Sally Sits on My Shoulder

Bev, thank you for participating in this conversation.

Glad to be here!

How did you get into the field of education with children with emotional and academic challenges?

When I was in college, I was an elementary education major and was really enjoying that work. But I came from a family that did not have a lot of resources, so I had to work my way through college. I’m really glad I did because it made me appreciate my education even more. I had a variety of jobs. One was working at a facility with young males, ages 9-14, who had already been adjudicated and were living in a facility for young adjudicated delinquents. I loved that job, and the more challenging the behaviors, the better for me. I found the field very exciting. When I finished my undergraduate work in elementary education, I went on to graduate school to train for work with students with emotional disturbances.

One of my other jobs as an undergraduate—and my parents went to their graves never knowing this happened because I might not be in the field today if they had ever found out—was in a community center in a fairly rough neighborhood in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. There was a rule that the kids had to show an ID issued through the community center before they could come in. One night I was working when kids were scheduled to come in to shoot baskets. A young man came to the door and he didn’t have his ID. I said, “Can I see your ID?” He said, “I don’t have one, lady.” I said, “Well, you know, I have to see your ID or you can’t stay here.” He proceeded to pull a gun on me. Now being a young, naive individual, I laughed because I thought the gun was a toy and said, “Oh, for crying out loud, put that silly thing away and go on home.” The kid looked at me with a confused look and left. Now I found out later this was not a toy gun but a real gun. I was a bit shaky after that, but I think it probably showed the importance of humor and not getting upset in a crisis situation. We’ve all learned that you can never let the kids know that you’re afraid of them. If you let them know you’re afraid of them, they’re going to take over. That’s the one and only time I ever had a gun pulled on me.

Thinking back to your students, who was your most memorable student?

Definitely my most memorable student was a little girl named Sally, who was coming to school for the first time at the age of 10. I started teaching a special education class of children who were autistic-like, because many years ago they didn’t use the terminology autism. I started teaching the class about the time Illinois put into effect a mandate that all children had the right to go to school. Sally had very significant disabilities. She had behavior problems, an un-repaired cleft palate, no speech and language, and cerebral palsy. Every year, Sally’s mother would take her into the school building and the principal would take one look at her and say, “She has too many disabilities. She can’t go to school. Take her home.” Sally’s mother had 10 children and had a lot to do, so she would take the principal’s word and she would take Sally back home. Then the next year, the first day of the school year, she’d take Sally back to school to register Sally for school. The principal would take one look at her and say, “Sally can’t go to school. She has very significant disabilities. We don’t serve children like Sally at school.”

This went on until the time she was 10 years old, when Illinois passed a mandate saying that all children had the right to go to school. Sally got to come to my classroom for the first time. The lesson that taught me was that if there are not laws to protect children, there are children who will not get services. Sally has really driven not only my career working with children with disabilities but also my legislative advocacy work, because what happened to Sally’s family should never happen to any family. As I do my advocacy work in the state capital and in D.C., I always think of Sally and the reason that we have to have laws that protect children.

So, it’s almost like Sally sits on your shoulder.

Exactly, Sally does sit on my shoulder every day. That’s right.

On a personal level when I first started teaching, no one told me that if you’re going to work with children who were aggressive, you needed to dress prepared. Of course, I was a brand new teacher and I wanted to go to school looking my very best, and so sure enough, I wore big, dangly earrings to school. Now, I had little Jimmy in the same class as Sally. I had seven children, no aide, and the children had some pretty aggressive behaviors. One of the things that Jimmy liked to do was pull, and he would just pull anything that he could pull. One day, sure enough, I went to school with my big, dangly earrings on, and Jimmy reached over and grabbed the earring. He permanently slit my ear. Actually, after all of these years, it’s a permanent slit that’s all the way out. That reminds me that when you’re going to work with children who are aggressive, you need to plan ahead, have all of the contingency plans, and you don’t wear big, fancy earrings. So, that’s just a fun memory of working with little Jimmy, who had some aggressive behaviors.

That’s a good story. How would you describe your career in the field?

Oh, it has been a varied career. I started my teaching career working with children who were autistic-like, which was a wonderful lesson for me. In that first class I had seven children, no aide, and I developed really strong kidneys because I could never go to the bathroom. Nobody ever wanted to watch my children. From the time they arrived until the time they went home, I didn’t get to go to the bathroom. That, incidentally, taught me the importance of teachers needing paraprofessionals in the classroom. That class was a wonderful experience with tremendous families searching for answers. I think of all the families now who search for answers for children with autism. They were searching for answers back then and were very cooperative parents. I learned the lesson of the importance of working together with the families.

