Teach in a High-Need School

¶ … teach in a high-need school because I feel that my education and experience has taught me the skills necessary to teach students enrolled in New York City's high-needs education program. I am creative enough to maintain a good learning environment, and adaptable enough to be able to handle any student's needs. I can maintain a steady pace of teaching while controlling a more sensitive classroom environment. New York City has the kind of school system that I would like to teach in. Public schools in the city have many requirements for high-needs teachers, and I can fulfill them. Living in New York City and becoming a teacher is a dream that I have been harboring for years. I will be an effective high-needs teacher because of my Master's Degree in Secondary Education from Wagner College on Staten Island. After receiving my Bachelor's of Arts Degree in Political Science in 2010, I felt that a career in politics was not exactly the path I was meant for.

I have a passion for political science still, but I decided I would like to apply myself towards a more direct role in my career, working with children and not in an office. So I decided on becoming a teacher. Both my Mother and Sister, who are both Special Education teachers, influenced me in my decision. I have been with them to their classrooms many times and I am comfortable while in this environment. Ever since I was small, I was learning from my Mother when she would come home from class, and having a teacher as a Mother has made me better prepared to be a teacher myself. Before I applied to enter a teaching program, I looked around many colleges in the City, and I liked my undergraduate college best.

I decided on Wagner because of its excellent reputation for its teaching program, its proximity within New York City, and its resources tied into the New York Public School system. I have learned everything I could about teaching while at Wagner, and I feel that I gained a lot of valuable knowledge as a result. Many current New York City Public Education teachers are graduates of Wagner, and therefore I felt I had chosen the best college for this goal. After this, I entered Wagner College's Secondary Education program and have been excelling in the classes that I have had. I am qualified to teach High-Needs education, and am looking forward to doing so in the near future. I formally graduate from Wagner College's Masters in Secondary Education program in May 2013.

The greatest challenge I expect to face in teaching a high-needs school is the problem of quickly escalated emotions in these sensitive environments, and possible disruption or violence that may result. The most important thing for me to do in a challenging situation such as this is to control the situation and calm everything down into a more comfortable environment. I have been trained in many different afflictions which may be present in a high-needs classroom, and I feel that I can adapt to every student no matter what their needs may be. As a teacher, I will be expected to overcome this challenge by accommodating individual student's needs, and trying my best to help any student that needs it. I am calm and collected when I need to be, and can reasonably handle any situation I am faced with. I have been around many high stress situations in my life, and have seen how professionals handle these situations in order to defuse any problems that may arise.

I have learned many excellent qualities found in teachers, such as how to be patient and to work hard, by playing sports my entire life. I have played Baseball since I was young, and through the years became very good at the sport, enough to get paid to play. I used to play professional Baseball for two seasons, and learned how to work as a team with others, and how to handle stress while playing. Since ending my Baseball career, I have thought about teaching as a way to continue my professional life, since it has always come naturally to me. While High-needs education may be very different from playing professional Baseball, I feel that I can make the transition very well, because when I was not playing Baseball, I was helping out my family in their pursuit of special education teaching.