Educators when they need help with a student, they need help. And what tends to happen in some school systems, not saying all, they try to blame the teacher.

Well, the teacher just had better behavior management, they wouldn't have those problems. Mm-hmm. No, the teacher is asking for help. We need to give them help. They know their students. They know that their students are having problems. So let's not blame the teacher. Let's listen to what the teacher is saying to us and let's get the student the help that they need.

Welcome to the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education Podcast. The space for Education Meets Resilience. I'm Dr. Joey Weisler, and in each episode we dive deep into the personal stories of educators, students, leaders, and frontline advocates who are navigating the complexities within modern education.

Whether you're just starting your teaching journey or are a seasoned professional looking for [00:01:00] inspiration, we'll explore how to foster meaningful change, prevent burnout, and build trauma-informed communities within our schools. Now, let's take a seat at the front of the classroom as we get started.

Welcome back to today's episode. I'm so thrilled to be joined by Bev Johns, who is a nationally recognized leader in Special Education and Behavioral Supports. And she's someone who has spent four decades working alongside students with emotional and behavioral needs, along with their teachers and their families. Across her career, Bev has helped shape how schools think about behavior, regulation, safety, and even dignity in classrooms, especially for students carrying trauma or navigating complex life circumstances. And in our conversation, we're going to continue reflecting on what teachers often are feeling, but are rarely saying out loud, which is how hard it is to balance compassion with structure, and how punitive systems are failing the very students who need the most connection and why seemingly small choices can change everything.

And Bev is here [00:02:00] today bringing together her research, her lived classroom experiences, and her deep Humanity for the field. And this episode is really about seeing the students beneath their behaviors and helping teachers feel less alone in that work. Bev is now a learning and behavior consultant

and was a professional fellow for McMurray College, where taught courses on special education law, Emotional Behavioral Disorders, and diverse learners as well.

And she has also taught classes at Illinois College, and she has been the lead author of 23 books and co-authored 12 others. Bev, what a bio. Welcome to the show. 

Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Delighted to to be here and always love talking to kindred spirits, who believe that we need to look at each child, each educator, each parent as an individual, and respect their individuality.

And look at how we build positive relationships. Because the bottom line is, having been in special education as long [00:03:00] as I have, it's really all about relationships. And if we don't have a positive relationship with the teachers with whom we're working or the children with whom we're working, or the parents, we can't really see what their needs are,

and we need to look at them as a whole person and look at what their strengths are and what their interests are and what drives them. What's important to them. And most important, I think that when we're working with children, parents and educators, we have to build them up. That's the bottom line.

I think that sometimes people get in negative traps, and they don't really look beyond the external behavior that some of our children have. And some of our children who engage in external [00:04:00] behaviors are trying to tell us something. And that something is probably something that we can't see,

until we get to know the child. So I have worked with a lot of children who have internal issues. In other words, it might be anxiety, it might be depression, and learning disabilities because I call all of those invisible disabilities and we can't see them. And when we can't see something, we tend to not understand what it is.

We can see observable behaviors. The child may be throwing a book across the room or hitting someone, and we can see those things, but we really don't look at what is going on with the child. And the thing that I have found working with children over a number of years is, we need to do a better job of looking at the whole [00:05:00] child, and looking at all of what I call the comorbid conditions that the child might have.

So yes, they might have ADHD, but oh, they also have a learning disability. Oh, they also have depression. Oh, they also have executive function problems, and the list goes on. And we sometimes are looking for simple solutions, and there are no simple solutions because our children have complex needs, and to really get to the bottom of what their needs are, we have to do a thorough evaluation and we have to get to know the child and what's going on beyond all of the observable behavior.

So I tell and will always tell school districts that one place you never cut corners is on an evaluation of a child. Because that evaluation is going to give you very useful [00:06:00] information about what that child really needs. I have worked with children who have dyslexia and maybe they also have ADHD. But some of them also have anxiety because again, there are comorbid conditions. So our children are complex beings and we have to understand the complexity of their needs, and how as educators, we have to be very careful that we're not looking for quick fixes because there are no quick fixes. Again, thorough evaluation, looking at why the child is doing this and saying, wait a minute, could it be this? Could it be this? Could it be this?

And we don't always know. And that's why together with the evaluation, we establish a positive [00:07:00] relationship with children because we have to get to know them, who they are, as people. And you and I have talked about this, the whole notion of narrative medicine, which is an area that I have become very interested in because it's looking at the whole person and who that person is as a human being.

And it's much more than they have this problem. It's, but who are they as a person and how can we build them up and make a positive difference in their lives? I mean, we all know the work that's been done that says a lot of our children who have gone through very rough lives, what was it that made a difference for them in how they became successful?

And it was because of an educator who made a positive difference, who told them that [00:08:00] they could do things that they'd never been told they could do before. 

You've spoken so much already about whole child with comorbid conditions, and I'm gonna reference back to an interview that I saw from former Parkland Mayor Christine Hunschofsky,

I think she's now a House Rep, back in 2020 when she had a conversation in the aftermath of what happened here in Parkland. And Bev and I are geographical neighbors here in Florida,

and what Christine Hunschofsky said in her interview in 2020 after overseeing Parkland after Parkland and before it as well, she was reflecting on the trauma that the community was undergoing within at that point, the two years following the massacre. And she said, human trauma is very difficult to assess because we usually look at it at a very high level. Where we need to focus more as Bev you mentioned, is going into the individual needs of those who are struggling and what they'll need in order to be successful. So having that individual approach is really useful.

And in our [00:09:00] pre-chat here, you were talking about some of the work that you did even back in the eighties that is still helping out different divisions even today. And I wanna go back into that time towards the beginning of your career. And I wanna ask you, what were some moments, if you're willing to share, that you saw that helped you understand where behavior wasn't really defiance, but more of a means of communication?

