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[quote=Anonymous]I have been a special ed teacher for 16 years.  I love the kids.  I love teaching.  I live for the moment when a student achieves a goal.  I would not, however, recommend the job to my daughter.  In the past 16 years the paperwork expectations and time spent in meetings has increased to the point that I have to spend more time administratively than I do actually teaching.  I also feel that no matter how much I do and how hard I work there is always an angry parent .  I am dedicated to my students and families but so often I find that that the parents have had a bad experience with a service provider at some point in their therapy/educational experience that they come in ready to fight before they have even given me/my school a chance.  The truth is, I get where they are coming from.  I have a child with special ed needs myself.  I have been burned as a parent.  In addition, the documentation is crazy and to do the job right you have to spend so much time writing about each group and collecting data that you never have time to plan for every group with creative lessons.

I second the recommendation to have your daughter explore OT, PT, or speech as a related field or at least for her to also get a general ed or content certificate as well.  In these fields, you have the opportunities to help children  without as many downsides.   All in all, most of the really amazing special ed teachers I have known leave special ed and either go to an unrelated field or  into general education fairly quickly.  I have been considering leaving the field for the past 2 years.  It is only due to a great principal at my school that I have held off.  [/quote]

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