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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it is great that teaching special needs students makes her happy.  She should definitely go for it.  Get a degree in special education, and if she can get get some experience working with students who have autism, she will get get a job quickly.  Autism is a growing field and we need more teachers who are patient and capable of working with children who have various needs.

The downside is usually the parents.  If you are doing your job, you should be fine, but some parents are hard to please no matter what you do.  Some of them are in denial about how limit their child is, and some are resentful that they have a special needs child.  They love their kids, but that is the hardest part.[/quote]

Yeah, actually, I really think the downside is the administration and bureaucracy and paperwork...  Sure, some parents are a pain - but so are clients (or customers) or people in like roles in any profession.  If the school were doing their job, parents might not be hard to please - and often the school, in the form of administration, is what's standing in the way of teachers doing their job.  Not always of course, there are awful teachers and teachers who believe the party line, but it's hard for good teachers who care to sit at the table and agree with the parent and feel like they can't say anything, or know that kid really needs X and know that's never going to happen or know the law really says Y and similarly know that's never going to happen.  It was the administration/bureaucracy that made me leave.  And it's the same people who who stand in the way of my kid (special needs, who I did not have while I was teaching) when I'm trying to get her services.  It's rarely the individual teacher.

That said, I miss it - I loved the kids and enjoyed the work, and had good working relationships with almost all my parents (there was 1 over the course of 3 years, sure, not a long time, but 1 of dozens, who I found difficult to work with, and yet I did because that was my job), but the admin crap, the lack of support - that's what made me cry, by mid year, daily.

I second whoever said get a masters - maybe a combo/5 year program?  Some place with a strong practical experience component, as that's the piece that will most prep her.  I came out of my masters technically qualified (and certified) to teach a range of kids, but that did not at all mean I had any business teaching them or idea of what I was doing, other than the subset of kids I had experience teaching already.  Depending on the level she wants to teach, might be beneficial to minor in a subject (math, something english related, etc) if the state she'd consider working in would take some of that to mean she'd be highly qualified in that subject area (more applicable for MS/HS) - would open up opportunities.  Psych or child development would be another good one, again depending on the population and age she's interested in.[/quote]

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