Finding One’s Anchor: A Conversation With Reece Peterson

How did you get into the field of education of children with emotional and behavioral disorders?

Well, it’s a bit of a contorted story. I actually finished college at the University of Chicago in public affairs, public policy, and then went on to a Master of Arts in Teaching program in secondary social studies at Brown University. I was not able to find a job at that time, so I ended up going into a special education program where there was support for graduate students.

That interest was probably triggered when I took an undergraduate course from Dr. Bruno Bettelheim at the University of Chicago. At that time, Bettelheim was well known and even controversial in his focus on youngsters with autism. He taught a course on Freudian psychology that piqued my interest in mental illness and emotional disturbance. So, when I had this opportunity for further training, it seemed like the thing to do. I did that for a year, got teaching certification in special education, and ended up working in what was essentially a resource setting in the Boston, Massachusetts, area for a couple of years. That was just before passage of P. L. 94-142—what we now know as IDEA. I was probably one of the few teachers who never did an IEP in my special education teaching career.

Yes, but you did take a class from the “father of the refrigerator mother.” (Note: Bettelheim championed this theory on the origins of autism in the 1950s.)

When the opportunity arose to take an undergraduate course taught by Dr. Bruno Bettelheim on Freudian psychology, I jumped at the opportunity. It was a lecture course with about 80 or more undergraduates participating. Dr. Bettelheim was well known at the time, and I believe had recently published his 1967 book The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self (New York: Free Press).

This was in the heyday of the Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago. Kids with these extreme forms of psychological difficulties were not well understood, and were lumped into a category of “infantile schizophrenia.”

It was only in the late 1960s and 1970s that autism had been established as a separate syndrome, and this course was well before Bettelheim had become associated with the “refrigerator mother” theory of the cause of this syndrome. That controversy erupted in the 1970s, and occurred when the beliefs shifted to view this as a neurodevelopmental disorder.

However, the course had another controversy. I believe that Bettelheim had made controversial remarks in support of the Vietnam War, and many radical students took this course as an opportunity to confront him on his political views. He also had stirred controversy as a supporter of a Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem, which was viewed as a criticism of Jews, even though he had been brought up as a Jew and had spent time in the Dachau or Buchenwald concentration camps. Bettelheim was released before the start of World War II, and drew on his experience in concentration camps for some of his later work.

I was interested in taking the course because of Dr. Bettelheim, but equally because of the focus on reading the original works of Sigmund Freud. Bettelheim grew up in Austria and was a younger contemporary of Freud’s in Austria in the 1920s. That was the time that psychoanalysis was being developed. We read about eight of Freud’s books, and Bettelheim added his own analysis, examples, and interpretation of Freud’s works in his lectures. However, he did not talk much at all about his work at the Orthogenic School. I should mention that about the same time I was taking Bettelheim’s course, I also attended a lecture by Victor Frankl, who also had experienced concentration camps and had developed his psychological views in part based on that experience.

This course certainly solidified my interest in understanding psychology, although the connection with children with emotional disturbance came later.

These experiences must have had a great influence on how you approached children who have experienced trauma.

Exactly.

Take us forward and describe the rest of your career.

After teaching in Massachusetts, I returned to Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota, where I was a doctoral student of Dr. Maynard Reynolds, working extensively on reintegrating—“mainstreaming”—kids in special education self-contained programs back into their home schools and home classrooms.

I worked with Dr. Reynolds and was engaged with his projects, but I also worked a great deal with Dr. Frank Wood. Frank’s area of specialization was working with kids with EBD. I also worked with Dr. Bruce Balow, who had interests in educational policy. In fact, we created what may have been the first course on special education law with Bob and Mary Kay Zabel, who were graduate students with me.

After that, I took a position at Drake University for 1 year while finishing my dissertation and then moved on to the University of Nebraska, where I have remained ever since. I didn’t expect to do that, but that’s the way it turned out.

My career has really been a blend of things. It’s been a bit about policy issues that have emerged, especially around kids with EBD, and also about ways to best serve those kids in the classroom. So, I’ve been involved in teacher preparation, research and writing, policy issues, especially involving kids with EBD.

