A Reason to Become a Teacher or SLP

Lately, in such a good way, I feel pulled in so many directions, keeping family first, new friends, p2g, and last but not least, the PhD.  With so much data coming at you, it can be hard to keep the ax sharp.  Yet, there are times when someone tells you something and it pulls things right back into focus.  When Kara, one of the first Proloquo2Go users messaged me tonight, it reminded me that I became a teacher because I care and because I like being part of a community.  This was Kara’s response to my message commenting on how cool it is that both her and her son use and benefit from Proloquo2Go, on the iPhone and iPod touch respectively.  Much thanks to Kara for letting me tell the story here.  To me, things like this are my motivation for being a teacher.

….yeah, it’s something he and I can do together.

I have a nice story. Today we took my car to the dealer for service. My aide, Aiden, and I were playing in the kids play room. A man came in with his adorable 4-year-old daughter, whom Aiden fell instantly in love with. He immediately sat very close to her and kissed her cheek! I could see the stars in his eyes! After she recovered from the initial shock, she looked at Aiden and said “What’s your name?” From across the tiny room, I typed into my iPhone, and  P2G spoke: “Say hi. My name is Aiden.” The kids were noisy, so I repeated the phrase. The little girl smiled, and her dad, who looked like a kid who just watched a really good magic trick, said “What just happened? What was that? Is that an iPhone? No, that’s not… an iPhone?” My aide then explained that, indeed, it was an iPhone, and I was using it to communicate. Well this guy was really impressed! We spoke for a while… him vocally, me digitally. It was really nice. I think that because he recognized my device, he was very interested and comfortable asking about it. When I asked him if he had an iPhone, he said “No, but after seeing that, I think I’m gonna get one!” He said his wife’s friend has ALS, and he wants to tell her about P2G, so I emailed the URL to him.

-Kara

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About the Author

Samuel Sennott

One Response to “A Reason to Become a Teacher or SLP”

  1. Wow, that is truly powerful. Thank you Sam, for sharing this story.
    Nancy Kring-Burns

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