I started my teaching career in September 2022 in District 75 when I was a new mother. Balancing the demands of a 12:1:4 classroom — 12 students, one teacher and four paraprofessionals — with caring for my toddler was challenging. There were moments when I questioned if I could give enough to both my students and my daughter.

I felt guilty that I was not able to understand or communicate with my pre-verbal students. I tried to initiate casual conversations with students by asking basic when-where-who questions related to a story, but they were not able to respond. I was pouring my heart and soul into lessons, only to be met with silence.

The weight of these challenges pressed down on me, and depression crept in. There were days that year when I was almost ready to quit.

I was lucky to have a support network to help me through. I reached out to family members, who reminded me that hard work eventually bears fruit. I also turned to my mentor, a retired teacher with 25 years of experience with pre-verbal kids. Since my students’ goals were foundational — such as turning the pages of a book or focusing for 10 seconds — she suggested I take a backward planning approach that focused on their annual goals. She also advised me to focus on making my lessons enjoyable and fun, explaining that learning would naturally follow.

I also sought advice from the professors in the master’s program I was enrolled in. One professor advised me to try a multisensory approach as one does with very small children and to incorporate activities already familiar to the students, like listening to music or eating.

Every day, with my mentor’s and my professors’ help and encouragement, I kept trying. I experimented with integrating the five senses and prominent visuals. I introduced “gamification” to make lessons more fun. My mentor helped me with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices, which I used to pre-record phrases like “great job’ and “keep it up’ for peer-to-peer support.

The breakthrough came in February 2023. To teach fractions, I conducted a bowling lesson in my classroom, complete with real bowling pins, a ball and an adapted ramp. The children began knocking down pins and putting their scores into fractions using the AAC devices. One of my pre-verbal students, Timmy, burst into laughter when my paraprofessionals and I said, “Wow! You knocked down all the pins!”

Suddenly, the classroom was filled with joy and giggles. The other students were enthusiastically knocking down their pins and entering the fractions on the AAC devices. The wall of silence began to crack, and the atmosphere shifted.

That spring I began to hear from my students’ parents that their children loved going to school. They seemed happier in class and expressed their joy with hugs.

I continue to draw inspiration from my students’ resilience and willingness to learn. And after witnessing my students’ growth over the course of last school year, I feel more confident this year.

A sense of purpose has replaced the weight that once burdened me. I know I am making a difference.

Motivational Nurturer is a pseudonym for a second-year special education teacher at a District 75 middle school in Queens.