Many careers take unexpected turns. It would seem that your focus on policy issues might be such a turn. Tell us more how this focus on policy developed.

I am not exactly sure when or how my interest in policy developed, and in the beginning it was not a conscious decision. I have always been interested in social science-sociology, psychology, history, etc. In college we took a variety of social science blocks and we had several federal policy officials come to meet students in informal discussion sessions. During that time a new undergraduate major in applied social sciences called “Public Affairs” was created and that became my major. After graduating, I completed a Master of Arts in Teaching in social studies, and then the equivalent of a master’s degree in special education. When I enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Minnesota, my interested continued and I was a part of a team which created a course in special education law with Professor Bruce Balow. My advisor, Professor Maynard Reynolds, and I worked on the related policy issues of mainstreaming, deinstitutionalization, and “least restrictive alternative.”

When I became a faculty member at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, my interest in policy continued. I was able to become affiliated with the Center on Children, Families and the Law. This involved in being involved with a various seminars and other activities on a variety of social policy issues affecting children across multiple academic disciplines led by Professor Gary Melton, who also directed a program in psychology and the law. I also became a part of the advocacy and governmental relations cadre for both CEC and the Council for Children with Behavior Disorders (CCBD) over many years. I ended up also taking 30 credits of coursework at the UNL College of Law. For some time now my research has focused around school discipline issues and policies, as well as policies around the use of physical restraint and seclusion procedures in schools, but I have a continuing interest in a variety of policy issues around special education, and other policy issues affecting children and youth.

You mentioned Frank Wood (see Zabel, Kaff, & Teagarden, 2011). Were you involved in his series of institutes in emotional disturbance?

Yes, I was involved, and I remember meeting several people, Mike Nelson (see Zabel, Kaff, & Teagarden 2015) being one example. There were several others who have been colleagues ever since.

Maynard Reynolds also sponsored institutes that some faculty of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln attended, so I had an early connection with them as well. That period—the 1970s—was right after the passage of the landmark special education law, so there was a lot of freshness, newness, enthusiasm about how to figure out how to implement the new law and to be effective. It was a very exciting time.

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

Well, as I’ve previously mentioned, Maynard Reynolds, Bruce Balow, and Frank Wood were influential in shaping where I went, and I met some colleagues in the University of Minnesota graduate program. For example, I’ve worked with Bob and Mary Kay Zabel ever since, and they ended up nearby at Kansas State University. When I was at Drake, I met Carl Smith, who was with the Iowa Department of Education at the time and we have had a close relationship ever since. This set of colleagues expanded to Rich Simpson (see Zabel, Kaff, & Teagarden, 2016) at the University of Kansas and others who created the first of what has become the Midwest Symposium for Leadership in Behavioral Disorders (MSLBD), an organization that has run annual conferences for some 30 years. There were others, such as Sharon Huntze, a faculty member at the University of Missouri, who were in that group.

Together we developed a regional network and really supported each other in our careers. We had similar interests and involvements not only with MSLBD, but also with CCBD. So, it was really a kind of serendipity that has turned out to be a really supportive set of colleagues who have had a lot of influence on my career over a period of time. Legal and policy issues have also been of high interest to me.

Steven Forness (see Zabel, Kaff, & Teagarden, 2014) is one who has spoken about the need for a strong support network when you work with behaviorally challenged kids.

Exactly true.

What do you think has had the greatest positive influence impact on the field?

That’s a difficult question. Certainly the hard work of many people in leadership positions in this arena has focused a lot of attention on needs of kids with EBD. My life was molded by several historical events: the civil rights era, the anti–Vietnam War efforts, and a new law about disabilities. One of my friends once said something that has stuck with me and has been kind of a goalpost: that I get to work on the civil rights of these kids every day. It’s been important to me to figure out how we can make their lives easier, better, more effective, and that they are not discriminated against as a result of being in special education and having mental illness. Those early influences have played a big role in my professional life.

What’s had the greatest negative impact on the field?

