Education & Nonprofit

Education & Nonprofit Career Blog

Special Education: Know Thyself and the World

By Anna Paikert ’13

January 17, 2023

Tags Education & Nonprofit

The beauty of special education is that teaching and learning extends beyond traditional academics and helps students develop skills to communicate and interact with others, care for their social-emotional needs, and become independent. I would advise Hamilton students interested in pursuing a career in special education to approach every moment helping children learn about themselves and the world around them with enthusiasm and to embrace the joy in being unique.

In my case, I always wanted to be a teacher. 

Before completing my homework as a child, I would copy worksheets using my mom’s old copy machine and hand these out to my students –  a class of about 20 stuffed animals, their names listed in my attendance book that I begged my mom to buy for me at the teachers’ supply store.

My first year of teaching was obviously more difficult. I had just graduated from Hamilton and began working in a mainstream school trying to help students – some only two years younger than me – become independent while still learning to do so myself.

Now after almost seven years as a special education teacher, I feel confident and excited each day to work and spend the day with my curious students at a nurturing special school.

While at Hamilton, I spent a summer as an Emerson Fellow developing a creative writing program for children at the Tradewinds Education Center, which serves students with disabilities. I designed a project featuring students who wrote their own books and the teachers and I celebrated their accomplishments through a publishing party. Tradewinds was my first experience in a special school, a setting that valued children’s achievement and well-being over workload. I continued the program during the academic year by organizing Hamilton volunteers to implement other creative projects at Tradewinds, and felt certain that I wanted to become a teacher.

I graduated from Hamilton and became a New York City Teaching Fellow. I taught special education at a high-needs public secondary school in Brooklyn while earning my Master’s in Education as a teacher of students with disabilities.

My training involved role-play between excited new teachers which differed from my daily experiences with students who did not always want to be in school and of course did not follow a script. I became frazzled when activities did not go to plan, bewildered when a student did not complete an assignment, and exhausted trying to encourage subject teachers to differentiate materials. I was eager to make lessons exciting and accessible for my students, and by my second year, I learned to motivate students by honing in on their passions –  I chose relatable books to read as a class and ran lunch and weekend clubs.

After graduate school, I traveled and continued to work with young people; I volunteered at a youth care center in South Africa and mentored students in Scotland.

When I returned to the U.S., I worked again as a secondary classroom teacher, though this time in a special school, similar to Tradewinds, for autistic students. I loved not only teaching my students literacy and numeracy skills, but also helping them develop their communication, social understanding, and emotional regulation. I learned that some behavior  might appear challenging, but is often a way of expressing that a need or want has not been met, which can be true for all of us. I enjoyed thinking of creative and individualized strategies to help students meet their wants and needs.

I’ve continued to work with autistic students and currently work at a special education needs school in England as a primary teacher. I love working in a positive environment and find a tremendous amount of joy in special schools. Sometimes moments of joy occur when a student independently completes a task or plays an imaginative game with a friend. One of my students described his autism as his superpower because he feels more joy than others.

I feel it is important to add that I am not an expert on autism, and I don’t believe anyone can be an expert in someone else’s experiences. I enjoy learning about how others’ approach the world, and have always loved witnessing and guiding all children as they learn about the world around them.

I love working in special education in particular, because the field encourages holistic learning. One of my favorite activities involves The Zones of Regulation – helping my students match emotions to colored zones and linking calming strategies to each zone. I often think that every student, whether or not they receive special education services, and truthfully every adult would benefit from developing a deeper understanding of themselves. After all, “Know Thyself” appears atop the Hamilton seal; likewise my school’s motto is “Working Together to Make Sense of the World.”

Whether I’m teaching older or younger students (or stuffed animals!) in the U.S. or abroad, I always feel excited to teach and play with my students and in turn, feel energized by the enthusiasm my students have for learning about themselves and the world around them.