We had our department photo taken today for the yearbook. I made the pic black and white on purpose - give it the old yearbook photo feel. At first glance, we look like your average special education department. (Insert your jokes here... something about an oxymoron, or something else clever and funny). What you can't see is that every single one of these people truly cares about kids. What makes being a special education teacher different than being a general education teacher is that the very nature of our job is to work in small group settings and one-on-one. Because of this, we get to know our students very well. We develop strong bonds with our students; they congregate in our classrooms between classes, during their other classes, at lunch, and in the hall - looking for us so they can just talk, joke, or ask us for help.
Every single one of the people in this photo have helped kids learn more than just what the Ottoman Empire did, more than how to edit a paper for run-on sentences, and more than how to multiply polynomial equations. They have helped kids find jobs, listened to their stories and struggles, given them food to eat for breakfast, encouraged and supported them as they came out to their families, took them on college visits, and countless other things that the math teacher, the English department, and the PE teacher know nothing about. Every single person in this photo not only supports our students more than the parameters of the job description entail, but they also support each other. I am grateful for my co-workers because on top of all of those wonderful things you can't see in this photo, you also can't see that right before this, we were laughing about who has the best butt and who wishes he had the best butt. These people are incredible. And I am incredibly grateful for being part of their team.
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