November 7, 2020

Meet Maria Parks & What this is ALL About.

Meet Maria Parks & What this is ALL About.

Who is this lady?

Hello! I am a special education teacher in Wisconsin. I have been blogging my journey in education on and off since I graduated from college (go UW-Whitewater!) in 2018. I wanted to take another, more serious stab, at it as the passion for what I am doing now, grows by the day.

If you told me 3 years ago that I was going to be teaching: literacy, math, life skills, and the occasional self contained elective, social studies, and science classes– I probably would have laughed out of pure incredulousness. But, alas, here we are.

How do myself and many other teachers do it?

We get really good at learning from other teachers in our building and online. We become masterful at finding free resources online, Teacher Pay Teachers becomes a go to resource, and we do not stop until we find what will help our students learn what they need to know.

So, I figure I can do a small part and share to the teaching community a bit about what I am doing in my classroom. Maybe someone out there will be able to use what I have created; which is mostly videos at this point (I am a self proclaimed You-Tuber since the pandemic and virtual learning hit).

I KNOW it feels like most days we do NOT have enough time to get everything done in a day– so if someone else can benefit from what I have done, then why not share.

What my videos are... and are not...

By no means are my videos perfect. Do I mess up? Do I say "ummm" and "ope" sometimes? Do I have the most ridiculous facial expressions MOST times?

YES.

YES.

and YES.

Just like everyone else in the world I am working on my craft and getting better by the day. Take them or leave them for what they are.

Where my passion lies

Right now, my passion lies in life skills and pre-vocational skills. I think these are two of the MOST important skills for the students I work with. I am having a plethora of fun learning about these areas. You will see for now, my content is going to focus on these areas. It is something that makes me happy, and who doesn't need a bright spot in these WEIRD pandemic times we are in.

Let's review...

  1. My name is Maria.
  2. I am a special education teacher who is passionate about student success, life skills, and pre- vocational skills.
  3. I want to share what I am doing in hopes that others find it useful and can use it with their students without having to re-create the wheel.
  4. I want to help- help all people succeed.

Thats it in a nutshell. Come along and learn with me– I am by no means an expert, but I am looking forward to sharing what I know and continue learning with the teaching community.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram , like my page on Facebook,  and subscribe to my channel on YouTube to keep up to date on new posts and videos!