By Joanne M. Haas

Shandowlyon Hendricks-Williams smiled, but shrugged off the suggestion that she become a special education teacher.

“I said, ‘Well, mmm, no, that’s OK,’” Hendricks-Williams recalled as her initial reaction to her son’s teacher a few years ago. That was the first time Hendricks-Willliams was encouraged to become an educator, but it wasn’t the last.

Convinced by teachers she respected, and supported by her friends and family, Hendricks-Williams eventually relented and went on to earn her teaching degree. Now, she knows she made the right move – and so do her students and their parents.

“To me, my students are my family. They are like my children,” said Hendricks-Williams, who is in her first year as a contract teacher. She teaches special education to 18 students in grades six through eight at Samuel Morse Middle School in Milwaukee.

“I try to foster self-esteem,” she said of her students, “and help them believe they can do whatever they set their minds to.

“The payback is not in my paycheck. It is seeing children make gains, seeing them believe in themselves -- emotionally and socially.”

And as part of the teaching experience, Hendricks-Williams said she also tries to build relationships with the students’ families, and uses her own experience as the bridge. “The fact that I am able to share that I am a parent of a child with special needs,” she said, is a big factor when working with the families.

And that is where her story begins – when she became the parent of a son, Brandon, with severe disabilities, including cerebral palsy, about 14 years ago. “He has profound mental retardation ... and he is in a wheelchair,” she said.

“I believe God gave me my son to give me direction, and to teach me about unconditional love ... and to celebrate the small successes,” she said, adding he also has taught her to have great patience. “He’s a fighter,” she said of Brandon, who attends Muir Middle School.

In the early 1990s, Hendricks-Williams was a housewife and mother, who took Brandon to the state-funded Birth-to-3 program after his diagnosis. When Brandon turned 3, he was enrolled in MPS, and by this time her interest, activism and advocacy for parents of special education children had already been ignited.

Hendricks-Williams did some public speaking and even marched in Madison. But professionally, she struggled to find her niche. She did some work in executive sales, and other private sector positions. “It was a job and a career, but it was not fulfilling,” she said.

She divorced in 1995 and the family found itself in turbulent times. “We were on welfare. It was tough but we stuck together,” she said, stressing her daughter Barbara was and remains a loyal and loving sister devoted to her brother.

As she tried different professions, Hendricks-Williams never strayed far from her children, education and families. She worked as a paraprofessional at Harambee Community School from 1992 to 1993, and as a parent facilitator for programs to assist parents of disabled children from 1993 to 1994. From 1995 to 1996, she served as an educational assistant for MPS.

Williams also was director of Barbara & Brandon’s Playhouse, a home-based child care center for more than 50 children, and helped parents utilize community programs and resources. She also served as an AmeriCorp service volunteer, in partnership with the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, from 2001 to 2003. Also on her record is service with various groups and panels, including the Wisconsin Council on Exceptional Education, from 1992 to 1993.

As her son moved through the MPS system, she saw many things she liked but some things she didn’t like. At times she felt she was being “talked down to” as a single parent and having her assertiveness misinterpreted as anger. And she was frustrated by the small number of African-American educators.

“Either I could fuss, or I could get in there and make some changes myself,” she said.

Hendricks-Williams said she takes the lessons she learned from Brandon into the classroom daily. She keeps her door open while she teaches so parents can watch. “I want them to feel like they can come in.”

“I’m so fulfilled with the job,” she said. “It is a ministry for me.”
Every morning, she said, she feels like “I’ve got to get to school. They (students) need that stability. For a lot of students in urban settings, the only stability is in the school.”

Posted March 19, 2004