Me and My Cart

Me and my Cart...
....the show on the road

Each day during the 2011-2012school year, my trusty cart and I traveled to 4 different grade levels, into 10 different classrooms, to support 35 students with special needs in their endeavor to be successful in the general education classroom.

My cart carries a variety of intervention programs, lesson plans, student data, IEPs, my expectations, the Teacher vs. Student game, pencils, highlighters, flashcards, cooperative learning roles necklaces, and a beach bucket of motivation...on any given day.

This is the second year my cart and I have worked together, and sadly, I had to retire this cart at the end of the school year due to a wheel that kept falling off in the middle of a roll down the hallway, and a handle that did not want to join its other side. Last school year, our school district moved to a "push-in" model of support for students with special needs in the general education setting. Away went the resource rooms....and in went the special education teacher. This "new" way of ensuring our students with disabilities were getting the rigorous education they deserved even came with a new title....Support Facilitation Teacher. (Fancy, isn't it!) But this fancy title came with many challenges...

My cart and I found ourselves having to be pioneers in the idea of collaboration. In the past, teachers were "Kings" and "Queens" of their own classroom kingdom. In the beginning of this "new way", my cart and I were intruders....

I like to consider myself an Ambassador, from a far away land (yup, I have put my time in as being the special education teacher in the large storage closet next to the boy's locker room in one school, and have also lived in the Special Education Portable City of another school). But here I am, traveling into many kingdoms to spread the awareness of the many Abilities of those with disabilities, the importance of using accommodations (fair does not mean equal), and to advocate for my students.

My cart and I would like to welcome you to share in our journey. We want to share our successes, our traveling trinkets (lesson plans, motivation ideas, and my other creations that have helped me along on my daily travels), and our encouragements for both special education teachers and general education teachers.

We look forward to traveling with you!