Educator Appreciation spans the month of May, and we are highlighting five educators within our school districts to show the community an inside look into their jobs as teachers.
Sarabeth Metzger, an early childhood special education teacher at Cold Springs Middle School, teaches an integrated pre-K class that's inclusive to special needs children.
She told us when she thinks about Educator Appreciation Month, she thinks first not about her own job, but about her own children's teachers and making them feel appreciated.
She explains some of the things she does: "Shower them with gifts and just say thank you to them for everything that they do for my children. I have a child with special needs, so I've always liked to make sure that his teacher feels appreciated for everything that she does for him."
And her own students' parents make her feel just as special.
"This morning I did receive a beautiful gift from one of my students, and that does make me feel incredibly special," she said.
Even though Metzger cares about the appreciation she receives, she says she loves her job so much that just teaching the children in her classrooms is enough for her.
"I love seeing the kiddos' faces coming to school every day, so happy to be at school. They're at the age where they love to be at school, so that's a blessing for me. I love those lightbulb moments when I'm teaching them something and they get super excited, and they understand what I'm trying to teach them."
Metzger says, for her, the best part of each year is sitting down with the parents of her students and showing them how much their child has learned and developed from the beginning of the year to the end.
"Their brains are like sponges, and they absorb and remember so much."
Even though the students in Metzger's class are young, they do thank her in other ways.
"A little boy in my class this year, about every other day, comes to school with a card for me or some pictures that he's drawn for me, and I have a nice stack of pictures that he's made for me," she said.
She says the hardest part of her job is the paperwork.
Since she is a special education teacher as well, there are a lot of Individualized Education Plans (IEP) she has to collect data for. This year her classroom has 12 special needs students.
"It's ok though because while I'm writing those IEPs, I get to see the progress the kiddos have made, and that makes me happy," she said.
With an inclusive classroom, there are many needs each student has that have to be met with all different types of learning styles.
Metzger tells us "For example, I have students that can sound out words, so they're at that level where they can draw out and sound out words. And then I may have a student over here that's just trying to draw a picture."
But the goal in her classroom is to help every student feel confident and accepted.
"I think that someone would come in and they wouldn't be able to tell which students have an IEP and which students don't," she said. "So that, to me, is my goal, and we're a school family: creating that school family atmosphere is super important to me from the very first day of school."
