My Nose Knows I Blew It. A Rough time To Be A Teacher.

[Teacher of the Year]

11. I work in a program to support kids who need a LOT of behavioral supports.

I love my job and it is HUGE when your students make gains in self control. I sometimes get to see the moment it clicks for a kid and their whole lives pivot on that very moment. I sometimes get to see the look on a parent's face after they see their first big moment at home.

There is a funny block of jobs in this country where dealing with violence simply happens. People can be violent and other people deal with them. Nurses, hospital workers, teachers, special ed teachers (I list them as two groups because there is a difference that needs to be talked about) paramedics, police and first responders, so many more. The difference is only a few of those groups are trying to change the behavior. Changing behavior means a long, thought out plan to create the environment where behavioral change can occur. And that means you deal with the behavior, as you lay the foundation to change them.

My program takes kids in crisis, and the goal is to change the behavior, then send them back to their neighborhood school so they continue on with their peers, but now with the skills to succeed.

It's an honorable job, but on the more rough-and-tumble side that most people don't really see so they don't even know it exists. When you say "I'm a teacher," people picture their own classroom experience and imagine my job to be like the rooms they remember from their own childhood. My room is not like Miss Williams' room, 2rd grade, Lake Tahoe, circa 1971.