Hello All!

Hello everyone,  my name is Elizabeth Oakley.  I'm a junior at the University of Tennessee majoring in Special Education Modified and Comprehensive.  I am from Memphis, Tennessee and I graduated from Collierville High School in 2010. I want to teach because I love working with children, especially disabled children.  I hope that I can make an impact in their lives and spark a love for learning.  My older brother has Down syndrome, and seeing the struggles that he went through in the public school systems makes me want to be able to make a change for the positive. I strive to be able to learn how to involve parents more in the process of their child's learning and providing a strong connection with the home in order for the child to grow. I will be interning in the fall of 2014.  After that, I hope to return to Memphis and get my dream job.  I really enjoy crafting, and that is something that I hope to incorporate into my classroom.  My head is already spinning with ideas to make my classroom a fun and positive learning environment.  I am actually thinking about starting some small crafts for my room now just to keep me motivated through my last two years of school and my internship.  I also love spending a lot of time outside whether it involves swimming, hiking, spending time in the mountains, or whatever else brings me closer to nature.  I love spending time with children.  No matter what is going wrong in my life, the joy of a child can perk me right up. So that's a little bit about me before I begin blogging, and I hope you enjoy!

My dream classroom! (with my own crafts of course)