Next I taught a diagnostic classroom, where we brought children in from the public schools. We did a lot of teaching probes, wrote a prescription for learning, and sent them back to their classrooms. That was a very exciting time. It was an excellent teaching experience that taught me the importance of the diagnostic-prescriptive approach and knowing as much as possible about the children. Unfortunately, we’ve lost sight of that, but it was really important to do all kinds of teaching probes to find out what worked best, what didn’t work, why it didn’t work, how the children learned, etc.

Then I took a job supervising programs for children with learning disabilities and behavior disorders at a time when [these types of] programs were fairly new. That was a very exciting time because we were developing classes from the ground up.

I also started a public alternative school for children with very significant behavior problems. I started that school with two children whose parents knew the children were not making it in a public school behavior disorders class. They didn’t want their children placed in residential treatment, so we were looking for something in between. I started the program with two children, and it grew to 88 students. I spent many years there, and then took early retirement because I wanted more time to write.

Now I teach part-time at the college, do a lot of writing, and still work with schools. During that whole time, I was also very legislatively active and have seen the passage of a lot of laws that protect children with disabilities. That’s exciting, and I still do a lot of legislative work.

What events, policies, innovations, and people have had the most influence on your professional life?

Certainly the events and policies related to the passage of laws. The first being Public Law 94-142, then working on and giving input on each reauthorization of that law, and also other pieces of legislation that impact children with disabilities. I worked on the legislation in Illinois on positive behavior interventions. I also worked on a piece of legislation in the state of Illinois which says that for students with IEPs, their course requirements are spelled out in their IEP and they graduate with the regular high school diploma. That’s very exciting. It’s also kind of funny because I was explaining it one day to a principal. He said, “That’s the stupidest law I ever heard of. Why should special education kids get a regular diploma? I wonder who did that?” I said, “As a matter of fact, I wrote the legislation, thank you very much.” I couldn’t resist.

As for influential people, I had a wonderful instructor in graduate school. I studied the majority of my coursework in applied behavioral analysis with a lady by the name of Beth Sulzer-Azaroff. I loved her and she taught me everything I know about positive reinforcement. She practiced what she preached, so she was a good model. She taught me the importance of not only telling you how to use positive reinforcement but modeling how to use positive reinforcement. She is a wonderful teacher, who’s still very active and still writing. She’s a wonderful lady.

What has had the greatest positive impact on the field in your opinion?

I believe it is the dedicated people who work every day with children with disabilities. It’s clearly that and it’s also the provision of laws that protect the children and their families and the people who work with the children.

What, in your opinion, has had the greatest negative impact on the field?

Certainly I lived through the early 1980s where I was reminded that when they giveth the law, they can taketh it away. During that period of time, we had a real threat to Public Law 94-142 as an attempt was made to eliminate it. There was a piece of legislation that said we want to de-mandate, de-regulate, and [provide] block grants. Those are all dirty words in the field of special education, because de-mandate means schools don’t have to provide services, de-regulation means there are no regulations, and block grant means give the schools money and let them spend it the way they want. Those are all very bad terms and those threats continue to be present today. I think there are many threats to public education, and one of the things that really saddens me is that I would really like to see us focus on what’s happening positively in the schools and positively in the field of special education rather than the negativism that is out there today that involves so much teacher bashing and parent bashing. I think those are real threats to our field.

What will it take to get that turned around?

As a matter of fact, that was a session we were doing today, talking about what can educators do. We need to stand up, be proud of the work we are doing, and we need to be spreading the word, the good news, about what we are doing. We all have to become advocates. Even though people say, “I don’t want to get involved in politics,” the bottom line is that we cannot afford not to get involved in politics because there are these threats to the schools and to teachers and to children and to families. Those are scary things for me. Every time we face a reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, I become very nervous, because there are those individuals who would like to take away some of the rights of children. That’s negative.

What do you see for the future of the field of education of children with emotional and behavioral challenges?

Well, I would like to see the continuation of the laws that protect children. I would also like to see a better understanding of children who have emotional and behavioral challenges. I think we have more children coming into the schools with mental health needs and those needs are not being addressed. For whatever reason, whether it’s lack of resources, whether it’s lack of knowledge, I think it is very important that we have those services that children need, that we have that continuum of placement options for students.

The other thing that I want to see is schools where children will no longer be suspended. I think that’s a very negative practice. It is one that does not help children and is, in fact, one that ruins relationships with children. In my ideal world, I would like to see a time when we keep all students in school. We do not suspend and we do not expel children from school, and we have more schools using positive behavior interventions with students.

What advice would you offer to those just entering the field?

I would say you’re facing a very exciting world, and we really need good teachers in the field. I believe there’s no more exciting field than working with students with behavioral challenges. I wish you all of the excitement and enthusiasm, and I also encourage you to stand proud of your profession and to take your profession and the concept of the individualized program for all children seriously and work to meet the individual needs of children.

Thank you.