for her and for me.
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