This interview explores the challenges and strategies in special education, emphasizing the importance of understanding individual needs, emotional regulation, and advocacy for teachers and parents. Bev Johns shares her extensive experience working with children with behavioral and emotional challenges, offering practical insights for educators and caregivers.

keywordsspecial education, emotional regulation, advocacy, behavior management, teaching strategies, parent support, teacher burnout, trauma-informed education

key topics

• Behavior as Communication
• Emotional Regulation Techniques
• Advocacy for Teachers and Parents

guest nameBev Johns

titles

• The Power of Individualized Education: Strategies for Success
• Emotional Regulation and Behavior Management in Schools

Sound Bites

• "Behavior is a form of communication."
• "Recognize and reinforce good behavior."
• "Children need to learn self-regulation early."

Chapters

00:00Introduction and Background of Mark

00:43Bev Johns and the Learning Disabilities Association

03:26Challenges in Education and Advocacy for Parents

06:04Bev's Journey in Education and Early Experiences

08:47The Importance of Listening and Support in Education

11:38Teacher Demoralization and Systemic Issues

14:36Behavior as Communication and Emotional Regulation

17:17The Role of Arts in Education and Expression

20:00Conclusion and Final Thoughts

28:47Meeting Children's Needs

32:09Understanding Behavioral Challenges

36:41Effective Behavior Management Strategies

40:23Mindfulness and Self-Regulation

43:50Dealing with Meltdowns

46:25Transitioning and Preparing for Change

50:43Building Consistency in Education

53:56Empowering Children to Communicate Needs

Resources

• Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois
• Mindfulness in Schools Project
• De-escalation Strategies for Teachers (Book)

Guest links

• Website: https://bevjohns.org/
• LinkedIn: Beverly Johns
• Facebook: Beverly Johns

https://specialedrising.com/

Ray''s Respite Care GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/join-rays-respite-care-mission

you know, I'm president of Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois. And of course, with all the funding cuts every place, a lot of parents are having trouble getting services. So we started a parent-partner project where we match parents with volunteers who actually are retired educators.

I just go to IEPs with them. As I was doing, and I still do a lot of that, but I thought we really need more help as funding is drying up. And I don't know whether you saw, but I looked at the administration's FYI 27 budget and they wiped out parent information and training centers. Just, now hopefully, it is disgusting. It is disgusting.

⁓ I love that.

Right.

Really? No surprise to me. Disgusting, but yeah.

So we figured that we're going to have to pick up some of that because many families, they need services. ⁓

Goodness.

Yes.

Absolutely,

and they don't know where to go. First, I'm just gonna, Beverly, welcome to the show. I'm gonna do this formal introduction. Beverly, welcome to the show because we're already talking and I wanna keep going. This is a very just fluid, kind of organic conversation. I have some questions, but I really wanna just, welcome you to the show and let's just keep talking, okay?

Thank you.

Yeah.

Oh, glad to be here, glad to be here. So, right,

So tell me more. you wanted to, did you start this organization where you're going to be having ⁓ former teachers?

Well, it's part

of I'm president of the Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois and we're volunteers and we reach out and we support both parents and educators who have questions about where to go about getting services, where to go about getting evaluations done, what do you do when the IEP is not being followed, etc. So we've done that.

Okay.

for a number of years, but then as the funding is drying up for parent information and training centers, a lot of parents still need someone to go to that can help advocate for them. So just this year, we started a parent partner training project where retired educators

Sure.

agree to go to an IEP with a parent or maybe review an evaluation or do whatever, but it's more of a partnership. We're not going to get into all the legal issues, although we, I occasionally will get called into an IEP where the school district doesn't know the law and we'll just say, well, the law says this is what the child needs. So.

Right, right.

Mm-hmm.

So we're doing that to try and we're always open and want to help families and educators as well who need assistance because sometimes families, well and educators as well, it's a maze and it's hard to know what all the laws say. So sometimes they just need some help with that.

Yeah, it is and things are changing now too where the system, the Department of Education, and the fallout from that and Medicaid and the lack of services, all these things. And so families, they don't know which way to turn and teachers are, I mean, they're having to relearn as they go because things are changing constantly.

Exactly, exactly. Well, and then the other thing is what is happening to the Office for Civil Rights because it used to be that if a family felt that their child was being discriminated against or if an educator with a disability felt they were being discriminated against, they could, you know, at least had the avenue of going to the Office for Civil Rights. But so much of that is now being.

Cut. Right. Right. ⁓

Yeah, these things are becoming history. These things that are so critical to

the families being able to, access everything that their child needs and the fact that these things are not being provided are not the priority. In a time when there's more recognition of people with special needs and the fact that it's a growing population, it's literally the antithesis of everything that should be happening. It's just mind boggling.

Right.

Exactly.

Right, right.

I mean, it is a growing population and unfortunately some people do not want to admit that. But it is. so even if a parent doesn't have a child, they might have a niece or a nephew or a grandchild, somebody in the family who has a disability.

Absolutely. And they need the guidance. We're not born with this knowledge, And the system can be very complicated and very manipulative too. And so if you don't know, it's easy to lose out on services. I don't want to go crazy, be taken advantage of, whatever. It's not like that's ultimately a game plan of administrations and schools, but there is a system that they work within and oftentimes the families that don't challenge, that don't go in and really truly advocate are getting the short end of the

and their child then loses out.

