“It just feels like my purpose,” Allison says, “I have a heart for this population of students and a desire to improve their educational experience.”
But once Allison found herself in the classroom, she was constantly disappointed by the lack of high-quality, age-appropriate curriculum available to her high school students. She felt that their education was limited by the materials she tried to piecemeal into a curriculum. Meant for younger learners, there was a disconnect with how they engaged students and addressed their needs. And that didn’t seem fair or equitable. A high school education should expand student horizons, certainly not limit them.
“The images were cartoonish and there was no alignment to my students’ grade level standards,” she says of the materials she was using. She believed her students deserved access to rich, age-appropriate learning experiences, like their neurotypical peers. She believed in something better.