Tami Scherr’s journey to work in special education started in college, when she met a friend who had cerebral palsy and witnessed all the ways that people with special needs were treated unfairly by society.
Scherr decided to pursue a degree in special education at Towson University. She spent the first 23 years of her career working with children with autism at the Kennedy Krieger Institute before becoming a teacher in Baltimore County Public Schools.
She eventually moved to working at Jewish day schools, including Beth Tfiloh and Ohr Chadash Academy.
Now, Scherr works for Jewish Educational Services as a reading intervention specialist. She helps 38 children across four Jewish schools.
Scherr lives in Pikesville with her husband and is the proud mother of a son in the U.S. Navy and a daughter attending the University of Maryland.
Can you tell me about your passion for this work?
We don’t do it for money, I can tell you that, but it is the most wonderful experience I’ve ever had, teaching children with special needs, especially when you see them make the progress that they have made. The best feeling of all is you have a student and he’s so mad, he’s so frustrated, because nobody gets him. [They say] I’m not gonna do this work. I’m not gonna read.
With my mental health therapy and my clinical psych degree, it really has helped me help these children feel a lot better about themselves, and it’s really the most wonderful feeling in the world when you see children make short-term goals they set with you, and they meet their goals, and just to see a smile on their face because they’ve done so well, and to hear from their parents of how well they’re doing and how proud of them their parents are.
How did you get started working at Jewish schools?
I was a soccer coach for my daughter and there were a couple of children on her team that were Jewish, and their parents just reached out to me because they knew I had a special ed background. A lot of times in Jewish schools, they do provide some services for children with special needs, but I felt like I could make a difference for some of these children.
I feel like I can provide services for children in the Jewish school, and people are just so grateful, and you feel like you’ve made a difference in their lives. The people that I work with in every single school have always made me feel so at home and so comfortable no matter what I do. They just are amazing.
I’ve made so many friendships with people, and [living in Pikesville], it’s big for me because I’m making a difference in my community.
What does it mean for you to be helping the next generation of Jewish students?
I am a convert. I converted to Judaism back in 1992. My husband is Jewish, we raised my children Jewish, and it is a wonderful feeling to help these children along in Jewish education, even though I don’t teach Hebrew. Sometimes Hebrew and English are very similar, and it just makes me feel really good that I can help these children learn to read. I know they’re learning Hebrew from their Hebrew tutors, and I feel like I can make a difference.
What is something you’ve picked up over decades as an educator?
Patience is probably the big one, and I’ve learned different ways to teach. There’s not just one way of teaching. No child in the world learns the same way. So I’ve learned several different ways of teaching, different ways that I can teach children to learn. If plan A doesn’t work out, then I always have plan B.
When I first started teaching a very long time ago, it was a set [one size fits] all way of learning. I’m 54 years old. It was a long time ago when I started teaching, and teaching has changed so much from when I first started to now.
It’s amazing to me how much I’ve learned with the new ways of teaching. I wish that when I was a child I had those ways of learning. I think it would have been easier, you know, because I think teaching children so many ways to learn the same thing is amazing.
What should people know about you?
When I first start working with children at the beginning of the school year, I develop a rapport. Developing a rapport with your students is one of the most important things. Before you’re able to teach them, they have to feel comfortable. It’s important that, be it through games, books, any way that you can get them to open up to you, to understand, [that they] know that you’re not going to judge, that you’re going to accept them for who they are.
