Meet Kelsey

Who is Kelsey from Clothes Minded Teachers?

My name is Kelsey McGuire and I am 26 years old. I am currently teaching in a functional high school classroom at Overbrook School for the Blind. I started here on January 3rd, 2018 as a full time teacher. Are you wondering how I got to this point?

I have always wanted to be a teacher growing up. Did I know what grade level I wanted to teach? Of course not! I just knew I wanted to be like those teachers I had that left huge impacts on me. (Special thanks to Mrs. James, Mr. Brant, Ms. Bogan, Mrs. Mirachi and Mrs. King) In high school, I was involved in a club called Hatters, Inc. Hatters, Inc. was meant to successfully foster relationships between individuals with disabilities and their typical peers in an effort to enhance their participation in the life of the school and community. When I joined this club, I honestly didn’t think that it would have made an impact on me but it did. From that point on, I knew I wanted to become a special education teacher. For the rest of high school, I took classes to follow down that path. I went on a couple college tours and I ended up finding my home away from home at Kutztown University.

My first year, I was a special education major. In my second semester, a girl came into my class to talk about the vision program at KU. This program is one out of six institutes in the US to offer this program as an undergraduate program but it is the only program to offer this major as an undergraduate program at a state school in Pennsylvania. She talked about what were some visual impairments, what was the role of a teacher of the visually impaired and even talked about the dog she was training to become a guide dog. She also talked about the job rate for teachers of the visually impaired. She said that TVI’s have a 99.9% job rate right out of school and you can go anywhere in the US and get a job because they are in demand. I knew I wanted to switch programs to become a teacher of the visually impaired. My sophomore I switched and it was honestly the best thing I could have done for my career.

I fell in love with a program that I knew was meant for me. I learned Orientation and Mobility skills, Unified English Braille (UEB), anatomy of the eye, even presented at state and national conferences.

During my summers off from school, I worked as a Paraeducator at Overbrook during their Extended School Year (ESY) program. I worked in the secondary program my first year and early childhood my second year. There is where I knew I loved working in the older grade levels.

As my final semester came to an end, I was lucky enough to do my student teaching in an academic high school classroom. I fell in love more with the school and was offered a teaching job. I knew this was my dream school to work at in this field. I gladly took the position before I even graduated.

Fast forward to now, I have a classroom of 5 students who have all different visual impairments and multi-disabilities. I have one awesome paraeducator and an one on one, who we all work together as a family. Every day is a different adventure but we all learn something new everyday.

Outside of the classroom, I am a co-host to a podcast called GingerThread podcast presented by Branded Sports. We cover the Philadelphia Flyers, hockey, entertainment and whatever else we want to talk about! I grew up watching the Flyers and Phillies. It is always a nice way to share my passion of sports as well my style for game day!

If you want to learn more about me or have any questions about why I choose this field, don’t hesitate to reach out to me!

xoxo- Kelsey