I think recently there’s been some diminished advocacy and emphasis on special education. That’s not necessarily unexpected. Because special education has now been around for a long time, it’s no longer the new and fresh thing. What I fear is that we’ll end up backsliding toward some of the mistakes that were made in the past where kids were excluded and essentially not treated because they weren’t the friendliest, easiest kids to be around. So, my biggest concern is in that area. It’s not really a particular problem, but just a generic ongoing concern about losing focus on what’s really important for this group of kids.

What you’re saying leads to our next two questions. In some ways the field has now entered middle age, the initial youthful enthusiasm has passed and we’re finding it difficult to make the next generational changes. What do you see in the future for education of children with EBD? What kinds of challenges?

In spite of some of the problems that we’re encountering, I am relatively optimistic, particularly when I see the new generation of special educators working with schools. They have great enthusiasm, great values, and are really trying to accomplish great things with kids. To me that is very energizing and hopefully it will counteract some of the concerns that I also feel for this field.

I think it’s a good entryway to help everyone who works in this field feel anchored about their long-term goals. It’s important to find ways to measure how one is having an impact and make sure each of us is contributing in ways that make sense to us. I try to think about this on a daily, weekly, monthly basis: Am I doing something that will be important? Is it valuable in terms of helping kids be in a better position in schools? Obviously, on a day-to-day basis that’s difficult to measure, but in the longer term, if you keep asking that question, I think it’s helpful, because it offers you a goal to move toward. You can judge your own work, your own career, on the basis of whether or not you are doing things that might have a positive impact for kids in the future.

That’s what I hope for the field. I’d like to be able to convey that to others. Find that anchor that permits you to have a career doing different kinds of work, whether it’s directly with kids in school situations or in policy or research, but try to figure out what those things are.

In some ways, those can be merged. You were talking about your work involving seclusion and restraint. That started with the research, it involved providing services to kids, and also testifying before Congress to affect policies. When you look back on your career, which do you see as your legacy project?

Well, I don’t know. I’ve begun to think about what a legacy means as I age, but I don’t necessarily see this as a legacy. It was just a happenstance that I entered the work on physical restraint and seclusion, but it has been very productive and useful for me and, I hope, for the field to provide guidance and advice on this important topic. It comes back to that issue of trying to protect kids who would have been otherwise abused and to also think about safety. As you say, that work mixes some of my interests in policy issues as well as training educators in good practices to ensure better outcomes for the kids. So, yes, that kind of happened by chance. The blend of those interests were a part of my career and maybe my policy background contributed to that. My testimony at the congressional hearing in 2009 was obviously a pinnacle event. I was terrified, but on the other hand, I was pulled through by a desire to make sure the kids were going to get a good deal and the hope that the testimony and the work would ultimately lead to better practices.

What advice would you offer to those entering the field?

I have thought about this issue for a while. One thing that I briefly touched on earlier is finding an anchor: What is it about this field that is going to motivate you not just today or tomorrow, but 10 years from now? If you can identify that, I think you will be able to move forward and deal with the ups and downs of day-to-day work in this field. In my case, it was this idea of trying to judge one’s ability to ultimately help kids. I think that’s a common theme. So, finding that out about oneself is probably the best advice that I have. Then, know what talents or areas of expertise you have and can develop. A lot happens by luck or by chance, but I think it is also the skills that you can develop and blend together that make a big difference. So look for those interests, motivations, and personal attributes, and find ways to develop your skills.

It’s like the MSLBD keynote speaker said earlier: Focus on the positives, because positives give hope. (Note: Shane Lopez delivered the keynote address titled “Positive Education” on February 27, 2016.)

Yes, and I think that having hope means having goals, having something to look forward to and take us past the issues of the day-to-day world.

An important thing I didn’t mention or emphasize earlier is that having a really good, close set of colleagues is critical. I’ve been very fortunate with the MSLBD to access that and have it renewed as new people join and become equally great colleagues to the people that we’ve known for many years. I believe that developing that sense of colleague-ship is very important to anyone entering this field. Take the time to meet and talk to people who are working in the field and who share goals and interests and skills, and that will bode well for everyone. Keep that circle unbroken.