Teacher Tales #29 – Empowering students to be seen, heard and valued: Brandon, Special Education teacher, Education Influencer, “larger than life” club sponsor to many students who feel disempowered
In this episode, we hear the powerful story of Brandon, a Special Education teacher, who says his purpose as a teacher is to help empower his students to self-advocate, self-regulate their emotions and to communicate their needs effectively to others. Brandon explains many of the misconceptions that the regular classroom teacher and others have about IEPs, 504s and the difference between intervention and modifications to meet students’ needs. He also is very candid about his personal experiences with racism in schools, from both the teacher and the student perspectives. Brandon also goes on to say how sponsoring different clubs such as the Speech and Debate Club, Social Justice Club and Anime Club has re-kindled his passion for teaching and provided him with special opportunities to build better relationships with students. Brandon believes that teachers are more like life coaches and that current teacher training programs don’t prepare teachers for this aspect of the profession as they just really prepare teachers to become content experts, which, honestly, takes the humanization out of education. Most importantly, he co-founded a Beacons of Light Club at his school to provide students the guidance and support and role model to find their special light within in order to live an authentic life, to live their truth and to become student leaders. It is true what was said by his nominator about Brandon being “larger than life”. I hope you will listen and allow your teacher soul to feel and become larger than life too! Want to raise awareness of diversity through literature? Got to #AwareofLit Cards – question cards for diverse book collections