Inspiration

I began down the path of education not only to inspire my students but also to be inspired by them.

Today I spent some time in a Kindergarten classroom. When I set foot in the door I sensed a feeling of relief, I guess sometimes the "grind" of being in my third grade practicum even gets to me. I can't imagine how the students feel. It was great to see students free to explore the world around them and take learning into their own hands.

I took a look around and smiled when I saw a young girl on the computer playing educational games. I was happy to see that even at that young age this teacher had made sure that a computer was avaliable for student use in the classroom and by all means encouraged it. I began talking with the teacher and she mentioned that the little girl on the computer was born with severe autism and using the computer was one of the few things she did in the classroom. The teacher explained the frustration she felt when the little girl wouldn't participate in "circle time" or classwork. But she continued on to say that although she was not doing these things she was very very smart and was always reading or on the computer. I loved seeing the use of technology in such a positive way. Although the little girl would probably be best moving along with the class, it was great to see the computer and all of the education it can provide used in such a great way.

Yet, as the teacher called the students for "circle time" the little girl put her headphones down and headed to her name which was pasted to the floor. She drifted somewhat but chimed in for a few verses of "who stole the cookies from the cookie jar" and jumped up and down as we counted out the number of days we had been in school. Then as the rest of the students learned to take "bunny hops" when putting glue onto paper, she was right there with them. I was amazed, I knew that this was a big deal and when I looked at the teacher's face she glowed. She was so proud of that little girl.

Today I was inspired not only by the small but at the same time very large steps taken by this one little girl, but I was inspired by a teacher not willing to give up and who was willing to do anything necessary to make everyone in her class a part of