PRE-PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT 1

Pre-Personal Philosophy Statement

Ryan Lasala

College of Southern Nevada

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My knowledge in special education from my past experience working as a Behavioral

Interventionist for the Lovaas Center back in 2017 after I had just graduated from Silverado High

School. After working with the Lovaas Center I was quite interested in special education as a

part-time job. Unfortunate, I was not able to continue this career due to my conflict in juggling

two other part-time jobs and college for the first time. Ever since then, I’ve felt determined to

rejoin with the Lovaas Center to get certified as an RBT (Registered Behavior Technician). In

my own interest today, I am taking this class for having the passion to teach at an elementary

level of education due to being exposed for to that age group of 8-11 from my previous part time

educational jobs. Yet, on the second hand I believe that it’s a great tool to be diverse in different

aspects of teaching which includes higher grade level’s or even in special education. My

expectations of this course is to be knowledgeable about the world of special education. I want to

understand this history behind this branch of education, methods, and ideas to further my

knowledge in education within my own classroom setting or even as an RBT if I decide to return

to special education/therapy.

I believe everyone should be in the mindset of being a student for a lifetime. Despite age,

gender, level of knowledge, disability, or doctrine one may have, no human has complete

mastery in a definitive subject. There is always more to learn even after our educational journey

for ourselves and the world disabled or not. What inspires me about special education is seeing

each child grow exponentially as the school year goes by. Just like any other child in the school

district, it’s personally an amazing sight to see a student’s knowledge and mind prosper and have

that be knowledge be to good use to serving what we call everyday living. I believe going into

this course with a clear mind and not expecting to know information about this branch of

education to full immerge my brain into focusing for this course. I will not expect this course
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will be as straight forward with any other EDU classes due to the many variables that take into

play when it comes to education either.

My personal skill set that will aid me with taking this course is my time management will

be more affective when it comes to online courses and will always put my all into my work and

if questions need to answered I will contact my professor with any addition information,

concerns, ideas, and advice within an education career. My current understanding so far when it

comes to special education is that throughout normal school hours, there will be a certain time

that a child in a special education program will be taken out of their classroom to learn what the

IEP is required to cover. Besides that, there isn’t anything else within the special education field

that I’m currently inform of. The history of understanding special education after reading a few

chapters makes me realize there are a plethora of obstacles when it comes to this subject. I never

truly realized what planning, terminology, associations, laws, and procedures to go within a child

with a disability had had to go through each school year and respect this profession for having

the mentality to put more effort into someone succeeding.

Strategies to implement within my education career involves being well knowledgeable

in any type of student. Since I have already taken Culture Diversity, I must go with the same

instinct I’ve had with this course and what I have said previously, to learn with an open mind and

forget about what knowledge I have already. Yes, it is great to have prior knowledge in one

subject to create connection to what you know and what you are currently learning, but there is

also more than meets the eye when it comes to learning about education. There’s origins to what

we see today’s education, theories, research, and student backgrounds which build upon one

another to have an understanding of your own classroom. Some method when it comes to special
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education that I’ve learned is to have small groups, creating classroom centers, blending basics

with a more specialized instruction, and having a thematic instruction.

Within this course, I conclude that in order for myself to fully comprehend special

education would have to be involved in volunteer experiences and in person discussion such as

case studies or a professor’s experience in special education. My reasoning behind those two

factors being a main factor to understanding a course about special education is simply from

prospective. If this course were to be a lecture compared to an online course I believe that there

would be more interactions with students and even professors when they discuss their

experiences with observation hours. This also can relate to case studies on how one student may

handle a hypothetical situation or how other student may react or even rebuttal which I personal

think gives so much more understanding compared to reading a book. Prospective within a

physical classroom lecture setting let’s students pick apart a professors’ own philosophy in

education to understand that this person does have years of experience to back up their

profession and learn understand their input and reasoning behind a story they tell or view on a

subject that is covered in a textbook.

My philosophy towards special education would to be to have a separate set class time

for children with disabilities. Understanding from previous debates from other educational

courses I’ve taken, these student’s should have their own set time for what their IEP requires

them to learn instead of taking them out of the current subject they are currently learning. Maybe

have their special education learning be similar to an extra-curricular class like P.E, Art, Library,

or Music, an elective type class but for special education. To my concern, once you pull that

student with special needs out of their normal instructional class, they will start to fall behind for

the x amount of time going to their special education time. Not only this interrupts the
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class/instructor but creates a difficult time for the special education student to play catch up with

his/her peers. Overall, throughout this course of special education, I would like to learn more

about how to work around with children with hearing, visual, and speech/language impairments,

individuals that are gifted and talented, and emotional and behavioral disorders.