Exactly, exactly. mean, and parents as well as educators need to know the law because the law is what's there to protect them. But so the old saying knowledge is power. And yes, it is. So we continually one of the things we also do is we have regular programs for families and educators as well about different services and what things mean ⁓ and what to look for.

Mm-hmm.

So great.

⁓

Yeah.

if your child needs an evaluation and what to look for and what to do if the child's IEP is not being followed. So all of those things which are critical for people to know.

Correct.

Yeah, so Let's give the audience a little bit of your background so they know who they're listening to because you've got so much experience and so much knowledge that I can't wait to tap. so maybe we could just give a little bit of your background and then we'll just continue to plow through this stuff.

Sure, sure. I always tell people I knew I wanted to be an educator for many, many years. And so when I went to college, I was an education major. Well, you know, my family was not rich. And so I had to work my way through college through a work study program. And one of the actually did two jobs which changed my course of history.

Mm-hmm.

One is I was assigned to work at a residential facility for young boys who were ages 9 to 14 who had already been adjudicated delinquents. And this was in Kentucky and they were 9 to 14 years of age. Well, I started working with these children. I realized the learning problems they had, the trauma.

And we really didn't talk much about trauma back then, but the trauma that all of these kids had had and how they really needed help. mean, they were, some of them as young as nine years of age already, you know, the system was saying, hey, you're a delinquent.

No.

Right, and now your

future is set, you're gonna just be a failure, Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, and so I thought

it was it was just you know so wrong that these kids had been through so much yet They were now had entered a system You know that was not designed back then To educate and to say hey, you've got a bright future ahead so that was very motivational to me because I thought these children are just

not getting what they should get. And then the other thing that I did was I worked at a community center in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. And it was not in a nice neighborhood, but I was the only female there at night working at this community center. And they had a rule that, gee, you have to have a

ID card to get into the community center. So one night I'm letting the kids in, you know, and they're shooting baskets and everybody's having a grand old time. And this young man comes to the door and he said, lady, let me, you know, I want in. I said, well, I just need to see your ID. And he said, I don't have one. I said, well, I'm really sorry, but then you can't get in. To which he pulled a gun on me. Now, Wong and Di-Eve,

Wow.

I said, oh, put that silly thing away and go home. I thought it was a toy gun. know, I had no fear at all. And I thought, oh, it's a toy gun. The other kids are looking at me like, she just told a kid to go away. And he laughed. I mean, he laughed. And so, you know, the kids are talking about.

You

my goodness.

Right? That's youth.

You're crazy.

Yeah?

Oh, she wasn't scared of a kid with a gun. So pretty soon, here come the police saying, what happened here? I said, well, what do you mean happened? This kid came to the door and he had a toy gun. And he said, lady, there wasn't a toy gun. That was a real gun. I think that, you know, the lesson that I learned there was one, you can't have fear. And you have to have a sense of humor. I mean, and that's what saved me that day.

My goodness. ⁓

Right.

My parents went to their graves never knowing about it because I probably would not be speaking to you today if they would have or so anyway. So most of the thing it paved the way for me to say, you know, I really want to work with students who have behavioral issues. And this was at a time when the field was new and it

You saved them from an earlier grave.

That's incredible.

was, you know, most people didn't think a female could do the job. anyway, I applied for a fellowship. Exactly. And got the fellowship and began my career working with children with emotional and behavioral disorders. When at a time, it was a really exciting time because field was new.

What a surprise. What a surprise, right? Yeah. Ridiculous.

So then I finished that, I did lots of hours beyond that and got all my work done in applied behavior analysis while I was there. So then I took my first teaching job, which was working with children with autism. Only back then they said autistic like So the children had autism. So now I thought I'm a brand new teacher.

I got this. mean, I'm coming out of here with a master's degree and 50 some odd hours. I know I'm an expert. And then my clue, my clue that this was not going to be an easy job was that I took the job in January because the teacher quit in December. Now that should have told me that this class.

Yeah, you know everything.

seen that before. I've seen that before.

And then they said, you're going to have seven children. thought, piece of cake, piece of cake. ⁓ they all got autism. Now, nobody told me in my training program, what you do if a kid bites you, kicks you, scratches you, pulls your hair on and on and on. So I'm new and I've got my big dangly earrings on. And so I walk into...

Yeah, as if the number means anything.

⁓ no.

first two weeks of class. I'm going home. I've got scratch marks, bite marks. thought, gosh, I don't know what I'm doing here. But I thought, well, you took the job, so you're going to stay. anyway, one day, yeah, well, I didn't have my ears then because little Jimmy, one day I wore my big dangly earrings thinking I was going to my best, you know, for my little students. Isn't this going to be wonderful?

What am I doing? Yeah.

That was pretty, that was pretty brave of you and you still had your ears.

Well, one day Jimmy took my ear and went and my ear is slit all the way out. You can't see it. I wear clip earrings. But when people say, why don't you get your ears fixed? think, well, I'm a scary cat and I'm a cheapskate. So there you go. I still have a split ear, but it always reminds me. And I always tell teachers, you never have all the answers. You have to be

⁓

Is it really?

You ⁓

Thank you for saying this.

Thank you for saying this. I've been saying this for so long too.

