{"id":24,"date":"2009-06-25T02:36:32","date_gmt":"2009-06-25T02:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/?p=24"},"modified":"2009-06-25T19:21:43","modified_gmt":"2009-06-25T19:21:43","slug":"finding-your-niche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/2009\/06\/25\/finding-your-niche\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding your niche"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have found my niche.\u00a0 For the past three weeks I have been volunteering (and when I say volunteering I mean paying to take a class and work for free as a result) at a program here in Bowling Green geared towards working with individuals with autism (ASD).\u00a0 The program is called the Kelly Autism Program<\/a>, or KAP as the participants fondly call it.\u00a0 This is a place that people all over the nation and world are looking at as a model for helping those with ASD.\u00a0 At KAP students Kindergarten through college are encouraged to be themselves and learn coping skills to manage and deal with their disability. Although I have had to leave my sweet baby every morning for the last three weeks (and three more in July) I feel the experience has been very worthwhile.<\/p>\n

For those of you who don’t know, I am currently finishing up a second masters in Exceptional Education (Moderate and severe disabilities) with an Autism certificate.\u00a0 I have loved this masters and learned so much from it.\u00a0 The past two years I have had the priveledge of working with an individual with classic autism.\u00a0 I have learned so much from this student and even found a passion in working with individuals with autism (thus my second masters).\u00a0 I have found my niche!\u00a0 I have always known that I wanted to teach, and have loved every minute (well almost every minute) since I started almost five years ago.\u00a0 However, it wasn’t until this summer, actually this past week, that I feel like I have truly found my niche.\u00a0 I love, love working with students with special needs, specifically autism and feel like I have the skill base to do so effectively.\u00a0 They have so much to teach me and have such a passion for life.\u00a0 They live life to the fullest and don’t care what others think!\u00a0 It is amazing.<\/p>\n

Unlike most of my friends, I have always been confident in my job.\u00a0 Several years ago we were in a small group of “young married” couples, all of who seemed to reach a transition point in their lives at the same moment.\u00a0 People were shuffling jobs, moving to new places or just beginning their careers.\u00a0 Throughout this entire time I seemed to be the only one who enjoyed their job and knew they were “in the right place”.\u00a0 I still love my job and have confidence in it, but now I can see a different future with my job.\u00a0 Maybe not tomorrow or ten years from now, but one day I will work daily with individuals with special needs and I will love it as much as I love teaching kindergarten.\u00a0 I have found my niche and couldn’t be happier!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have found my niche.\u00a0 For the past three weeks I have been volunteering (and when I say volunteering I mean paying to take a class and work for free as a result) at a program here in Bowling Green geared towards working with individuals with autism (ASD).\u00a0 The program is called the Kelly Autism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10,15,16,7,17],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-work","tag-autism","tag-kap","tag-masters","tag-mikayla","tag-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}