Many people ask me “What is the type of teacher you want to be?” For awhile it was hard for me to answer that question until a few years ago when I saw this video of a Special Education teacher who starts every morning off by complimenting each student. Some of his compliments include “I love having you in my class. I think you’re very funny. You’re a great soccer player. Everyone in here loves you,” each comment is simple but makes each kid feel important and good about themselves. Chris Ulmer a special education teacher in Jacksonville, Florida has truly been an inspiration to myself.
Ulmer’s students have diagnoses ranging from autism to traumatic brain injury, and all arrived in his classroom after being segregated from general education students, Now, he says, “they’re participating in school activities, dancing in front of hundreds of other kids and in the debate club.” Not only does Ulmer make sure each of his kids knows how important they are he has also written a book about each and every one of their stories. Ulmer’s has had the same kids in his class for three years, which has really helped him build this unbreakable bond with them.
After reading about Ulmer I knew that I wanted to structure my classroom similar to his, I want to make sure each and every student I have knows how important they are to me and the world. I plan to implement this same type of starting off the day with a complement so that each and every day no matter what was wrong before the student walked in the room they always knew someone thought of them highly.
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