You have to be a lifelong

learner because here I went in thinking I knew everything after all I had all these degrees what's the big deal only to find out I didn't have a clue. mean and so I think I made it through that first year because of this wonderful school social worker Mary Burnett who would come in every day after school and say how did it go today Bev? She just talked you know she just wanted to hear how my day had gone.

While she was a social worker who was supposed to be support for kids, you know what? She was a support system for me. I still keep in contact with her. She made a huge difference. And so that's why I say a lot of times teachers just need to be listened to. They don't need to be blamed. It would have been easy for her to say, well, if we're crying out loud, if you just wouldn't have worn those danglier rings, you wouldn't have gotten your ears pulled.

Sure.

Gosh, that's amazing.

You know, instead she just listened. And the fact that she was listening and not blaming me was very important. so, and then I mean, I remember also the message really resonated with me to listen and never to blame because at that time, parents of children with autism were being blamed.

There was something known as refrigerator mothers and they would blame the mother for how they were raising their child with autism for the child having autism. It wasn't their fault at all. And these were wonderful parents. They were so good and they were doing everything that they could do, but they were being blamed, not listened to.

I think that's the whole message is that we have to listen, not blame, and we have to help and not blame.

I love that because, now it's like, if you gave your kid Tylenol potentially, so these parents have to live with these ideas. I do this to my child? It's it comes back. Yeah, it's really gross. And I mean, I'm so glad you said all this, but because I'm 38 years into this business and I'm amazed how much I have to learn still. And I was excited to speak to you today because we're similar.

Yeah, tremendous guilt. Yeah, which is unfair.

in our perspective on looking at the child because what you did was you saw the child, you saw the individual and you saw that each individual was special and had purpose and meaning and had potential in their life, And so that is the antithesis of a lot of what goes on in the system, which is really kind of just like, it's the common school practices where it's system driven.

Right.

and it's compliance focus and things like that. And it's just like, it just puts everybody into a box and everybody has to kind of follow suit. And we use the same old approaches for every single kid instead of looking at the individual. yeah, so being a teacher, yes, when you go in, think, well, you're excited and you're young but you don't know everything. And I don't know everything after 38 years, there's still always more to learn.

Yes.

looking at the individual.

And that's a really important message for teachers to have and to also know that it's okay, because you're going to screw up and you're going to make mistakes, you know, and you. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I should have dollar for every time I a mistake that year. I mean, you never would have

exactly rich because you are. And so I think so many times systems blame the teacher rather than saying, well, what is it that I can do to help you? ⁓ I mean, and that's really what it needs to be all about is helping. as opposed to saying,

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

And how do we?

The teacher is at fault or the parent is at fault. What can we do to help?

that perspective on it just seems to continue, it doesn't seem to get better. It doesn't seem to change. we talk about these things and we say this is the situation and it is the situation and teachers are asked to do more and more and more and they're getting blamed more and more and And then there's fantasies being brought up about what teachers are doing to kids and what they're trying to teach them that they're not, they don't even have time to come.

outside of what their curriculum mandate is, And so how do they have time for these things? But then they gotta deal with all that and these delusional people that are putting all this stuff on them. How do we get it to a point where then we can finally switch that and be able to assist these teachers and look at them as the heroes that they are, you know? I'll leave it there and let you kind of comment on that.

Wow,

they are heroes and they're not appreciated enough and they're the scapegoat, you know, for all of the social problems that we have. It's well, we got to blame somebody. Let's blame the teacher. And it is so wrong. And, you know, I've looked a lot at it I won't call it teacher burnout because teacher burnout

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

sends a message that it's the teacher's fault and it is not. I've read on what I call teacher demoralization. We demoralize teachers. We don't value them. Furthermore, we ask them to do things that are against their values. And then the system collides because the teacher is there saying, wait a minute, I know this is wrong. And is it me? No, it's not.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's more like it.

them. They're being demoralized in a system that does not value their work and uses them as a scapegoat. that's why I always say teachers have to be good advocates and they have to realize that they're not, I don't want teachers to ever think that it's their fault because it's a system.

that is not giving them the supports they need and a system that is not valuing them. So looking at that whole notion of demoralization and then teaching, teachers to say, this is not right and I'm going to advocate for better so that I'm not in a system that demoralizes me. I mean, why are we losing people? You know, they're

They're so disenchanted with the system because they know what is right, but then they're asked to do things that are not right. ⁓ And so that's why they've got to know what the law says so that they can advocate for themselves. And with any system, I think they have to join forces with other educators who are

Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I was going to ask. Yeah, how we do that.

who are seeing the same kinds of things. And then they have to be able to advocate and they have to be able to speak up, even though we all know speaking up has its consequences. But the bottom line is I say at the end of the day, you have to be able to look in the mirror and say, I did what I could do. I stood up for my students. I stood up for what I was trying to do.

for my students.

Yeah, it's such a great point because there is that fear, speaking up today can really get you into a lot of trouble. ⁓ And, jobs are so difficult to come by. And so people are desperate to hold onto jobs. And so they get abused and the system is a, it beats down. And as you inferred, teachers go into this with the intention to do good and to want to help build these kids up.

Yeah, it does.

but then the system beats them down and then they want to leave it because it's like it's just too much and it's understandable.

Right.

Yeah, it is, it is. So it's overwhelming. And then I think of the people that leave the field and they leave it thinking they were a failure. When they weren't a failure, the system failed them.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's really important to say and to hear. Yeah.

