March: Gabby

Gabby is a special education educator. I decided to share her story this month:

I have been in NM since 1994. Even though I will choose red chile over green, I do consider myself a New Mexican at heart. My passions include other languages and cultures, learning and, of course, my job. My inspiration in life is my family (which includes a couple people that aren't technically family) and my students. I decided to become a teacher half-way through my senior year of high school. The realization was basically a slap in the face. I was visiting my kindergarten teacher and she told me "Gabrielle, since the day you graduated kindergarten, you have been coming back to my classroom to help, to read, to teach. You have volunteered at daycares, gone with your mom to volunteer for holiday parties at homeless shelters, been a teacher's aide and choosen part-time employment working with children. Have you really never considered being a teacher?" I honestly and truly had not considered teaching as my career, and in a moment, there was my future. And it made sense. It was never questioned, and everything just kind of fell into place from there.

I have a younger sister with Down Syndrome. Even though I knew she was in the special education programs, I had always known it was the appropriate program for her and her needs, so choosing to focus on Special Education wasn't really a big deal. My high school job as a one-on-one theraputic recreation leader helped me put the pieces together. I realized that celebrating a child overcome a part of a disability-completing an activity that we were told they couldn't do or didn't like, was way more exciting. Those victories were worth the celebration to me. Every day can be a challenge. Every part of it is a learning experience, and anything can happen. Literally anything. 

The best part of my position now, is seeing students who were in all special education classes in middle school, succeeding in the full-inclusion setting in high school. It is so awesome talking with parents, teachers and the students themselves about taking on new challenges and discovering that they really can be a part of the school academically. Their disability does not mean they are labeled stupid, or doubted. They just have to learn what works for them to succeed in that setting. 

In the end, I only have control over so much. The reality is life happens after the school day ends, and as hard as it is, I have to remember: "There are good days and there are better days, because there is always something good that can happen that day." During one of my harder days of student teaching, a kindergarten teacher told me that. And she was right. As long as I go into the day knowing that I do my job and do my job well, no matter how hard the day is, I can always remember one thing about that day that was good because of an interaction with a student. 

Appreciate your teachers folks! It takes a special heart to take that place in the classroom.