My name is Kat Rodrigues, and I am a special educator with ten years of experience teaching in, what some might call, the greatest city in the world— New York City.

I grew up attending public schools in Massachusetts, where my love for learning developed. I would come home from school, immediately complete my homework, and then create additional homework for myself. I loved playing imaginary school games and pretending to be a teacher. Early on, school always came easy to me, but I quickly realized that this was not the case for everyone.

My older sister, Mery, was diagnosed with dyslexia in elementary school. I always admired her and followed her every move, so seeing her struggle with homework— a concept that, at the time, was foreign to me (although I was four years younger), I wondered how to help her. Mery taught me so much, not just about her disability, but about her resilience. She inspired, and still inspires me to this day. When I began my Early Childhood Education program in Graduate School, I quickly realized that I did not want to study General Education, so I changed programs in hopes to learn how to better serve students like my sister. I hope that I have been successful in doing so these past ten years.