Most people don’t know why I chose to go into the field of education. Why have I dedicated so much towards furthering my education and career.

My reason why is that the system failed me.

I began speech therapy with a private therapist and then once in the public school system slapped with the title of “Special Ed”. With this came pity from many teachers and almost an unwillingness to push me further after all all special education students were treated with a certain stigma in the 80s and 90s. The stigma told over and over was that I was unable to do anything for myself and I was not smart. There’s a lot of things that happen when your teachers, counselors and even principals tell you to get a job where you don’t have to talk. Where you can hide and be a mute all day. After all, special education was considered to be subpar to everyone else.

The difficult part is that I believed it. I believed that I wasn’t good enough to do what I wanted to. I believed I should be ashamed of who I was. The resulted in stumbling through elementary and middle school with mainly Cs. I wanted to be one of the “smart kids” but was told I didn’t have the intellectual capacity.

In high school there was a college night and I fell in love with the brochures from Princeton, Vanderbilt, and Duke. They were nice colorful brochures, but in order to get anywhere I needed to pull myself together. What happened was that I started to fight. I insisted on attending every ARD meeting. I took almost every PreAp and AP course offered. When the report card came out and said “AP US History-Modified” along with that same label on all my other classes I immediately demanded that they be taken off. I was not going to receive special treatment. The only modification was extra time speaking in all 5 years of French class. A class I insisted on taking.

Several people thought I couldn’t make it. That opinion made me so mad and upset that I wanted to prove the, wrong. When I was told over and over that girls, especially a special Ed girl couldn’t do math or science, I went after engineering and eventually mathematics at one of the top schools in the state. When I thought about how much I had to advocate and fight every day during my schooling to receive a quality education, I knew that I wanted to go into education. I wanted to be a role model to my students that anyone can do what they want to do. It may have taken 50 resumes, 12 interviews and one job offer as a first year teacher. But I took it. Nothing and no one was going to stand in my way.

Still I felt the shame and stigma. Every laugh, joke, hung up phone call, everything was humiliating. I kept battling this for several years, some better than others. The fight and needing to constantly prove myself was difficult. There’s a quote –paraphrasing here, that the object that blocks your path is your way. Sheer determination pushed me, but acceptance helped me find my path. I’m proud to have some good and some bad days with my speech, but I’m still here. By being here and my authentic self maybe it’ll inspire others to be courageous. Maybe I’ll be a role model, voice, and advocate for the millions of students labeled as special Ed in our educational system. When your passion and determination are there nothing can stand in your way.

Why do I share this? Because if it inspires one person then it’s worth it. It’s vulnerable and opens up some deep wounds, yes. But it’s authentic. Yesterday I was sitting in my child’s own ARD advocating that he be treated and recognized for all of his abilities, not disabilities. My other son in 4th grade wrote an essay about how I was his hero, not Spider-Man or batman, but me. It’s truly humbling. He has seen so much and that’s made him so compassionate.