So I think we

have to look for people who will advocate for them. And I think they have to reach out for support. But in today's world, what I sometimes find is teachers are afraid to ask for help because they think it is a reflection on them as a teacher when...

Yeah.

that they're not as good a teacher, that they need this

help.

And so

therefore, if they say, hey, could I have like 10 minutes to kind of pull myself back together and somebody watch my classroom for that 10 minutes? We're afraid to do those things because they're afraid somebody will think they're a bad teacher. And that's sad. And that's why I say you don't ever have all the answers. all. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And what a presumption. What a presumption

that they should be proficient in every aspect as they're growing in the field, There needs to be learning curves for everyone. You know, you don't just walk in. Go ahead.

Thanks.

Well, and as they're going

in the field and as the population of children coming into the schools is changing, people don't realize that. mean, it's not like it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago, even. The population of well, the population of children has changed. We have more children coming into school who have experienced trauma.

Yes.

Yeah, talk a little bit more about that.

Mm-hmm.

Now we have all of the social media, you know, that is wanting their attention. We have children that are not used to sitting for as long as they're expected to do in the classroom. So all of these children are coming in with all kinds of special needs, if you will. And so that's why you never have all the answers because

The children are changing and what one intervention might work for one child, it doesn't work for another child.

Yeah,

right. It's a fluid situation. There's nothing stagnant about it, right? There's no cookie cutter here. And that's what I relate to with you. When I started, I got into the field very innocently. It just kind of happened for me. It just made sense and felt natural for me. But I didn't really know what I was getting into. And I was working in a school for the deaf and I became more more involved with kids with a little bit more complex special needs.

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Behavior started to come out right I had more more behaviors and it became not something I wanted to run away from it came to something like you that I was really actually interested in and I wanted to know more and so the behavior became the thing that I actually grabbed on to More strongly than anything more more than the academics and that the development and how to get this kid into a place where they could actually function in a classroom and And then try to reach the potential so that became the thing that was of interest to me. So that's why

Thank

among many reasons I'm excited to speak with you today, but your idea of looking at the individual and not as the cookie cutter we approach this child the same way and if it fails, they're not compliant and they're disobedient and all these things and now they're just labeled, So when you come about your core belief with behavior, you're more about the communication, right? And what's lacking.

in their lives and the skills and things like that as opposed to, behavior is looked at as we have to control the behavior, we have to correct it and get this child just to function like everybody else. Could you speak to that a little bit?

Well, I think we all know behavior is communication. So when they're misbehaving, if you will, they're trying to communicate something to you and you have to figure out what that something is. They're telling you something and the only way they know how is by acting out or by withdrawing.

So we say working with students with behavioral and emotional challenges is good detective work. I mean, you're always trying to figure out what is going on with this child that I haven't figured out yet. You know, I need to, you know, how do I reach them? How do I get them to trust me? All of those things, because a lot of our children, they don't have any sense of trust.

Big time. Right.

with adults because maybe the adult in their life beat the you know what out of them. So they don't want to get too close to somebody because if they get too close that person might do the same thing to them. So they all come into the classroom with all of this baggage if you will. What they've been through you know we talk about teacher bias but our children come in with bias as well.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ So, you just be like everybody else I had. ⁓ And so I think the key is looking at what's really going on with the child. What's going on underneath? What's the purpose of the behavior? And how can I meet that? And so I've been, I do a lot of work with teaching children emotional regulation skills.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, good point.

Yes, was gonna ask, Yeah, I think it's absolutely has to start with the adult for sure. Because they set that emotional tone for the child, right? Right. Mm-hmm.

Frankly, I think that a lot of adults need emotional calculations. Yeah. Exactly.

They do, they're the role model. I mean, they are the role model for keeping

calm and cool in tough situations. But one of the things that I look at is we have to give them a way to express themselves in other ways other than bad behavior. So maybe they can draw.

Maybe they're musically inclined. Maybe they can write all of those things that can really make a difference. we get it. You know, all of us have to, if we're bothered by something, we're not able to work. It's kind of consuming us. So our working memory is not intact. We have to get it out. So maybe we write, maybe we draw, maybe we do.

Right.

other things. I am a firm believer in the arts and the arts as a way to express their feelings in a more appropriate way. did with two of my colleagues, we did a book on restorative practices using the arts and you know drama and dance and music and the visual arts on and on and on that give children

a way to express themselves. So although what happens is what do schools tend to cut first? Arts. ⁓ So I think that we really have to teach children how to regulate by figuring out what are the ways they can express themselves other than all in often hitting somebody.

they are. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean.

Exactly. mean, exercise too, another wonderful outlet, I mean, as an adult that helps me tremendously, but also the arts, I'm very much a promoter of the arts as well and believer in youth getting involved in the arts. had the experience as a drama teacher in my school with my kids. And it was amazing to watch these kids who not necessarily were behavior problems, but even academically who struggled and who suddenly had this confidence.

⁓ wonderful, wonderful.

Mm-hmm.

and we're actually memorizing their couple of lines in the script and studying it and knowing everybody else's lines. And it just naturally just kind of changed who they were, And then they showed up to the classroom in different person. It was magical, you know? Yeah.

you

Exactly. Yeah, it

is. Well, because think about it. I mean, they can act. So they can put themselves in another place, if you will, which might be an escape. And that's okay. I just think that we have to look at a much broader

Yeah? ⁓

Absolutely, we all need them.

you know, at how we are meeting children's needs. Or making them sit at a desk and do worksheets is not working. Or making them sit at a desk and take test after test after test ⁓ to see how they compare with the rest of the state. I mean, it's, and children see no motivation for that because it's not.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

relevant to them.

