professional biography

My teaching career has been a lifelong journey that began when I was just a small child. The people who are close to me have heard this story often since it is pretty much the sum of who I am. My father was a high school vocational teacher for about 15 years. After receiving his master’s degree he moved into administration. He resigned as a high school principal shortly before his death in 1976 when I was only seven years old. He did not resign however from teaching me the importance of education and leaving me with a strong desire to help each person live to his/her full potential. One story that I hold close to my heart is how he taught electronics to a blind boy. My father first learned Braille himself to better understand the importance of touch and “seeing through your fingers”. He bought a brail typewriter so that he could make a hard copy of his verbal directions, and together they accomplished what people had told them was a waste of time. I pull energy and inspiration from this story frequently to keep me from becoming discouraged and frustrated if I fail to find the right “connection” to get through to my students. Patience, creativity, and imagination have been the keys to my success as a special education teacher. My current position as a self-contained IDMO teacher at the high school level has proven to be not only the most challenging, but the most rewarding as well.
In November of 2007 one of my students, Curtis, was experiencing an unstable home life. His father had undergone nerve surgery that went astray and was in a nursing home undergoing physical therapy. His mother was dying quickly of lung cancer which left Curtis’ 18 year old niece to care for them both. Curtis’ father knew they needed help and called me late one Sunday evening to ask if we would open our home to his son. There was no discussion needed, my family stood behind me and we left together to help him pack and “bring him home.” This new living arrangement sounded much easier than it was. Curtis is an African American male who would be sharing a bathroom with two adolescent Caucasian girls. Curtis was 20 years old at the time but constantly asked my 14 year old to “pick him up like a baby”. Curtis loved to watch the Hispanic channel, dominating the TV so that my 11 year old could no longer watch one of her favorite shows Full House. Curtis fed my dogs cookies and tried to get my cat to drink Sundrop. My husband helped Curtis take a shower three times a week because he had never learned to do this independently. What started out as an adventure for everyone turned into quite a struggle by the end of the fourth month. During his stay with us, Curtis’ mother passed away. One of the most heartbreaking things that week was trying to explain to Curtis what “dead” meant. Eventually it became clear that he needed to see his mom in order to have closure. That week I took Curtis and his dad to the funeral home for a private viewing so he could say good-bye. No matter the mental ability, we’re all really the same. We have to see to believe before we can cope. Curtis stayed with us until his dad finished physically healing and could go home, and then they began healing as a family. To have Curtis’ dad trust me and my family with his care during such a tumultuous time was humbling to say the least and this is what I believe to be the biggest contribution I have made to education. Not just for Curtis, but all my students.
To end on a more celebratory note, this past fall I nominated one of my female students, Dani, for junior class homecoming representative. Dani wants so badly to be “normal” this was one thing I could do for her. The students at MPHS did the rest when they made her dream come true by electing her junior class representative.
My accomplishment to teaching will be met when my students are accepted not for their academic ability but as loving, caring human beings. With the students and faculty at Mount Pleasant we are getting there, but we still have a way to go. To me that’s like teaching a blind boy electronics.

Philosophy of Teaching

I believe that my students should be held accountable for their education just the same as every other student in regular education classes. I conduct every day in a structured fashion with units and lessons planned to meet each student’s ability level. I teach lessons using the same six-step plan I was taught in college and grade each student’s work daily. I refuse to be a glorified “babysitter” for six hours a day taking the easy way out of being held accountable for individual growth by giving everyone in my classroom an “A” on their report card. I relish the fact that some of my coworkers resent me because I have developed a curriculum to follow the NCEXTEND standards as well as a grading system that is easy for my students to understand. In my classroom we celebrate success as well as face consequences when we do not try and therefore fail.
I have a student who loves Superman, so much so that his mother made him a cape and he wears it everyday after school. One day this summer his mother called me because he had left the house early in the morning (without telling anyone he was leaving) wearing his cape. With his billfold in his pocket he headed uptown to (we speculate) buy a Sprite out of the vending machine near Cabarrus Creamery. The police found him wandering in the construction site of the new jail and took him to call home. I had been working all year with this student to learn his phone number and by gosh, he told them “704 – 704”. Thankfully he had his school ID card in his billfold and they were able to identify him and contact his parents who were frantic by this point. When his mom called me to share this I was ecstatic because he remembered three digits of his phone number! I also felt extremely special because she called me asking for input as to what to do in the future. I expressed that I thought he wanted some independence like his brothers had and we brainstormed how this could be done so that he felt empowered, but was still safe. Several of the ideas we came up with are still in use today and continue to be successful. We have continued to work on his phone number and he is able to dial and write it in class, but doesn’t yet have the ability to transfer the skill to home.
I try to model the words of Mother Theresa in my teaching style. “Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting.” I do hold my students accountable and correct them when they’ve done wrong, but I never let them forget that I love them dearly. There are some pretty gross aspects of my job. I change diapers, I help girls with their monthly issues, I clean up my students after accidents occur, cut up food, feed one, wipe runny noses, and I have found that drool can be quite moisturizing. I model compassion for my students’ everyday and am rewarded continually through hugs, pictures they’ve drawn, or just simple words like “thank you’ Or “Kluttz, I love you”. I also feel like there is more than academic teaching that goes on in my classroom. Last year I had two students returning from PE with a male peer helper. One of the girls diaper was sliding down and she asked him to pull her shorts up so naturally he did. The diaper was looser than he thought and just a couple of steps later the whole thing fell off. As you can imagine the boy was mortified, but he stood there and supported her by holding her shoulders (with his eyes shut) while my other student pulled up the diaper, secured it and fixed her shorts. I was so proud! I knew then the academic lessons I teach may not always be successful, but the life lessons I model stick.
I am rewarded everyday by having the privilege of going to a job that I absolutely love and where I am surrounded by students who love me unconditionally. To have this relationship recognized by the faculty and staff at MPHS is just the icing on the cake.

I love my job. In fact I would go so far as to say I have the best teaching job in the entire state. I have a classroom of ten mentally handicapped high school students that function on a 2 – 6 year old level. We laugh, and learn, and spend our days together trying our hardest and never giving up. My students have a great amount of energy and demand a tremendous amount of attention. Taking care of them involves everything from toileting, and changing, to feeding, to teaching the most basic of skills as letters, numbers, colors, how to write their name, read, and understand numbers. Learning new strategies and ways to teach my students would be something I would greatly benefit from.

When I leave school to take care of my family, I spend additional hours at home grading papers, planning lessons, making communication boards to correspond with my lessons, and calling parents to discuss the ongoing needs of my students. I honestly spend all of my waking hours taking care of the physical and mental needs of my family and students. Time for me would be such a welcome oddity. Learning Tai Chi and other ways to distress throughout the day would defiantly improve my mental heath and allow me to put even more of myself into each day and every relationship.