My name is Amber Rowland and I am an elementary school teacher with the Upper Canada District School Board. I have spend some time this summer completing the Special Education Part 1 course through the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO). There were many significant ideas and issues presented by my intructor and colleagues while completing the course, but I think the one that resonated with me the most was the idea of being flexible. Every day in our classrooms we encounter a diverse group of students with varying needs, abilities and strengths. I think that one of the great things about the teaching profession is no two days are ever the same, and our group of learners from year to year are never the same as the one before them. In order to accommodate all of the learners we encounter in our career we need to be very flexible in order to meet their needs and help them be successful in their endeavours. It means, as teachers, we do our best to accommodate, modify and differentiate in order to reach out to all of the students in our care and deliver for them the best education possible that helps them in their journey of becoming eager learners, problem solvers, critical thinkers and good citizens of the world.

I think that as educators our best resources are each other. textbooks can provide you with a basic understanding of special education and types of exceptionalities, but the reality is that no two students are exactly alike nor are their needs and abilities exactly the same. While completing this course I have come to value the knowledge and experiences presented by my colleagues, and I have gained a plethora of information on strategies that have been tried and were successfully used in the classroom. I have gained a better understanding of the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession and developed an understanding that it is our moral obligation, as educators, to ensure that the needs of each individual in our classrooms are being met and that we set the tone for the successful learning that will take place in our class. Inclusion can only be learned through experience, not through discussion alone. Creating a classroom environment that celebrates the abilities of all learners and celebrates their successes will go a long way in shaping the young souls that we work with into compassionate, accepting and life-long learners in the future.