I am Applying to Grad School!

Personal Statement
St Marys Graduate School of Arts Application
Masters of Arts in Special Education
By Brittany Bettger

Hello! My name is Brittany Bettger. After graduating from Bethel University in 2006, I taught two years in St. Paul Public Schools. I also have one and a half years’ experience substitute teaching in a variety of Twin Cities’ school districts.

During the 2008-09 school year I taught kindergarten at Riverview West Side School of Excellence in St. Paul. The majority of the students in my classroom came from non-English speaking homes, six had Academic Intervention Plans, and several were on IEPs. With this diverse population of students, I taught with the school-wide Success for All (SFA) program, creating a variety of learning centers that met district requirements. With the assistance of my teacher mentors, I established and monitored my own style of classroom management that included daily progress reports and a variety of whole class reward systems.

My interest in a special education program comes from many sources. As a new teacher in the St. Paul school district, I was a classroom teacher with many needy students. My preferred teaching context as a Special Education educator is a personalized, small group setting. I also appreciate opportunities to continue relationships with individual students over the course of several years. Teaching special education students would allow me more opportunities to teach in these preferred ways.

Secondly, during my years as a classroom and substitute teacher, I had the pleasure of working alongside special education teachers and paraprofessionals. At Riverview, because of the needs of my students, I was in constant communication with the school social worker, special education teacher, and speech teacher. I also met occasionally with the district psychologist and the occupational therapist. Observing and learning from the amazing work of these professionals have inspired me to become a special education teacher.

Another reason I desire to earn a degree in Special Education is that I have a deep passion and interest in people who struggle with developmental and cognitive disabilities. Presently, I work for two different companies, ACR Homes, Inc. and Lifeworks where I have the pleasure of assisting adults with disabilities in their home environment. As a personal care attendant, I assist the residents with daily cares, nutrition, medications, leisure activities, and goal setting. I have learned so much from these individuals and I look forward to expanding my experience to include children with disabilities.

My biggest strengths as a human being and a teacher are empathy, compassion and sensitivity. I have a keen ability to experience another’s emotions alongside him or her. Because of my sensitive nature, I am able to see an individual’s need and take action to meet this need. Additional attributes to describe me are dedicated and conscientious. I work to the fullest of my ability to accomplish tasks laid before me. Finally, I am a reflective, self-aware person. In my daily life, I am very conscious of my decisions and how they affect others. I am constantly monitoring my actions, looking for ways that I can learn from my mistakes and become a better person.

One area where I would like to develop greater strengths and abilities is in my self-confidence. I often have creative ideas, but would like to develop greater strength in sharing these ideas with others. Another skill I would like to develop is the ability to balance my hard-working, analytical nature with a more at-ease, intentional temperament. While it is important to accomplish tasks, I do not want my to-do list to infringe on my chance at a stronger relationship with someone, which is of utmost value in life.

A personal element I would like to share involves my tenure at ACR Homes, Inc. When I began working for ACR in 2004, I didn’t realize how radically I would change. The residents with whom I worked at the group home taught me so much about the beautiful and simple things in life. I learned to let go of the things that worried me and focus on them and what made them joyful. My character was greatly strengthened over the course of my time at the home. I became a more giving and loving person and more grateful for all the things in life I take for granted. My experience at ACR Homes has helped me realize what my life’s work is: to share my compassion and creativity with others while also gaining wisdom from them. A career in Special Education is a step I would like to take toward reaching this dream.

Is Escaping Wrong?

It's been forever since I have written. Frankly, a blank page scares me because that's when I have to really think deeply. And I am terrified of what I know is there when I look inside myself. Since I am tired I am going to borrow a bit from a journal recently I wrote about what is going on with me.

I am making myself write because I don't want to. At least I think I don't. I don't look forward to confronting the stuff that is happening inside this brain. Lately I've been getting by with my addictions, namely my novel reading. I love getting lost in the characters' problems. I love forgetting myself by going to another world. I know this isn't wrong to a degree. I've been reading Jodi Piccoult, whose books deal with intense, moral and controversial issues. Hard to put down! She covers themes like self-esteem, popularity, dysfunctional families (whose isn't?), grief, loss, revenge, redemption, betrayal and faith/spirituality. I've learned a lot from her books and I look forward to reading them each day.

