Sarah Wilde
McKay Student Ambassador
Special Education (Severe)
Writing/Speaking Skills
As a teacher, you will need to write and present to many different audiences. Talking in front of a group of first graders in a hands-on math class is very different than presenting to a group of peer educators in a professional development event.
Writing substitute teacher plans looks very different than writing a weekly report for your students' parents. Learning to articulate your information and needs in a way that your audience can understand and connect takes a lot of skill when there are so many audiences involved in your workplace.
In one of my classes last semester, I was assigned to make a brochure about autism for parents of autistic children in American Samoa. The idea was that the child was recently diagnosed, and that the parents don't know much about the disability. I couldn't use any of the technical words I had learned in my classes, and had to return to the basics. On top of that, I had to use ChatGPT to translate the brochure into Samoan.
In the future, I will often have parents that don't know the science behind their child, but that doesn't mean they don't want to help them. This assignment also helped me think of ways to write for my future ELL students and parents. Utah's population of students who don't know English is growing rapidly, so it is very possible that I will have families in my special education classes that don't know English. The simpler I can write, the easier it will be to get my message across.
Collaborative Skills
Teachers should never work alone. There are so many people working to help your students, whether they be the other teachers at your grade level, an IEP team, or reading/math aids. When you work with other people, your students get more help from more resources. If the adults in a child's life aren't on the same page, they will get confused and stop making progress. Because of this, learning to work together and collaborate is one of the most important parts of teaching.
Because of this, my education classes assign a lot of group projects. I don't always enjoy group work; sometimes someone isn't pulling their weight, maybe I disagree with someone on how to go about the assignment, people aren't always willing to listen to each other and compromise, etc. I have found that the more groups projects I work on, the easier it becomes and the less I dread them. Obtaining this skill is important, even if I never learn to love group projects.
Emotional/Empathy Skills
While working with so many children from so many backgrounds, you will run into hard situations. Some students are from other countries and may not know the language. Other students may have recently lost a loved one. Some may be worried about affording new shoes. Being exposed to all these situations will open your heart and help you to develop empathy. You will learn to be patient with every students' progress and effort. You will gain a cultural awareness and an appreciation for the good that every child brings to your classroom.
I am minoring in TESOL (Teaching English as a Second or Other Language) and it has opened my eyes to a lot of situations I had never thought of. Because of recent law changes, things are getting a lot harder for our students who are immigrants. My professor, Dr. Rosborough, immigrated from Italy as a child. It has been really interesting to learn about ELL students from his perspective. I never realized how much I took for granted as a child. I understood the local language, I had friends, and I was never hungry.
There are so many other skills we learn as education majors! Come talk to us to learn more!
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