I am finally here and it feels so great.  My senior year at Tougaloo College and in a few more months, I will be teaching exceptional education.  It was a long journey and I thought I would never make it.  Sometimes I wanted to give up and throw in the towel, but I kept on pressing forward.  It seems as if I just began college, I can still remember crying on my first day because I did not want to be here.  I wanted to be at home with my family.  It was rough for a couple of months, but look at me now. 

            I am the only student completing my student teaching this semester.  At first it was kind of a shock and privilege, to know that I was the only one.  I finally made it through.  I am the same student who took Praxis I three time before passing, the same one who had to stop taking special education courses for a year because of my scores.  I was determined; I refused to change my major like others did.  I studied and worked hard to get where I am now and I am proud of myself.  

            Becoming a special education teacher has always been my dream.  I wanted to show others that being different is okay.  When I tell people that I am going to school to become a special education teacher, I sometimes receive strange looks.  Some even ask me why, they say I am to smart for that.  They sometimes say, I should have went to school for something else.  Then they apply that education does not pay any money.  The funny thing about that statement is, I am not in it for the money.  All my life I have been an “underdog lover”.  I was the one who befriended the new kids, when others though they were strange or not cool enough.  I was also the one who talked to the handicapped students in the hallway and helped them when needed. 

            The main reason I chose Special Education as my major is fact that I love helping others and as stated before “I am an “underdog” lover.  I love those children that most people kick to the curb, the one that sits in the back and never says anything.  The child that everyone turns their backs on and most of all, the ones people tell you will never be anything in life.  These are the ones my heart goes out to.  I truly believe God made me to help them, to let them know that he did not make them different, but special.  I will teach to look at life in a different prospective, and tell them life is what you make it, not what it makes you.  I will be there to support them constantly telling them that they are somebody and they can do anything.  I believe if you tell a child that he or she stupid for a long period of time, he or she actually begins to believe that he or she is stupid.  Therefore, I will let them know that they can be anything, and knowing that I made them believe in their selves will let me know my true purpose for being here.

            I am completing my student teaching at Walton Elementary where the Principal is Mrs. G. Gardner and the Assistant Principal is Ms. F. Strong.  My teaching supervisor is Mrs. Latisha Sargent, the best exceptional education teacher ever to walk this earth.  I have known her for years.  She was the very first teacher I did my observation under.  She is a hard working woman, who wears many hats.  She does so much during the day; it makes me wonder how she makes it through.  I also work with two other lovely ladies by the name of Ms. Linda Key and Ms. Brittney McDowell.  Ms. Key is the fifth grade inclusion teacher.  She is retired and she is also a hard working woman.  She only works half of the year, but she gets the job done.  Ms.  McDowell is Mrs. Sargent’s right hand man (woman).  Without her, things would not go as smooth as they do.  She is the assistant teacher, but she works just as hard as anyone else.  She goes from class to class just as the inclusion teacher does. 

            Now that I am completing my student teaching I am mindful of the way I talk to my students.  My students they come from different types of backgrounds.  I have some who are poor and some who wealthy.  I also have some who are conceived by older individuals and some who are conceived by young individuals and they all are on different levels.  At first it was kind of difficult but now I know the level each child is on.  This really helps because I know exactly what each child needs.  I have also built a relationship with them, and they trust me.  They tell me things that they would will not tell others.  Sometime my emotions get in the way, and I want to cry, because some of my students are too young to be faced with some of the issues they face.  I have learned that most parents place their children in these classes only for money.  Sometime they brain wash their children to pretend that something is wrong, when sometimes nothing is wrong. 

            Every day I enter the class room with a smile on my face because most of the time my students are frowning.  When asked why, they always respond by saying nothing, but based on my observations, it is because they are not treated equally by their peers and most times by their teachers.  Some general education teachers are not humble enough to handle special education students.  They constantly fuss at them.  I have even heard some teacher talk about the students.  This really affected me because not only are the students being teased at home but at school too and the only place they can be their selves is in exceptional education.