But I often feel ashamed or guilty because the themes are so heavy and I tend to become rather anti-social when I read a really good novel (or am otherwise immersed in something deep and passionate, like card-making or writing for example). I don't like coming back to real life because I always know what's going to happen. Lately, I feel guilty because I am not practicing my mindfulness or "with it" skills. That and I am beating myself up for not reading the Bible or having a "quiet time." (What does that mean anyway????) Reading these books has kept me "safe." By that I mean, less bad thoughts, because I am frankly thinking less about my own problems. But it also means, I feel very out of sync. Like I am not even really alive. And that I've been treating others in my life poorly.

I tried to take a break in between the last novel I finished and the current one. So for two days I forced myself to read my Creativity/spirituality book and write in my journal. And it just made me mad and anxious.

The reason I am escaping has to do with, as I said, my thoughts. They are not fun.

As a rule, I try to moderate everything that I do. I am always concerned that I am doing everything right (not too much of this, not too little of that.) I know, I hate that about me but I am not about to start judging my judging, so I will accept that my perfectionism makes me ugly at times but try to accept it.

But I will also thank God for his good and wonderful gifts of creative people who write engaging stories...and many other things. And trust that He loves me no less if I happen to be annoyed with Christian judgements going on in my head, so much to the point that I am resentful of He Himself and the Bible itself. (More on this in another entry).

Well, I am going to go to bed now.

What is on my Mind

Well, I had an interesting day today. A friend of mine, Bethany, ended up subbing at the same middle school with me and we actually team taught (I was the regular math sub and she was the ELL sub) just for one period. It was fun to see her and have someone to eat lunch with! Bethany and I go way back, but anyway, that's for a different day. IT was very bizarre for me to be "working" with her...She said the same thing.

Unfortunately, my day kind of went downhill after that. It is a very hard school, with students that are ethnically diverse and have lots of behavior problems. That probably would not be an issue if the periods weren't 85 minutes AND I did NOT recieve a prep (break) period NOR did I get paid for it. But I stuck it out and now I am fried. The last period was so intense. Kids talking, shrieking, laughing, yelling, coming in and leaving, throwing things, breaking things, all the while, I am trying to keep them on task. Luckily, there were kids from the high school that were helping. But I still felt like everything was going crazy. I spent the entire day taking huge deep breaths, but, of course, I messed up a lot. At the end of the day, a very large boy really scared me and ended up acting really inappropriately with a female student, so I got him out of the room. For the last fifteen minutes of the day, students were supposed to be cleaning up the trashed room. There was a broken sharpener smashed, little blue pieces all over the floor. Ripped papers. One student dumped a pile of ripped up papers over the head of another girl. Another girl dumped a bunch of little pieces of papers from her desk onto the floor. No idea why. It was-to say the least-chaotic. I found myself going into my usual out-of-body state. Like I was watching something out of a movie. I can't control it, but it is definitely real. The best part was getting my name changed from Ms. Bettger to Ms. Butt. Like they literally erased my name on the board and wrote that. Haha. I am just glad no one got seriously hurt and that my day is over. I made sure to leave a nice long note for the teacher, as I usually do.

Even though it was hard, I am now home and can laugh about it and know that I don't have to go back if I don't want to. (But I probably will.)And I was able to sit and relax on the deck on a beautiful afternoon with my roommates! And, believe it or not, the hardest days I have subbing, usually CANNOT compare with how EVERY SINGLE day was for me as a teacher of inner-city Kindergarten last year, that being, COMPLETE HELL. Yes, it's hard to believe I made it through nine months alive! THat's why I try to take these days as a treasure, these days I can come home, with no lesson planning, grading, classwork, parents to deal with, awww, yes. I can just relax, at least try to! Although I still feel like a failure a lot of the time as a sub and want to do a perfect job, I usually forget about it, whereas last year, I had a very unsupportive principal to deal with who was always breathing down my neck. (No wonder I didn't last at that school).

Another thing on my mind is, as always, marriage and babies. Yes, I found out when she showed up today, that my friend Bethany is having a baby. She and her husband got married last July. I am happy for them. I just still cannot believe it...(you would have to know the history behind me and Bethany but that is a book to one day be written !) A few years ago, I never would have guessed where she and I are today.

Besides just the wierdness of being with Bethany in a school classroom, I have to say I had a very familiar feeling of ... envy (that she is pregnant) ... creep over me subconsciously and tried to push it away. Again and again.

In fact, I laid in bed last night and thought (again) of all the young women in my life who have found their "perfect someone" and are now trying to or are having children. I tried so hard to pray for forgiveness for perhaps having negative thoughts toward them, but I could not help but feel the intense but very familiar pain. OF not measuring up. Even though, in my MIND, my worth has nothing to do with my status as a single, it will take maybe til my dying day to understand this in my heart. Especially when you work in a profession in which everyone is a woman, and all they talk about is marriage and baby raising...