Right, and the comparison if you're not doing well and you don't live up to somebody else's, somebody that you know does really well on these tests and your scores are inferior, now how do I feel about myself? And it follows you the rest of your life. As opposed to focusing on skill building, what can you do, what's your interest, And honing in on those skills.

And it does.

Exactly and having people that build you up and find what your strengths are. And you know you really are good at this. Let's keep at it. mean and children will keep at it because somebody had faith in them.

Absolutely.

Right, having the interest to take to see you, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I think

that's the most amazing thing. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just think it's the most amazing thing. It's the simplest thing that I think we miss as a society is literally just saying you did a great job, that you're really good at this. How hard is that, And you'll you'll give so much greater effort because I got this feedback that I'm valued and I have value. Incredible, yeah.

No.

Mm-hmm. You see,

mean, exactly. So my motto has always been, having worked with children with behavior problems for many, many years, is never take good behavior for granted. Reinforce it. You know, people say, well, they're in high school. They're just supposed to behave. No, we, we all need recognition. I mean, and it's true in with young children, older children, adults.

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Everybody needs to be recognized.

Yeah.

I agree. And this presumption that everybody, every child is supposed to know what they're supposed to do all the time. And they're supposed to know where you are as an adult. I had a hard day, so don't give me this, right? Meanwhile, they have no idea that you had a hard day. They're just being a kid, but your expectations are are too great for the child's ability.

No, exactly.

at one time.

that's the other thing. It's like we're trying to shove all this information into children. I got to get all this information because it's required in the curriculum. Well, I hate to tell you, but if you're trying to go on and on and on about a topic and the kids aren't getting it, I mean, give it up. It's not working. It's not. You know, it's just not working. So.

Yeah.

Get it up. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Let's talk a little bit about the behaviors. I have so many questions, I, know, in that regard, let's just talk about a scenario where a child's acting out and is having a meltdown, right? You know, cause I come across this, I've came across it many times in my career. come across with families whose child is maybe having some of these problems at school. They may not be seeing it at home, but it's happening at school, et cetera. What are we?

What do we want from teachers and the schools when it comes to these situations where a child's having a meltdown, perhaps? What do we want them, how do we want them to approach it? Because, know, there's, again, there's the traditional ways and things that we expect to do and the format that we follow, but what are we really ultimately trying to get at those moments, the teachers to do to be able to have that child be safe and be able to deescalate? How do we go about that?

think the ultimate thing is we want to teach the child how to regulate themselves. So, I mean, we first have to co-regulate with them and we have to stay calm because we are the role model. I, last year, had an opportunity to review incident reports where

The police had been called on children for committing a crime in a school and I reviewed over like a hundred incident reports in every single one the child began to become dysregulated and the adult started getting dysregulated and the child got more dysregulated and the adult got more dysregulated

until it happened that the child hit the teacher. And the child had a police call. When you looked at every single one of those incidents, the key was the adult did not stay calm, focused, and caring. Instead, they got uptight, upset, and therefore the child got more.

Mm-hmm.

upset. So this whole notion about emotional regulation, I mean we've also got to talk about it with adults because nothing against them because we all lose our cool. I mean we're human beings. There are times when we lose our cool, but when we see ourselves doing that, we need to try to get ourselves away from the situation and away because that child is seeing

Of course. Absolutely.

that we're becoming dysregulated. So that's why I say, you know, it's just excellent for a school to have a system in place where a teacher that thinks they're about to lose it has a way to call for assistance so that they can just go take a very short break and come back to the situation because that's exactly what's happening is our adults are not, they get uptight.

way.

The child starts misbehaving and they get uptight and the child knows it and it's a vicious cycle.

I recall early on in my career, I had a student who was troubled and acted out a lot and was very physical. there was a time where he went and he was angry at something that happened. And he went and directed it towards one of the girls who had cerebral palsy and she was in a wheelchair. And he just walked up to her and punched her in the face. So I saw red and I took him and put him in the timeout room, closed the door and my boss was coming. I walked away. I said, you go because.

Mm-hmm.

In

those moments, you have to know when to call it and when it's overwhelming. It's true. Yeah. It was just, that was a really upsetting time. And again, not being really taught how to handle those situations, what do you do? I just knew instinctively that I better walk away.

It's good.

And I always say my

best behavior management is something that was taught to me by a dear friend of mine, Eleanor Getslow, who is now deceased. She was a born comedian who worked with children with behavior problems. She was good. She was just, uh, was excellent. But she always said, if you remember nothing, remember this as the best behavior intervention. Be positive, be brief and be gone. And what is that? Think about it.

That's perfect.

⁓

So you want the child to do

I love it.

something, you frame it in a positive way. You say, I need you to start the math. And it's short, brief, because our kids are probably, you know, a lot of our children now, especially after the pandemic are having significant issues with auditory processing. So you can't yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak to the kids because they're not processing it. So.

You're positive, brief, and then you leave. You move away from the child. So the child's at the desk. You say, I need you to start your math. And you move away from the child because that allows them, first of all, wait time to process what you said to them and to save face. Because all of our kids have to save face. And that's what it allows them to do. I mean, and that's...

