One Minute with an Educator: Ms. Wishard

Name: Ashley Wishard

Years in education: Teaching in Special Education 3 years, I’ve worked as an aide, Substitute taught for 4 years, taught pre-school.

Subject/Grade assignment this school year: 5th grade Special Education

What was your favorite subject in school? History

What is your favorite weekend activity? Relaxing, but something less lame would be doing crafts with my kids or working on my house.

What is your favorite book? I know it’s bad for a teacher to say this but I don’t have a favorite book.

What are you most looking forward to in your curriculum this month? This month in Reading & Science, we focused on weather. Especially tornadoes how they can appear and disappear. How we don’t know that much about them even today. I find them fascinating.

What are your students learning this week? They are learning about weather in Reading and Science. In History we are learning about what happened after the American Revolution.

What is your greatest motivator as a teacher? In special education you get asked how you handle being a special education teacher. Or you get told oh man you are a saint for doing that. Honestly I’m not. The students I work with everyday go through more socially, emotionally, basic functioning, and life skills than I ever will in a day. So really they are my motivator, yes there are always those days were you can get discouraged. But my students are my biggest motivator by far. It really isn’t the millions of dollars that they promise you will make in college!