Chris Ulmer

Chris Ulmer
Ulmer in 2022
Personal information
Born
Christopher Ulmer

(1989-03-04) 4 March 1989 (age 35)
Occupations
Websitehttps://sbsk.org/
YouTube information
Years active2016–present
Genre
Subscribers3.3 million
Total views791 million
100,000 subscribers2017
1,000,000 subscribers2018

Last updated: 21 April 2023

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

Early life and education

[edit]

Ulmer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended Upper Moreland 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

[edit]

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, 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 reached 1 million subscribers.[5]

He crisscrossed the country interviewing disabled 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

[edit]
Year Nominated Award Result
2018 National Organization for Rare Disorders Rare Impact Award Won
2018 Streamys Purpose Awards Nonprofit or NGO Award Won

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c "Former special education teacher empowers kids to talk in their own words". WGRZ. August 1, 2017.[permanent dead link]
  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.