Informal Intro to TPTE 486

I was born in North Carolina and have lived in four states total so far. Knoxville, TN has been a long standing residence for most of the time. I am a single parent of two girls, 16 and 11. They are my pride and joy, they also create lots of premature grey.

I have a bachelor's of science in Early Child Development from UTK, and have worked with children between birth and 21 years of age all of my professional career. I am currently a post-bac in Special Education Pre-K through twelfth grade with a secondary degree in general education K-6. My professional experiences include; ten years of Pre-K teaching and early intervention services, eight years of Community Mental Health working with children from Pre-K through twelfth who were diagnosis with some form of emotional disorder providing planned and crisis respite intervention and education to families.

I have always had a predisposition for working with children who have been diagnosed with some type of learning disability helping them to meet their fullest potential by providing or locating all possible community resources available for assisting a student become the most self productive member of society they are capable of becoming.

When there is down time I am cheering on my girls in either volleyball or basketball. Between them and my two surrogate sons I claim as mine most of the time I am at football, volleyball, or basketball games/practices/camps or the car traveling to one of the above most of the time. Occasionally we run away to the mountains for a hike, but my family thinks that they are part polar bear & would rather live in Alaska than Flordia so we often do outdoors in cooler climates than summer. Everyone but the 16 year old girl would quickly consider taking a teaching position in Anchorage vs. Knoxville or Charlotte. And there are NO SNAKES there, which makes ME very happy.