After 2 Years
Towards the end of last school year, I returned to my High School and did some public speaking. In the installment I did about that event, I introduced you to Dr. Brooks. As a refresher, Dr. Brooks' son is one of my brother Luke's best friends, and when I started Rules for a Greattastic Life in 2019 she heard about it. She asked if I wanted to speak at her university class that teaches aspiring teachers about inclusive practices. I said yes and that started my public speaking career, as well as Dr. Brooks’ and my mentor-mentee relationship! Now, you may be asking, “If Dr. Brooks has been your mentor since you started Rules for a Greattastic Life, why are you just now introducing her 5 Seasons later?”
I spoke in her class for the first time in May of 2019 and, at the time, I did not have my driver's license, so Dr. Brooks drove me back to my parents house after my presentation. “You know,” I said to her on the drive, “I've been considering using Rules for a Greattastic Life, and any books that I write to jumpstart a public speaking career!”
Noting the positive feedback that she received from her students about my presentation and my desire to do public speaking, she later offered for me to come and speak in her class again. The summer after my first presentation, I dropped out of college, but I still wanted to be a teacher. While I would get my current job soon after, there were a couple months there where I didn’t think I would make it into education. I told Dr. Brooks about my challenges and she offered to help me update my résumé and support me with my next steps in entering the world of education.
We met up at Panera and after we had finished working Dr. Brooks asked, “Do you know what OCALICON is?” When I asked her to tell me more, she talked about how OCALI stands for the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence disabilities. It is a local nonprofit organization with the mission of, “inspiring change and promoting access to opportunities for people with disabilities.” OCALICON is an annual convention sponsored by this organization with speakers to promote awareness about students with autism and low incidence disabilities. In fact, my friend Noah spoke at OCALICON in 2017 and 2018.
Dr. Brooks talked about the positive impact that my presentation had in her class and proposed that we do some research to look at how the presentation would affect the learning of students in her class. She would set this up and collected some data. Using the research we could apply to speak at OCALICON 2020. Since OCALICON happens over three days, the plan was that I would spend the time when I was not speaking, mingling with other attendees and presenters to get my foot in the door. I thought it was an amazing idea and agreed!
For obvious reasons, OCALICON did not happen in 2020. And, while we did not get accepted to speak for the 2021 conference I can finally say after two years we will be presenting there this fall! The title of our presentation will be, “Using Contact-Based Interventions to Create Inclusive Learning Spaces.” We also have a grad student (who just so happens to be Noah's soccer coach, Katie) presenting with us, as well! Maybe someday, we’ll write about it, too, but I’ll let you know when and if that happens.
While I'm slightly disappointed that it's an online event, I'm very excited to even have the chance to do it! OCALICONLINE will happen November 15th through the 18th 2022. More information about the conference can be found at https://conference.ocali.org/
I don't know what day our segment will be posted yet, but I will let you know when I have that information!
Have a Greattastic day and be safe!
J. Mitchie Ulibarri
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