Yeah. Interesting.

It's respecting

them.

Yeah, it's all about respecting them because what you don't ever want to do is hover over them. Like, I'm going to stand here until you start that math. Well, if you think they're going to start the math, you might be sitting there all day because you've just gotten yourself into power struggle and power struggles don't work. And that's one thing that I see some people falling into that trap.

Right.

right.

of getting into power struggles. Wait a minute, I'm the adult and I'm going to tell you what to do. If they don't want to do it, you can't make them. That's why the be positive, be brief and be gone works.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's that I because I speak to parents about that stuff all the time. And it's just like, you know, yes, they want what they want. And you should do it. And it's like, well, it's not going to happen that way, you know. And if it doesn't, it doesn't mean that you have to then raise your temperature more. And then you're going to what are you going to do to the child in that in that moment? And what done what is what are we leaving with our kids to, you know, ultimately, when we're reacting like that constantly, what are we reading? What are we relieving our children the impression of us as a parent?

No, no it isn't.

you know, what then they take with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Living in fear is a horrible experience, And it does nothing positive. And just, what, so you can feel good in the moment that you won it over a kid? You know?

authoritarian.

Yet

in fact you don't because have you ever gone home after you know a day of teaching and you did get into that negative mode? You don't feel good at the end of the day. When you feel good at the end of the day or when you go into a meeting you know and it starts getting negative and you're getting into that negative stuff and you're looking at all the everything that's going wrong when you feel better is when you've had a

good day and lot of positive things happened.

Well, I love the idea of preserving the dignity of the child, you know, that's so critical. Yeah, because then they're more likely to come back, you know, with a better effort at some point.

He was half-born.

Exactly, exactly. And they know you're not going to

embarrass them in front of their peers because that's one thing we never ever want to do is embarrass a child or an adult in front of their peers.

Exactly.

Right.

Sure, sure, it's degrading. But then we talk about kids that don't have that necessarily, that awareness, that social awareness, kids who are a little more involved, they're autistic or some are neurodiverse situation where they're a little bit less aware of that part, the social part and how they're looking, but now they're just in the moment, right? So what do we do then? That's another opportunity to kind of just.

Exactly.

use do we talk about comp do we use common language keep it brief and then step away as well in that situation

And sometimes we need to step away or we need to give them a tool to regulate themselves. So I'm thinking about, in one of the schools I was working, this young lady, could have rather big meltdowns. as a teacher, you learn to look at the warning signs, like the things that are in your

Yeah.

This teacher was wonderful at looking at the warning signs when this young lady saw they were like in group time and they're all working together. And she saw this young lady was just about to lose it. She would just send a signal to the paraprofessional. Paraprofessional would stay very calm and just take this young lady over to, they had a swing, a portable swing in the classroom.

And the young lady would swing for a couple of minutes, not long, because one of the things that we're realizing is we couldn't let them swing to avoid engagement, but it's short amount of time, couple minutes, she would swing, come back to the group. She was calmed down. Now, as it progressed, the young lady learned

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

when she needed to use the swing and she would go on her own, only knew only a couple of minutes and went back to the group. But that's that's what she needed. So I always say also look for those things that tend to calm students. And then I'm a firm believer in you build in mindful moments. Just when you see a whole group, it's like really frustrated because of, you know, this.

academic skill is it's challenging to them. Take a minute and do a mindful moment. Maybe have them take a few deep breaths or whatever they need to do.

Yeah, I'm glad you said that. I I don't know if you know much that much about me, but that's kind of my practice is based off like a mindful protocol. So for me, it's like, you know, that plot that pause is that's everything, you know, taking that moment to pause.

exact level.

Exactly, and it's

actually, if you think about it, we're spending a lot of money now on teaching adults how to do this. Well, it would have been wonderful if we'd have taught children, you know, along the way to look for, you know, to engage in those mindful moments that they're still engaged.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, and

I know someone who's a teacher and she actually is mindfully certified in some aspect of mindfulness and she actually teaches it. They have classes in the school where they actually have the time where they take the kids out and they focus on this stuff. And I think that's the kind of stuff that I know a lot of the people in power today look on as touchy-feely, woky-woky feeling stuff and they don't like it. But that's like we're ignoring that we're human and we need these things.

Well,

You know, you're not just robots. Yeah.

exactly, mean, we all need it. Exactly, exactly. mean, because we all know and frankly, we've learned, like I always say to people, you know, if I have to do an Excel spreadsheet, I don't like them. And it reminds me of doing a budget. I just don't want to do it. I can do it for a little while, but then I have to take a buck. I mean, I got to calm myself because that was a hard task for me to do and I didn't like it in the beginning. So.

Mm-hmm. I'm not gonna like it more of it Yeah

Yeah, I mean, so I just

need to take a few moments to kind of calm myself down.

So when we talk about, we're approaching an hour, so I know we can't get to a lot of these questions. And what I would love to do is have you back for more because there's so many areas to discuss and I wonder if that's something we can do in the future if you'd come back. Great. So one of the things I wanna talk about, because we were talking about the deescalation and what that actually looks like in a heated moment, right? So if a child is actually coming at you,

Thanks

and hitting you for a parent and a teacher too. What would you say to that?