Bleh. Deep breath. I need to find some single women who share my pain! Luckily the tears aren't burying me alive like they were last night.

On Being Single

I am going to write about something quite personal. Not that anyone reads this, but I hope it encourages maybe at least one person. I have recently decided to stop dating. At least at this time in my life. So here it is: I am single, and increasingly, I am proud of it.

This is how I ended my personal journal/prayer today: "I never dreamed I'd be here. Sitting alone on my bed age 25 1/2, no husband or kids, no full time job, college loans not paid off, living in a dark, warm, rattly basement room with two single 30-something women. And I'd never dreamed that I'd be, what was that, content?"

That is, almost content.

I am so sick of mommy blogs. Okay, so when I find myself not working like today (again), I read blogs, a lot of them written by married women with young children. I have some favorites that you can find on my blog roll. I like them because they are entertaining, yes, the kids are adorable, and I like getting ideas for cooking, crafts, etc. Some I read so often, I feel like I almost know the people. But when I look at these blogs, bad thoughts play in my head at times. Bad thoughts I have come to find quite common.

That is me, that is supposed to be me.

Who ever said I was supposed to be them anyway? Well, this is a very touchy subject. But the pain, thanks be to God, has ever decreased over time and I can talk about it now.

It goes back to what a lot of you women remember growing up. Well, for as long as I can remember, I wanted to have babies. I've come to realize it's because my mom was the oldest of five kids, my dad in the middle of four, and so there were always women having babies in our family. I just loved them. I remember for a long time, there was a new baby every year in our family (on either or both sides). I was a typical little girl, with lots of dolls. As I grew up it turned into, my goal in life was not only to have babies, but to find that "perfect someone" to have babies with. Okay, so it wasn't my number one goal, but it was ALWAYS in the back of my mind in my early teens, then into high school and college. Especially as I came to realize when many of the women (grandma, mom, aunts) met and married their spouses. Quite young. Met in their teens and married by age 20 or 21.

As a child, I idealized women and, regrettably, I still do. (That's why this blogging business can be dangerous.) My mom, aunts, cousins, grandma, teachers, babysitters, and all the women in my favorite movies and shows, especially Dr. Quinn, Laura Ingalls, and Anne of Green Gables.

With all these women, there was usually one similarity. They had a man. And if they didn't (by a certain age), something was wrong with them. You see, one of my biggest fears is that people might see me the way I saw single, unmarried women. AS a child, I remember feeling pleasure that a teacher was "Mrs." but if she was "Miss" or "Ms." something must be wrong. If the teacher was "Ms." that meant she was divorced and if she was "Miss" and not reasonably young I would think, "Why is she not married? Is she not pretty enough?" blah blah blah.

Somehow in my thoughts and observations as a young girl, I came to believe this is what it means to be beautiful and worthy: to have a wonderful man at your side and to have his babies. While I still struggle now to dismiss this as a lie, I am so proud of how far I have come!

I still wonder when I see beautiful women how or why they are single. But then I am reminded, Oh yeah. I'm a beautiful woman and single. (In fact, I've been asked this so many times in my life.) So in a way, it's kind of nice to have support and be supported by people like me.

That brings me to a point of frustration: I wish there were more blogs out there that are written by people like me: mid 20s, single, and not that content about it! It seems almost every blog is young, married and trying to get pregnant; young, married with kids; or older 30s, married with kids. There are a few that are young and newly engaged or married, and even fewer that are college age. Even less I have found are older than 40. Okay there are a few that are single and 20s, but they seem more the partyer hard core type, not the traditional-at-heart like I am. While I enjoy reading all different types of blogs, it would be nice to find a few like mine! (But at least I have my friend Becca's blog. She and I are kind of in the same boat, I think!)

Thanks for listening to my scoop on singlehood. If you're there, hang on, I understand!

Random Post

I have been sick for over a week now. So today I decided to take another day off work. (Was in bed all day yesterday.) I didn't have the energy to try and sub today. I worked last weekend, a long day on Monday, and will be working this weekend too. So I am sitting here trying not to feel guilty for trying to heal myself. I have a bad virus, but a weird one. I remember going to work last year when I felt a TON worse than this. That's why the guilt is eating away at me. I keep telling myself, now is different. I had two really hard years of teaching, so I try to see my life as a gift right now. Since I have the chance as a sub to simply not answer the phone, which might actually help me in the long run, why not?

