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Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
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and technical assistance to the teacher. It is my role to provide the needed support to
classroom teachers and other professionals; therefore, if I do my job well it is the
child with deafblindness who ultimately benefits. That is what my profession is
about - the children! Many of my favorite pearls are the amazing people I have met:
family members, fellow graduate students, and colleagues; many of them have
become treasured friends. Yet in my handful of figurative pearls, the students, and
my experiences interacting with them, are my most lustrous pearls.
Looking back, not much in my personal experience with deafblindness has
come easy; but when I consider the entire field of deafblindness, growth has not been
easy! I don't think it is easy for an oyster to create a pearl of worth. It requires time,
effort, persistence, and patience. Likewise, effort, persistence, and patience are also
necessary in order create the systems changes needed to positively impact children
who are deaf-blind on national, state, local, and individual levels. Sometimes the
biggest change is the change that happens within each of us. I am very grateful for the
opportunities, friendships, and most of all the children with deafblindness who have
so greatly blessed and changed my life. It is my sincere desire that others will grab
ahold of opportunities to be an intervener or a teacher of the deaf-blind and that many
others will create their own collection of precious "pearls".
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