Example Essay – Final Draft
Paraprofessionals at Their Best and at Their Worst
We are not always able to choose the people who help us. There are times that we absolutely enjoy being around certain people. On the other hand, there are people who we despise; we rather put a gun up to our heads, and pull the trigger than spend one second with that person. As a disabled student in high school, I have had some of the best paraprofessionals and some of the worst. Paraprofessionals are like aids to special needs students during the school day. I bonded with three of these four people, and I made sweet relationships with them too. The three women who I bonded with pushed me to do my best, even if it meant pushing me off the cliff just to see if I knew how to help myself.
From ninth grade up until the end of my second semester of tenth grade, I had a strict paraprofessional named Ms. Dee. She wanted the best for me; but back then, I could not see it. She made me responsible for everything –communicating with teachers, turning in my work, advocating for myself in public, and more. She was a person who I could talk about anything with, but would also tell me to “get it together” whenever I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry all day about something simple.
From the beginning of my junior year until about two months into my senior year, I had a paraprofessional who literally made me dread the fact of going to school every day. She was big in her faith – not that I have a problem with that. However, there were days when I would come home crying because of the stress that woman would give me at school. She was not a verbal person at all. Most days, I would be the only person who would talk throughout the day. Some days, she would not talk at all. She would just write what she wanted to say to me. She claimed that God was talking to her. I was deep into my faith also, but God had never took out an entire day to talk to me. I mean, if you are going to be a paraprofessional, you at least have to talk. There were many times when she would laugh at the way I talked. She would look for me in classes where I was not supposed to be in at the time, knowing exactly where I was, making teachers think that I was skipping the class I was actually supposed to be in during that time. She also complained about her job in front of me. I felt as if I was a burden to everyone around me. By the beginning of the next school year, all of this would come to a stop, thanks to another person.
During the rest of my senior year, besides Ms. Dee, I had two of the best paraprofessionals ever, Ms. Renee and Ms. Peggy. Ms. Renee was awesome. She was there during the two months that the rude paraprofessional was with me. Ms. Renee saw the commotion, and she did not like it. She made sure that I had a new paraprofessional that treated me with respect. By looking at her, you could more than likely predict that if you were at a store and asked her about her job, Ms. Renee would probably say, “I love my students and would do anything