New Teacher Has Beauty Pageant in Her Past

Last year, Jordan Vollono, who has just begun teaching special education at the , tried something different.  She entered a beauty pageant, and she wound up as one of 10 finalists in the national phase of an international competition.

“That was the first pageant I’ve ever done,” said Vollono of the Miss Italia del Mundo competition, where she represented Connecticut in a contest that crowns its winner in a resort town just north of Venice.  “It was on a whim.  I’ve never done anything like it.  I’m really big into the Italian side of the family. My future mother-in-law brought it to my attention. I was really surprised at how far I got.”

“It was more about, let’s try something new.  You put all your effort in it.  I got pretty far, so I was very proud of it. For me, for anybody, there are things in life you have no background, no knowledge in, and, you know, you just do it and maybe it opens new doors that you love.  I ended up liking it a lot.  I think that’s a good lesson for students in special ed.”

Vollono, who took her undergraduate degree in psychology from Southern Connecticut State University after spending two years at the University of Rhode Island, and took in an interest in young people with special needs. 

“I just felt most comfortable and passionate about helping kids with special needs,” she said.  “So many people I’ve grown up with and seen over the years have learning disabilities. I’ve just gravitated toward them, wanting to help them. You help them out in all areas.  You can introduce them to these experiences they wouldn’t have had, had you not brought them out into the world.  You see them struggle sometimes or get left out.  For me, it’s so hard to see that and not do anything to help.”

Now pursuing a master’s degree in learning disabilities, also at SCSU, she works with students in the sixth and seventh grades who need special help and attention in the areas of language arts, math and science. All are mainstreamed, with the majority of her students, who she co-teaches in three different classrooms, having learning difficulties such as attention deficit disorder. A few of her students, she observed, have Asperger’s syndrome or other characteristics that fall on the autism spectrum.

“You don’t want to see someone in that situation left behind,” she said.

Students with special needs and their non-disabled peers can learn from each other in a public school environment, Vollano, who holds dual certification in special education and elementary education, said.

One area in which she concedes her own skills could use a boost is acclimating herself to her new role at JMMS.  The school is the East Haven native’s alma mater.  

“I’m working in classrooms with teachers that I had.  I call them by their last names, still.  I cannot get used to calling them by their first names. I’m still trying to get used to that.”