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The History and Outlooks and a Job in Special Education

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Special Education
Teaching students with special needs is highly rewarding. “Every child deserves a champion- an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best they can possibly be.” (Pierson). Special education teachers work with and serve as a mentor to students who have a wide range of learning, mental, emotional and physical disabilities.
The history of special education dates back to Europe in the early 16th century. Special education first developed in Spain with classes offered for the deaf. At the end of the 18th century, Valentin Huay of France opened an institute for the blind. “Following Huay’s success, similar schools were established over the next twenty five years in Liverpool, Vienna, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Zurich, Stockholm and Boston.” (Britannica). In the United States, the first public school for children with learning handicaps opened in Boston in 1869. Modern special education of the mentally impaired developed in France in the early 19th century by physician Jean Marc Itard. Throughout the 20th century, special schools and termed institutions for the mentally impaired were accepted and encouraged.
Anne Sullivan Macy was a skilled teacher best known for her work with Helen Keller, a deaf, blind, and mute child. Nothing in Sullivan’s early years encouraged her lively open mind. She did not attend school; she was hot-tempered and nearly blind from trachoma that was left

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