As a child, I would play school with my little sister for hours.

I had a chalkboard on the

wall in my room and would carefully write letters and numbers on it as my sister patiently
watched me and pretended to know what the marks on my chalk board meant. I loved learning
and felt that my sister should as well, so I took it upon myself to teach her. My personal love of
learning is a quality that I attribute to my desire to teach. I believe that its a teachers
responsibility to foster students interest in learning and encourage them to seek out new
knowledge and engage in a productive struggle.
I had my first experience with people with disabilities in fourth grade when one of the
special education classrooms joined my class for art and music class. I found that I enjoyed
interacting with the students and enjoyed working with them on projects. Once I decided that I
wanted to be a special education teacher, I devoted much of my free time to volunteering with
people with disabilities. My initial interactions with people with disabilities were in a
recreational setting. Beginning in fifth grade, I volunteered with my local park districts Buddy
Baseball program playing baseball with children and adults with disabilities, an activity I
participated in until leaving for college. I also volunteered at a therapeutic riding barn. I started
as a volunteer assisting with lessons and became a certified instructor last year and have been
teaching horseback riding lessons to children and adults with disabilities since then. This
opportunity allowed me to combine my love of horse back riding with my desire to work with
individuals with disabilities but was still mainly a recreational setting. In high school I had the
opportunity to take a class called Teaching Young Children that gave high school students the
opportunity to plan lessons and teach in a preschool. I took this class for 2 years in addition to
working there before and after school. This experience is responsible for affirming to me that

teaching was something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. I believe that its
extremely important for teachers to enjoy teaching so their enthusiasm rubs off on their students.
Its important for teachers to have an air of professionalism but its equally as important
for them to be someone that their students can trust. As a teacher, I hope to be able to form close
relationships with all of my students and have a system of mutual respect. I would like to
demonstrate to my students that learning is a lifelong process and can occur in many ways. I love
learning and I want to share the gift of learning with my students, whether that be teaching them
life skills, about tornados, or math. I think its important that students with disabilities are not
only taught life skills, but are also taught enriching subjects and given the opportunity to learn
about the world we live in.