Chris Ulmer

Christopher Ulmer is an American disability-rights advocate, former special education teacher, YouTuber, and founder of the non-profit Special Books by Special Kids.

Special Books by Special Kids
Personal information
BornChristopher Ulmer
(1989-03-04) 4 March 1989
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation
Websitehttps://sbsk.org/
YouTube information
Years active2016–present
Genre
Subscribers2.37 million
Total views413 million
100,000 subscribers 2017
1,000,000 subscribers 2018
Updated: 31 December 2019

Early life and education

Ulmer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended Abington Senior High School. He attended Pennsylvania State University, where he majored in media effects. He received a master's degree in special education from the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky, where he was a student teacher.[1]

Career

After graduation, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida. He coached soccer at a university and was offered a free degree in special education. He began teaching special education to students aged 7 to 10.[1] As a special education teacher, he taught students with Autism, Aspergers, agenesis of the corpus callosum and traumatic brain injury.[2]

With permission from his students’ parents, in the classroom Ulmer "began to film interviews with his students and post them on social media,"[3] which attracted an online presence. After 12 months, Special Books by Special Kids "evolved into an acceptance movement that’s reached over one billion people."[4]

Ulmer began his online presence through Facebook in 2016 and a year later reached 1.2 million followers.[1] In 2017, Ulmer created the YouTube channel Special Books by Special Kids (commonly abbreviated as SBSK). On November 19, 2018, the Special Books by Special Kids YouTube channel, co-founded by Ulmer, reached 1 million subscribers.[5]

He crisscrossed the country interviewing special-needs children to give them, as ABC News put it, "an opportunity to be seen and accepted." As a result, Ulmer has created more than 500 videos of those interviews.[6] A partial transcript, as an example of an interview of a child by Ulmer, is included in the book Flying Starts for Unique Children[7] by author and special-needs teacher Adele Devine.

Awards and nominations
Year Nominated Award Result
2018 National Organization for Rare Disorders Rare Impact Award Won
2018 Streamys Purpose Awards Nonprofit or NGO Award Won

References
  1. "Former special education teacher empowers kids to talk in their own words". WGRZ. August 1, 2017.
  2. Wong, Kathleen (December 10, 2015). "Florida Teacher Chris Ulmer Begins Each Day Complimenting Students". mic.com.
  3. Gelbart, Hannah (March 31, 2017). "Meet the former teacher giving a voice to disabled children". British Broadcasting Company. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  4. Ulmer, Christopher (November 2, 2017). "Special Books by Special Kids". Facebook. Retrieved March 13, 2019.
  5. "specialbooksbyspecialkids Monthly YouTube Statistics". Social Blade. November 19, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  6. "Florida teacher is teaching acceptance of all people, one video at a time". ABC News. 29 April 2017.
  7. Devine, Adele (18 August 2016). Flying Starts for Unique Children: Top Tips for Supporting Children with SEN or Autism When They Start School. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. ISBN 9781784502416 – via Google Books. Pg. 127.
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