Well, first of all, I think you have to be so careful now about laying hands on a child because in fact, you think that's calming to them, it may escalate a problem even bigger. So sometimes you need to get the child into another area without laying a hand, if you can.

Mm-hmm. gosh.

I always liked at that point, I build choices in also. might say, there someone you would like to talk to or can you and I take a walk? Give them a choice because then they are in power. You've given them control. thinking about, or would you like to draw about it? ⁓

Mm-hmm.

You know, I'm now a firm believer, I think, in giving kids sketchbooks so when they're getting frustrated, hey, it's OK to doodle, it's OK to draw, it's OK to write. Get it out. Get it out. So I think choices sometimes helps. There, you know, now a lot of places are moving away from physical restraint. Some of them are using blocking pads so they never lay a hand.

Mm-hmm.

on a child because you do have to be very careful, particularly if a child has experienced trauma because they may fight. They're going to fight back. ⁓ So I think sometimes if you can just give that child some space, unless they're being disruptive in the classroom. I mean, if you had a classroom with 25 kids and you have a child blowing, you have to be concerned about the other children. But when you get them to another place, like can we take a walk?

Sure. Sure.

the safety of everyone.

There's something I can get to talk to you. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Right.

There's one situation I'll just throw at you that came up recently where a student needed to go home early. So we're breaking the routine, right? They like school, whatever, they have to go home and didn't want to go home. started hitting out.

Mm-hmm.

I know you do a lot of these 60 second strategies I don't know if that applies in the situation if you talk about a couple of those but in that situation What do you think would be the best way because I feel like transitioning you have to prepare? Ahead of time for things like that, right? You need to have social stories or whatever it is all these things that say, okay We're gonna and we'll work through this will model it will act it out So when that time comes, you know what the expectations are now if that's not being done We still have to get this child

You do. You do.

home, right? So what in that in that moment what would your response how would you look at it?

home. Yeah.

Well, and again,

I think you hit the nail on the head, pre-correction, behavior rehearsal. Hey, today we're going home early, so this is what we need to do. And I know you can do it and blah, blah, blah, but let's say you haven't done it and they ain't going home. I they're gonna, I'm like, I can remember working with a young lady who was, oh, she was 290 pounds. I mean,

⁓ Yeah, exactly.

⁓

And I mean

man.

when she'd plop on the ground, oh boy, I mean you weren't going to get her up when she was 290 pounds, it wasn't going to happen. But sometimes you just had to give her, or this student, you might just say, you know what, I'll give you a couple minutes to think on this. And you let me know, you know, when you're ready. Or hey, you know what?

There was no... It was over. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

you're going to go home, how would you like to take this or this home with you? Build in a choice. Give them time and build in a choice. ⁓ Yeah, so I think that those are, you know, are very helpful. That are fairly easy strategies, but sometimes in the moment, you know, they're hard.

That's a good idea.

Love it. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

to deal with and when they're on the floor and they aren't going to get up, good luck because you're not going to get them. And if you stand over them, you're really never going to get them up. mean, so you've got to move away, you know? And then maybe you come back and say, you know what, it's time to go home. Would you like to take this or this home?

Yeah.

Good luck.

Of course, it's intimidating. Yeah.

Okay, I like that. Yeah, I I think that, parents and teachers are, they're putting these situations in the moment and especially a parent.

They're not trained, So wouldn't that be something, If we actually had teachers who were actually taking classes and instructed and modeling and working with each other in peer programs, To be able to go through these scenarios so when they come up, they're not so traumatic for them because it's part of the job. It doesn't happen in colleges when you're going for your masters. They don't do these things, Yet you're thrown into a classroom, expected to be able to figure it out, And it's so unfair, and then,

Exactly.

everybody is kind of left up to their own devices, right? And there's no consistency. Right, and then the child goes from one class one year to the next class. It's a completely different teacher, completely different approach. Stuff boggles my mind.

Yeah, it's kind of like, well, we'll figure out.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, and you know what I say because I was working with this young man. had attention deficit disorder and he had been in an elementary program where he had one teacher all day, maybe go out to music art, PE, but he was in one classroom all day. So he got to know the teacher and the teacher was flexible. She was really good at meeting his needs. Well, then he goes,

to a school building that was a junior high and they had seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. So he's changing classes. He has ADHD and he's changing classes six times a day. Now guaranteed the first period teacher had a different set of rules than the fifth period teacher did than the sixth period did. So I mean he was

He was wild. I thought, okay. So I sat down with a group of teachers who were very open to suggestions because they wanted to figure out what to do. said, could you take at the beginning of your class period, you know, and they had their rules posted, their expectations posted. I said, could you take just 30 seconds and say, so glad to see you.

Desperate. Yeah.

Now remember in my class, I want you to raise your hand when you have a question. When you want to sharpen your pencil, ask you, I want you to get permission. So just took those few minutes to say in my class, this is what I expect. Pointed to the expectations that were up there visually and all of the teachers did it and, you know, we...

came back and said, okay, where are the holes in the system? They said, we got it. They said, this not only changed the behavior of him, but it changed the behavior of the other kids because, you know, and now we have all these kids that have problems with cognitive, what I call cognitive flexibility, moving from one thing to another, they just can't do it. So you have to build in, you know, those instructional components, like these are my expectations.

it's interesting.

you have to teach direct teaching things that we just always just assumed when we were younger, right? They were just incidental learning. All that stuff just happened and now we have to teach it directly because these kids are just so dysregulated.

