Career as a Special Educator

Students who have learning difficulties or speech disorder or some impairment- physical or mental, do you ever feel like teaching them, taking up their studies or making them learn a new skill set? Does it really fascinate you?? Ms. Swati Salunkhe talks on Special Educator as a Career.

Education is for all, people with special needs also need to be educated. Special education is a domain dealing with specially designed methods for instruction, training and support for children with special needs. Such disabilities may include learning disability, physical disabilities, developmental disorders and behavioural problems. The basic aim of special education is to empower such children with special needs to successfully cope up with their disabilities and develop their skills to the fullest potential. Special educators train and educate them to integrate them to the main stream be it schools or be it the life itself.

If you are passionate about teaching who really require special attention, you just cannot go and teach them, you need to be qualified for it. Routes are many and you can have a choice of your own. It could be in a form of Diploma, Bachelor’s, Master’s or even a Ph.D. A diploma can be taken after class 12th, after completing your graduation in any stream you could be taking B.Ed. in special education followed by M.Ed. and if you feel like further on Ph.D. There are certain universities which may have an entrance exam; remember it is not easy getting into it. So, you need to be really competitive and equally sensitive about the topic and the field that you are getting into.

When we talk about the special education it’s not only about the qualification. To teach the special children, special educators also need certain special qualities. Professionals need to possess empathetic approach, an important aspect is to be very positive in approach, enthusiastic, energetic and yes exceptionally creative with maturity and patience. Do note that special education is not only meant for the few or the chosen ones, Special educators have a lot of work in today’s society.

With the growing number of disabilities and disorders & early diagnostic system, we need professionals who could address the situations and where will the work place be? It could be in hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centres, NGOs, various educational departments as well as research organizations, it could be in government departments too. So, you see special educator is not somebody who is just confined to a classroom, it can be more than that. In addition, there are people whowould be freelancing and also taking training programs to create another batch of good special educators or may be facilitating parents who might be requiring their support and guidance.

Remember not everybody can help a child with exceptional and special needs. Dedicated special educators can really provide with a platform to children with special needs and address their learning issues and help them succeed in life. To teach is to touch a life forever.