Candi Williams

A Snapshot into the Life of a Special Education Teacher

A Day in the Life of a Special Education Teacher

My day begins between 7:30 and 7:45 when I arrive at the classroom. This time allows me to unpack and get myself situated before the students arrive. I also hold daily mini-meetings with my three paraprofessionals. We discuss student progress, concerns, accomplishments, updates, and any other valuable information with one another.
Students arrive at 7:58 a.m. and our day officially begins. I greet my students as they arrive at the classroom. This period is one of the most crucial times of the day as I have the magical power of setting the tone for the day. If a student comes in upset about the morning or an event the previous night, I can help them work through the issue and clear their mind for the day by providing a listening ear and words of encouragement.
Our typical day includes completing morning seat work, completing school-based jobs such as tray return, and cafeteria clean up. Our morning is full of calendar time, small group workstations for math and reading, and one-on-one time for some students to work on their IEP goals while others are out for special area classes. I provide my students with a mid-day brain break with a movement activity to help them get their wiggles out. I then enjoy reading aloud to my class, and model think-aloud as we make predictions and inferences about the story. This also helps them to wind down before lunchtime. The middle of the day is when our students have lunch, special area classes, and the paraprofessionals and I get a lunch break.
After lunch, I lead the class through a whole group Social Studies or Science lesson, followed by small group writing and grammar lessons, and task box completion. We enjoy recess as a group, playing board games with the students, or engaging them in movement outside. The students do not know it, but recess is a great social learning time, they practice appropriate social interactions and turn-taking. A typical day ends with an educational game such as sight word bingo or a pocket chart game due to staggered dismissal times. I reward the students at the end of the day, by praising those that have met expectations by allowing them to “cash in” their Star Bucks to earn a desired item or activity.
In addition to this daily schedule and routine of events, there is much more that happens on a typical day that is not written in my lesson plan. With being a teacher comes many different hats that are worn. I become a caregiver and nurturer to those needing a little extra TLC for the day, a cheerleader to those who are simply following directions and meeting our school-wide expectations, or those who need reminders that they can do it! I become a mediator and referee to those who have trouble with their peers, and most importantly I am the ringmaster of it all. I juggle the many tasks of designing their instruction, monitoring it, and adjusting accordingly, and having the flexibility to smoothly transition to Plan B, C, or even M! On any given day, I am seen and heard offering praise, high-fives, and fist pumps to my group of learners who push themselves to achieve new levels of independence. They remind me daily of WHY I became a special educator.

Get to Know Our Ambassador

Transcript

“Welcome to Blast the Airwaves with Blast Intermediate Unit 17. Here at Blast Intermediate Unit 17, we strive to transform lives and communities through educational services. On this podcast, we will provide you with educational solutions for all, no matter the learning environment. So teachers, administrators, caregivers, what are you waiting for? What would happen if we started questioning what if? What if we had a positive perspective on education? What if we flipped the switch on education? What if we were the solution?”

“Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with Candi Williams, one of our BLAST ambassadors here at BLAST IU 17. Within our organization, Candi serves as a special education teacher specifically in one of our life skills classrooms. Candi, thank you for joining us today to discuss your role within the organization and your experiences throughout this ambassador program. So are you ready to blast the airwaves?”

“Yes, I am.”

“So why don’t we start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your role within our organization?”

“Sure. So not only am I a BLAST ambassador, but I’m also a Special Education teacher, currently teaching in a middle school life skills support classroom. I provide my students with all academic instruction, including mathematics, English language arts, science, social studies, life skills, and health and wellness and this is my 12th year teaching within the organization.”

“So fun. 12 years. So awesome! And did you start as a classroom teacher?”

“I started as a para.”

“That’s it, that’s right. Okay. I remember you talking about that before. Awesome! So we spent a lot of time within the ambassador program discussing the Intermediate Unit as a system and how our system, our own little piece, impacts and collaborates with the other systems of an Intermediate Unit. Intermediate Units are very unique in this way and we’re all different across the state. Can you share with our listeners why you sort of chose this Intermediate Unit life or what you enjoy most about working with the Intermediate Unit?”

“I was introduced to the Intermediate Unit by a family member and encouraged to get on the sub list as a paraprofessional while I was in school to become an early childhood educator. So I followed through and ended up being hired on, working as a paraprofessional for three years before deciding to make the shift into going back to school to be a special education teacher. So, then I ended up resigning from that role as a para so I could complete my degree, of course, because I couldn’t work during the day and go to school during the day. Upon graduating from college, I applied back with the Intermediate Unit for a teaching position and here I am 12 years later! I have served in elementary autistic support and secondary math before transferring into this position as a middle school life skills support teacher. That is something I really enjoy with the Intermediate Unit, is that we have those opportunities to go into other programs, so I have had the privilege of teaching in 3 different programs. What I also enjoy most about working with the Intermediate Unit is the camaraderie between the departments and the divisions, that we have that mutual drive to touch lives. The IU is expansive with many professionals within the organization. We have teachers, speech therapists, curriculum directors, administrators who all work together and support one another to ensure that our learners and our districts have what they need to succeed.”