I have been working really hard to take care of myself. Got some nice organic herbal tea, been drinking lots of water, and Emergen-C, and trying to rest. But I still hear myself worrying. About money mostly. What's the point of worrying about money when I don't even know why I am trying to make money? I don't want to simply live my life to pay off my loans. That's what I feel like my point of life is sometimes, though. Since I have no desire to teach (right now) nor anything else.

My passion for a career has suddenly died, but somehow my depression has lessened if that makes any sense. Well, thinking about not knowing what my future holds makes me freak out a bit. Overwhelmed is a good word to describe it. But not totally down to the point of incapacity like I was a little over a month ago (I only shared this with a few close people in my life...maybe hinted a little bit one here).

And another weird thing, my depression usually gets really severe when I am physically ill, like now. But I have stayed overall pretty positive. I think it has to do with the sun being out, longer days, and taking care of myself by eating well and exercising.

Life has been kind of blah, though. Every so often I get excited. Usually it's when I am at the store and buying all kinds of yummy, healthy things, and then at home when I put together a creative colorful meal, that I know will help me feel better. But that's about it.

So I am not really up, not really down. I am okay with that for now. What can I say? I am going to try to embrace who I am right now; not try to force anything. Certainly, feeling guilty is not going to help. So plans for today are drink a lot, eat well, and rest much. Maybe do some mindfulness activities through journaling. Just being is enough for today.

What if I am Never Healed?

I recently finished this book. There are some profound things in here. I have always admired Lincoln because I believe we are very similar. He also has given me hope. If I, someone with depression, could achieve something an iota of what he achieved while suffering, I would consider my life great. Probably the most profound thing was found on page 156. The author, Joshua Wolf Shenk, states, (bolded, mine):

Many popular philosophies propose that suffering can be beaten simply, quickly, and clearly. Popular biography often expresses the same view. Many writers, faced with unhappiness of a heroic figure, make sure to find some crucible in which that bad feeling melted into something new. Lincoln's melancholy doesn't lend itself to such a narrative. No point exists after which the melancholy dissolved...Whatever greatness Lincoln achieved cannot be explained as a triumph over personal suffering. Rather it must be accounted for as an outgrowth of the same system that produced that suffering. This is not a story of transformation but one of integration. Lincoln didn't do great work because he solved the problem of his melancholy. The problems of his melancholy was all the more fuel for the fire of his great work.

This was not something I heard for the first time, but an idea that has been rolling over into my head these past few months (and maybe even years): Can I live a successful life with depression? Or do I continually feel I need to eradicate depression from my life before I can live?

Well the truth is that I already am. That is, I already am living with depression. I have no choice at this point. This was made even more real to me after listening to Greg Boyd's sermon (I listened to the pod cast since I missed the service.) It was entitled "Communion in the Wilderness." Based on Luke 22:7-20, the Communion Supper, Boyd talked about the space in between when we take communion and when we finally arrive in heaven. He called it the Wilderness, like the Israelites experienced before they arrived in the Promised Land. He had a member of the church, Scott, come up and talk about his experience with MD (muscular dystrophy). Scott talked about how his whole life people would "pray over him" for healing, but he was never healed. In fact, his MD just worsened. Now Scott has come to the point where he has accepted his MD and when people ask if they can pray for him, he kindly says, "Thanks, but I don't believe that is what God has for me at this point."

Wow! Like Scott, I have been told in so many words that my life would be so much more amazing if I was healed, in my case, from depression. NO kidding??!!!?? I have always struggled thinking I have lack of faith because I continue to suffer. Like Scott, I often felt people were saying it was MY fault that I wasn't healed.

On the other hand, am I just giving in to this depression because I am too weak to fight it?

Because of what GOd has been saying to me personally and through this book, this sermon and through the words of many people who, like me, haven't found supernatural healing, I have come to believe this: It is okay that I suffer from depression; and that I may have to take meds my whole life. Each time my depression gets better , I often think, this will be the last time. But now I am starting to think, each time I go through another depression, I will come out a stronger person. And without my depression, I wouldn't be the sensitive, bright, caring person that I am.

Not saying, I wouldn't take away my suffering or that of others' in a heartbeat. But what choice have I right now, except to live in and through what has been given to me? And who knows, maybe like Lincoln, I will accomplish something great, and my depression will be a part of that.

Valentines!