Mackenzie Taylor
Senior Project
7 December 2014
Reflection Essay Since I was five years old I’ve always been in love with teaching. Every day I would come home after school, line up my dolls, and pretend that I was a teaching a class. My mom has always said that she could hear each one of my teachers, teaching traits and words come out of me, as I was pretending to teach my dolls. My love for teaching started then, and has only gotten stronger. Growing up we had a family friend who's daughter has down syndrome. I always helped take care of her and loved teaching and helping her learn. When I was in middle school, I was able to help in the EC classroom as one of my class periods. My love for helping children with disabilities became my passion. I really wanted the experience of working in both a regular and an EC classroom, so the spring of my Junior year I took a class called Early Childhood Education. In that class, I had the opportunity to go to Cool Spring Elementary as an intern. I was fortunate enough to be able to intern in an EC classroom with Mrs. Farr and in a 1st grade classroom with Mrs. Harmon. I went in the mornings from 7:40 until 11:00. I split my time in both classrooms, somedays I went to Mrs. Farr for the day and other days I went to Mrs. Harmon. In each classroom, I did something different. In Mrs. Farr’s EC classroom, I was able to work with different students who had different disabilities and help them succeed in areas that they struggled in. In Mrs. Harmon’s 1st grade classroom, I worked with the majority of the class. Whether it was reading the class a book or doing a math lesson, to taking one student out to work on math; I was always helping someone. In each classroom, I helped one on one with several students. In one classroom, I helped a little boy that never could pass a test. I loved being able to help him learn something that he was having trouble with and to see the excitement on his face when he finally got it. Seeing him finally accomplish something that was difficult for him, was an amazing feeling to know that I made a difference in his education. The hours from interning at Cool Spring were used for my community service hours for my senior project. Since my true passion is working with special ed children, I wanted to learn more about the best ways to educate special ed children, so I chose to do my