“Yeah, I find it really interesting and just a lot of fun that we are all in different avenues of education, but we cross over and we support one another and it’s just never a dull moment, I think that’s also really exciting too. So, now that you’ve established sort of your “why” for the intermediate unit lifestyle, you are a special education teacher and again, more specifically life skills, but you’ve had experience in other programs as well. Why did you choose, you know, special education as your specialty area and perhaps, I know you’re really excited and really enjoying the life skills classroom, why did you specifically choose life skills and what advice might you give any of our listeners who are looking to get into that area of expertise?

“Well, I chose special education because I was intrigued by how these individuals learned. I wanted to see how they navigated the school buildings, how they use their communication devices. I wanted to learn more about them myself. Why life skills? Life skills is just a really fun population to work with. These individuals, while we work on academics, we work on self advocacy, self independence, strengthening those life skills, accessing their community, and being as independent as they can be in their adult life. For anybody getting into special education, I would say go for it! If you have the passion to help others grow academically, socially, behaviorally, and increase that level of independence, go for it. You will not regret it!”

“That’s awesome. We know right now in the climate of education at the moment, special education is really important and increasing in need and so we’re blessed to have people like you and we are so thankful for that. So anyone listening that is interested in special education for sure, Candi is a testament to the excitement of the role. So through the ambassador program, you had a chance to shadow a mentor or another division outside of your division or program, which I assume was pretty exciting, especially because you were with me, I know, so who, I should say who or what did you shadow? And then what did you notice or learn about the day?”

“It was very exciting! I shadowed you, Rebecca Gibboney, and some of Ethan Lee’s day in the Division of Educational Planning. I had the privilege to sit in a curriculum coordinators meeting, which was quite informative and eye opening. I knew that our curriculum coordinators provided the IU staff and district staff with professional development trainings, but I didn’t know how in-depth that really was. Our curriculum departments meet monthly with the districts that we serve to ensure that they’re supported with state testing guidelines, trainings, mandates for employees, curriculum and learning for their students, cybersecurity, we provide internet services. So what I learned that day was that our division of educational planning work goes beyond professional development. It spreads all over the four counties that we serve. It was really neat, honestly, just to see everything that you do behind the scenes that I, as a teacher in my program, I don’t see, and I don’t know what you do, so it was very exciting.”

“Yeah, I find the shadowing days with our ambassadors is some of the most powerful and exciting for me, to hear your reflections, not just about division of ed planning, but, it’s just, we live so much in what we do everyday, that we have no idea what everyone else in the organization does. It’s really eye opening, I think, for a lot of our ambassadors to have that experience, so I’m glad that we can have it. I’m glad you spent the day with us. Speaking of ambassadors, each year we run the ambassador program and start a new class of ambassadors. Can you share your biggest takeaway from the program for any of our aspiring ambassadors?”

“Biggest takeaway is just how much the IU provides in terms of support and resources for those districts in our four counties. It’s definitely a lot. I know before I moved here into this, you know, into this organization, I had no idea what an IU does and it’s still hard to, even if we’re in the system, fathom what the IU does. It goes above and beyond. And, you know, what we always say is, “If you have a question, you can come and we’ll either have the solution, we’ll find a solution, or we’ll connect you to the solution”. I really enjoy that kind of mindset through that. So, yeah, it was great to see and learn about the different divisions, just what everyone does, their pieces and their departments and how that trickles down to what I do here in my classroom, where all those supports come from that you don’t think of.”

“So now it’s time for my favorite part, The Blast Five, and we’re going to blast you with five rapid questions for you to quickly answer. These are all related to self care or something outside the workday. So are you ready to blast five?”

“Ready.”

“All right. What is your favorite genre of music?”

“Country.”

“Okay. What is your favorite read?”

“I’ve not enjoyed a really good book in a while. The Hunger Games series.”

“All right. What about favorite Netflix or TV show or series?”

“Wheel of Fortune.”

“Oh, I love wheel of fortune. Are you good? Like, could you be on the show one day?”

“I would love to be on the show. That’s on my bucket list.”

“Oh, that’s great. What is your favorite food or restaurant?”

“Anything Italian. Manicotti, lasagna, softshells.”

“All right, and your favorite motto or quote?”

“I’m often heard saying within my classroom that everyone gets what they need. And what I mean by that is when the students question, why does this person have this piece of adaptive equipment? Or why does this person have a device or something that helps them access our curriculum better? That’s my answer. Everyone gets what they need. And I explain that in their terms that we don’t all wear glasses. That would be silly. We don’t all need glasses. We don’t all need wheelchairs. Everyone gets what they need.”

“I love that! I wish I kind of had that when I was in the classroom, too. That’s a really great way to look at it. Thank you for sharing that with us. All right, Candi, well, we cannot thank you enough for your time today. We know our listeners enjoyed it too. I’m sure they might want to connect with you further and if you’d like to learn more about becoming a Special Education teacher,perhaps even specifically, life schools classroom, you can check out our iu17.org website and search for our ambassadors and you can find about a day in the life of Candi Williams. So this has been a blast Candi, again, thank you for taking some time today at BLaST to blast the airwaves with us and our listeners. It was a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Take care and I’m sure we will be talking very soon!”

“You’re welcome! Thank you too.”

We would like to thank you for blasting the airwaves with us today. If you like the show, please subscribe or leave a review. If you want to know more, check out www. iu17.org for further resources and show notes. As always, we want to thank you for what you do every single day. Remember, keep shining! We’ll be back next episode to provide you another educational solution for all as we continue to transform lives and communities through educational services.