Welcome to our classroom and a large part of my life! I’m so excited to share the day-to-day goings on in our classroom and at home. The life of a teacher, let alone a special education preschool teacher, is busy, amazing, fun and sometimes stressful. I hope you enjoy the blog posts on early childhood special education and all the daily real-life struggles and love that goes on in my classroom.
First of all: Something I need to say up front. I do NOT see the kids in our classroom as handicap. I look at each child and see abilities, not dis-abilitites. We all have abilities, things we are able to do, and we all have disabilities, things that we are not able to do. I choose to get to know each child and build their confidence in the things they CAN do, while working out a plan to increase their skills in the areas they struggle with. If we make our minds up to inspire and expect improvements from each other, there really aren’t any failures. Our kids, and most staff, call me Miss Angel. Not because they think I am one, but because for my special needs 2-5 year olds saying “Mrs. Gendvilas” is much more difficult to say. I am the only teacher with this first name so it has just caught on with the whole staff. I work with 2 amazing paraprofessionals, who I consider equal to me in my classroom. (Pictures posted soon!) Both gals are an important part of our classroom, which we realize if either one is absent! I always tell them that the classroom would run without a hitch if I wasn’t there for a day. In fact, substitutes quickly report they want to come back because the assistants do run everything in my absence. Our classes are split into two sessions, mostly according to age, with a lunch break in between. Our students are actually like our own kids. We get to know families quite well and feel honored they trust us with their babies and work with us so seamlessly to help their child. It is a classroom filled with love, and that makes all the difference!
Meet Angel and Paul Gendvilas
We’ve been married since 2009 and enjoy relaxing at our “cabin” near Williams, AZ or traveling to the many resorts we have access to through our timeshare. Paul is a pipefitter and currently works in Chandler, AZ at Intel. He’s counting the days until he can retire and give his body a break! Maybe we’ll retire together. He would like nothing more than to go to a bit cooler (not cold) weather and would live at our cabin if he could. I am partial to luxury and love resorting! I think we can do both! 
