Special education professor found niche through evolution of maturity

Growing up in the small town of Tuscola, Rebecca Cook, special education professor, never had a clear-cut vision of what profession she wanted to devote herself to as an adult.

“As the youngest of three girls, I was real observant and interested in interaction,” Cook said.

However, after attending Eastern and obtaining a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in psychology, Cook was baffled about what profession she truly wanted to work in.

“At the time I realized I didn’t know what to do with (the degree),” she said. “I took a year off and moved out east to New Jersey with my first husband, and I really had a lot of time to reflect on what I wanted to do.”

It was not until that particular reflection period in her life that she came to realize her passion in life was to work with children, she said.

“I didn’t think about getting into the profession at all when I was younger,” Cook said. “It was the evolution of maturity that really helped me know what I wanted to do.”

With special education considered a fresh career field in the 1960s and 70s, Cook said when she later moved back to the Champaign area, she was offered the privilege to attend the University of Illinois graduate school free of tuition to study in its special education program.

“It was a nice opportunity to have,” she said. “My parents were real supportive of me.”

Cook said she believed her degree in sociology and psychology and her master’s degree in special education all combined together well in her life.

“I love to observe children and figure out a problem a child is having and then come up with a plan to help them,” she said. “The degrees really tie in well together.”

Cook continued working at the University of Illinois after she completed her master’s degree in 1972.

She worked with training graduate students in the special education program along with assisting the university in a number of other ways.

Cook later moved to Colorado for seven years, teaming up with the public schools to fight for disabled students’ inclusion in the school system before eventually returning to Champaign to accept a position at the University of Illinois to coordinate a research grant.

“The grant was on evaluating the pre-referral process for regular education teachers,” Cook said. “I’m innovative about things, so it was exciting.”

However, after years of continuous stints of in-service training, Cook grew tired of the strenuous routine .

“I wanted to maintain a continuity though,” she said. “That is when I decided to take the position here at Eastern.”

Cook said because her family lived in Tuscola and Eastern had an exceptional teaching program, the choice was not only sensible, but easy.

“The program here is so teacher oriented,” she said. “And I just love the students.”

Initially, Cook said she simultaneously attended the University of Illinois to obtain her doctorate in special education while teaching part time at Eastern before graduating in 1996 and working full time at Eastern.

She said there were a variety of other things that sparked her interest in the profession of special education.

“I love how it is changing all the time,” Cook said. “I had children with a variety of types of disabilities (while training the graduate students.) Everything is not dry and boring. It is very stimulating to me.”

Cook said she is working on a research project which involves students who have already graduated from the teaching program.

The purpose is to help mentor students going into the profession of teaching to help them adjust to their jobs, she said.

“I’m doing a project technology-based induction process support,” Cook said. “I ask everybody to participate.”

She said she contacts the former students and has them fill out a survey and send a problem they are dealing with to her through America Online’s instant messenger.

“I post them on my Web site, so input can be posted on my message board by seasoned teachers and peers,” Cook said.

This gives new teachers feedback and advice from experienced teachers, she said.

Cook said she loves her profession and at times considers herself an orthodox teacher.

“I am academically oriented, but I also want to peek students’ interests,” she said. “I think they respect me in academia and also as a person. I get so much from the students and embed that in my teaching.”

She said, like herself, not everyone knows what they want to do from the beginning of their lives.

“No matter how far into your life you are, you have to figure out what motivates you in your life and go there,” Cook said.