Brookside Elementary School Special Education Teacher Patricia Newman has always had teaching in her blood, walking the same career path her mother took. 

"Honestly, I don't ever remember a time where I didn't want to be a teacher," Newman said. "My mother worked in the elementary school where I went to school growing up, and when I went into high school, I started volunteering with her at one of the afterschool programs and I just fell in love with being with the kids"

Newman attended SUNY Cortland where she got her degree in elementary education before earning her master's in special education.

Newman began her career teaching preschool special education at the Racker Center in Owego, where she says she fell in love with the profession.

"I realized that while I wanted to be the classroom teacher and have all of the kids and all of the glory I was actually making such an impact by having a smaller group and making those connections with the families," Newman said. 

Newman soon continued her career at Brookside Elementary School where she's been teaching special education for the last 21 years, teaching almost every grade and most recently staying in kindergarten and first grade. 

The veteran teacher always begins her days by having breakfast with her students and catching up, and saying those moments have helped excel her students forward.

"I find that I've had kids that are typically struggle with socializing, struggle with peer groups that are actually making connections both in the group and now carrying into the classroom," Newman said. "So that is the highlight of my day."

After over two decades into her career, Newman says her at-home life has helped her become a better teacher, and vice versa. 

"When my children were in kindergarten, first grade age, I think I was still learning a lot," Newman said. "Now that my children are older, I use so much of what I learned with my own kids and I really look at my students as if they are mine."

Seeing hundreds of her students grow throughout the years, this week's Teacher of the Week says those moments watching them grow never get old. 

"To just see them, to be able to take the things that they might not remember that their kindergarten teacher taught them, but that, you know, you spend a lot of time instilling those values. And to see them be able to use them and make connections as they've gotten older is pretty powerful," Newman said.