And we have to exactly and,

you know, we can't say, high school kids know this. No, they don't. kind of like I do a lot of work with high school teachers and I'll say, now you need to give one step directions because we're really finding that so many of our kids have trouble with auditory processing because they're used to being on social media. They don't have to.

Yeah, they don't. ⁓

attend to somebody talking any of that. And they'll say, at a high school, they should be able to do three step directions. I said, well, are they? No. I said, one step directions, one step directions. It's going to change behavior too, because first of all, they're not remembering, you know, even if they want it, they can't remember what you just told them to do. I was working with a young man.

He was actually 17 years old and he had a 92nd processing delay. So you could request he do something and would just stand and look at you and everybody thought he was obnoxious. He just isn't doing what he's supposed to do. And it wasn't that at all. he had a significant processing delay, but you could watch because I would, I would give him things that I knew he loved to do and was motivated and was something easy. And I watched it go in.

And he was concentrating on it and 90 seconds later, what you requested him to do would come out. Now that's a really big delayed processing time in a world that is like rush, rush, rush, get this done so we can move on to something else. I mean, and he couldn't do it and he wasn't being obnoxious. mean, but everybody was saying, well, he just won't follow my directions. wasn't, he wouldn't, he couldn't.

Yeah, that is.

for sure.

No.

And that's where it's so critical to be able to talk to the kids and find out what's happening for them. And I know it's hard because there's so many. Classes are overcrowded, things like that. I know it's a lot. It's a big burden. But it still has to be done. Somehow it needs to be changed. The system needs to be flipped 180 degrees towards.

Well, and I think wouldn't

it be wonderful if we were in a world where our kids knew what it was that helped them and could convey that to the teacher. I mean, I remember I had, and this was in one of my college classes I was teaching, and she came in and she said, is it okay if I sit in the back of the room? I said, we don't have seating arrangements. I said, you can sit wherever you want. And...

She came up to me after class and she said, thank you so much. She said, I was physically abused. And if I have to sit in the front of the room, which is what we preferential seating, we put kids in the front of the room, but you put me in the front of the room. I'm always worried about what's going on behind me. And I think maybe other kids are making fun of me because I can't see them.

This is the front, right? With an assumption.

see what's going on, she said, so I have to have everybody in my field of vision. And I said, thank you for telling me that because in the process of her telling me that, it also helped me with some other students as well to think, don't make kids sit in the front of the room. That may not be appropriate for this particular student, but I was thinking, wow, she knew and she could communicate it to me.

Gotcha.

Yeah, right, so teaching children how to regulate themselves and be able to communicate, that should be something we instill early on. Yeah, absolutely.

Exactly, exactly. Because I

think sometimes we don't really spend a lot of time teaching our children about what their disability might entail. ⁓ know, like a child with ADHD who cannot sit in a seat for X number of minutes. But can I stand up on my desk and work? Yes.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And I just think that all of those things we have to teach children because our ultimate goal is to get them to be independent and putting that independence is being able to identify their own needs. And when they identify their own needs to be able to tell somebody that. I mean, it's common sense, but it's something we need to start doing at an early age.

Yeah, it's interesting. because in certain areas we over teach and we expect kids to know who they are as a football player or as a performer or something like that, but as a human, as who they are, their individual, we don't take the time for that, right? And that needs to be the priority. Just to let you know, I didn't get to one question that I had written down for you.

Exactly, Yeah, yeah.

we've already spent an hour and we haven't gotten to one of the questions ready for you just to show you that this what this conversation means to me.

It's fun, yeah. I mean, it is

fun to talk about and brainstorm. You know, some of the things that we can all do together and we can all learn from each other.

Yeah, I love it.

Right, right. Maybe I'll ask you one short quick question. Maybe you could give a quick answer. What's one belief you wish every parent teacher would let go of immediately?

Thank

the negativity. Negativity, yeah. I think that we have to build on the strengths of our students. You know, and sometimes that's hard for people to do because they look for the negative. So if we could just get away from that and think about what the child does well.

negativity.

That's the perfect conclusion to this right now. Part one. Part one, yes. I want you back. I've got so much. If you saw my desk and all the questions and papers and references, I could talk to you for four hours.

Okay, you got a deal.

What's your-

I know we could,

I could talk, same here. I could talk to you about, yeah.

So great.

It's great. Thank you so much for taking the time today. And it's such a pleasure to meet you and really an honor because you've done so much and to see somebody who's made so much difference in this field and is out there still working after all these years. How many years have you been doing this now?

You're welcome.

Well, over 40.

But because I, you know, I believe that we all have to be lifelong learners. So we have to continue to study. We and we just have to we have to stay current too.

Yeah,

absolutely, absolutely. Is there information where people can, find you, a website, things like that?

I actually

do have a website www.bevjohns.org

What's it called?

Okay, and I'll put that in the show notes. ⁓ Are you on any of the other socials at all, Instagram? Okay, good, okay.

Okay.

I'm on Facebook as Bev Johns, ⁓ LinkedIn

as Bev Johns. Okay. ⁓

Okay, all right, I'll post all those things.

All right, I'll be in touch with you again for sure. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure. Thank you too, I'll talk to you soon.

Okay, sure. Thank you. Thank you.

Have a good rest of your day.