EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of three stories on paraprofessional students. Click here for the first in the series.
Lyretha Abu-Shanab never gave it a second thought. The Chicago mother of five and paraprofessional teacher’s aide wanted to work toward a master’s degree in special education.
Grand Canyon University, a Christian university, seemed like the perfect fit as a leader in online education. That she is Muslim didn’t matter to either Abu-Shanab or GCU.
She said she had been to other universities and found the professors didn’t have the values she sought.
“It’s a big difference with GCU. Every single professor I had, even if it was online, was willing to help and give feedback,” she said.
And when religion was discussed in her classes, she eagerly joined in – even enjoyed it.
While others quoted Scripture, she added her own beliefs. “It was always good feedback,” she said. “It wasn’t ‘stop your religion and come to theirs.’ We all believe in that one God, no matter what you call Him.”
What else was happening in that online classroom was vital, too. Abu-Shanab was pursuing a goal to fill a vital need across the U.S. for special education teachers. Of U.S. public schools surveyed this past school year, 63% said they were understaffed in special education services.
GCU has stepped in to help. Its College of Education’s National Center for Teacher Preparation is offering financial assistance and professional development for many of the thousands of paraprofessionals at GCU seeking online education to become classroom teachers. Those paraprofessionals are already ingrained in the schools and communities that need their help.
“They understand the needs of the classroom, they care deeply about the success of kids, and they care about their families and communities they are serving,” said College of Education Dean Dr. Meredith Critchfield. “They just need that leg up, that extra bit of support that is going to take them to the next step, which is becoming a licensed educator in their state.”
Abu-Shanab is like many paraprofessionals, who found that becoming a teacher’s aide was a way to match her schedule with that of her children when they entered school. After several years in her children’s school and then earning a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science at National Louis University, she moved on to be an aide for a special education classroom at James N. Thorpe Elementary School in south Chicago.
Many of the students couldn’t talk, had Down syndrome or other severe intellectual disabilities.
“A lot of teachers don’t like it, but I love it. (The children) have humor. They are such kind kids. Teaching them is like performing. You can paint a beautiful picture as an image, and they can see it. How wonderful is that?
“I would get up every morning excited to work, and at the end of the day we would play UNO. They would cheat. They would talk trash to us. It was so much fun. You know how when you are somewhere and don’t know if you fit? How do I know this is my passion?”
One day she became sure.
She was working with a little boy who wouldn’t talk to her but would follow her everywhere. She was moving out of his way, tripped and fell. The boy walked over her, unconcerned, when another student stepped in and said, “Nobody better laugh. Miss, let me help you.”
“He stood up for me,” Abu-Shanab said. “That whole day I was thinking, ‘This is me. I can live in this world all my life.’ All I needed was the vision and passion.”
She found it at GCU.
“To be honest with you, I felt like I was meant to do this,” she said of starting classes toward a master’s degree in special education in 2022. “I was meant to come to this college. It’s not just the professors, it’s the people behind the scenes, the university counselors and people in financial aid.”
When Abu-Shanab was taking a state examination for special education certification and barely missed the cutoff score to pass, the next time she took it, she was so nervous that she couldn’t even open the envelope to see her scores.
She called her university counselor, who calmed her down, and after Abu-Shanab opened it to find she passed, she received a note from that same counselor: “Congratulations, you did it!”
“It’s the little things that confirmed I went to the right place,” she said.
Abu-Shanab’s children are nearly all grown now – ages 25, 23, 21, 18 and 15 – and she recently began a student teaching assignment in junior high classes at Murray Language Academy in Chicago.
She feels ready after combining the passion from working as a classroom aide with the knowledge from GCU courses, when she navigated scenarios of teaching various students with disabilities and applied them to her work.
Abu-Shanab loves that work, loves calling out “good morning” and asking what students are excited about today. When they act out, even hit or pinch, “they hug you the next moment,” she said.
“They are people, too. Don’t exclude them from this world. Don’t write them off. It’s a challenge to me. When you see that child who is different, what is provoking this type of behavior? I try to get to the root of it and make it better. I can’t say I always fix it, but I guess I help.”
Some days, that is just letting them make a batch of homemade slime. While some teachers challenge the gooey globs’ merits, Abu-Shanab is all about celebrating our differences, whether in religion or slime, to get to the same place.
“That is what I am doing. Helping to understand, ‘What makes you happy?’”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at [email protected]
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