Or were there specific moments that led you to think about how you progressed your work in that area for today? 

Well, actually I was fortunate because I started teaching in the field of special education when there had just become a law in the state of Illinois that said all children had the right to go to school.

Now understand, I went into special education at a time when it was a pretty new field. I had worked my way through college working with young boys, nine to 14, who had already been adjudicated delinquents at a [00:10:00] children's home. I had worked in a community center in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, so I knew what I wanted my purpose

in life to be. And so, I went to graduate school and got a master's degree and a lot of hours in applied behavior analysis at SIU Carbondale. I was really fortunate. that I studied with a lady by the name of Bessel Aserolf, who just died a few years ago. But she taught me what I know about the importance of being positive and recognizing people's strengths.

But anyway, I took a teaching job in Carbondale working with children who had already been diagnosed with, they said autistic, like, because back then, they didn't want to diagnose, they said autistic- like. So my first experience and the what [00:11:00] actually drives me in advocacy was I had a little girl coming to my classroom for the first time at the age of 10.

She had no right to go to school until there was a law that said she had the right to go to school. Her mother lived in a small rural community in southern Illinois and her mother had 10 children. And her other children got to go to school. But Sally came along and every year from the time Sally was six until 10, when she got to come to school, Sally's mother would take her with the other children to school and the principal would take a look at Sally and say, oh, she can't come to school.

And so Sally's mother would take her back home next year so this went on until she was 10. And why did principals have the mother take her back [00:12:00] home is because Sally had very significant disabilities and we talk about comorbidity. She had no speech and language skills. I mean, her mode of communication was grunting

to tell you what she wanted, she had an unrepaired cleft palate, she had a cerebral palsy, and she had a multitude of behavioral problems. But until she was 10 and a law passed in the state of Illinois prior to IDEA or EHA, back then, she had no right to go to school. Now, think of the time that we lost.

So she comes into my classroom at 10. I mean, along with the other children that I was going to have in my class, now, we were close enough to St. Louis that she had not been able to be seen by a doctor because she would usually have a temper tantrum because she was frustrated. She couldn't communicate with [00:13:00] anyone. She would open her mouth for me and you'd start with small steps. And we were able to get her to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis and they repaired her cleft palate. And so she was able to communicate with some sounds. Now actually, she really had never had behavior problems with me. She was happy to be in school and she was happy doing things that she could do and be successful at. But I always thought, and I wrote an article, "Sally sits on my shoulders" 

mm-hmm. 

Because this little girl does sit on my shoulders and she drives my work. So when people say we don't need a law that says that we don't need this law, I remember Sally, and until there was a law that said she had the right to go to school, she stayed at home and we lost a [00:14:00] lot of beneficial time for her. So she really brought home to me the importance of laws and how we have to have laws, that protect our children. 

So then tell us a little bit more about the role that you held onto at the time that allowed you to really advocate for and create policy back in the eighties. 

Actually,

uh, yeah, actually it was in the eighties. Was in the early eighties doing policy work, because I was president of the Illinois Council for Exceptional Children and in the early eighties we were going through a time period where they were talking about deregulate demandate and block grant. Those are all bad words in the field of special education for people who have been in the field.

Because first of all, demandate means you don't have a law. Deregulate means you take away the regulations. And block grant [00:15:00] means you compete with everybody else for money, for children with disabilities. So, I together with a couple of other people went to Washington DC, met with the president's chief of staff at the time, and we were also dealing with the same issues in

the state of Illinois as well, because, you know, some of the federal policy was carrying over. So we were working to preserve special education, and we had to get people to hearings, we had to do all of those things, and I just then realized how important being involved in policy work is. Because we have to have those laws and regulations that protect children.

So when you reflect on, and thank you for sharing that, by the way, when you look back and reflect on the [00:16:00] successes from that time, what have you seen to have the most long lasting impact from the work that you've done from then to now? 

Well, I mean there were several things because we talked prior to this about mm-hmm.

Uh, how I worked to pass legislation that made sure that students who had IEPs, once they complete their course requirements of their IEP, they get a high school diploma. 

Yes. 

Uh, and that was very important policy work that I was involved in and actually wrote the language, which is still in place today

but we continually have to educate people that it is still in place. But I also have a very interesting story about how a parent can impact policy as well. And a parent can come together with a group of people who are like-minded and make a difference. I had a friend and she lived in central Illinois and her son had some pretty significant [00:17:00] behavioral problems.

And she called one day in tears saying that her son was locked in a timeout box. I don't know if you read, but there was a recent story where a school district was doing that. And so anyway, her child was locked in a time out box, so she said, I have to do something about this. I said, well, of course.

So anyway, the bottom line is she and some of us went to legislators and she contacted the State Department of Education and they said, well, there's nothing we can do. 'cause there's no law on the books that says there's anything wrong with locking a child in a timeout box that it was okay to do.

Well, no, it's not okay to do. But she said, this is just not acceptable. 

Right. 

And she formed with several of us, a [00:18:00] coalition, but I will tell you, it took us a good six years to get legislation passed in Illinois that was very prescriptive in how timeout can be used or how physical restraint could be utilized.

So we did that actually now at the federal level, there has been an introduction of legislation similar to what Illinois has, and some other states have legislation as well. But it is not passed at the federal level. But that's kind of, sometimes legislation takes a while to pass. Right.

And, you know, we don't just get it passed overnight. We wish we could, there was another incident where, it was in one of the reauthorizations of the individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and some people said, well, all children have the right to go to school except those children who have behavior [00:19:00] problems.

And some of us said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. All means all. 

Mm-hmm. 

And all of our children have the right to go to school. While there were people who were trying to get that eliminated. Trying to say, well, it really doesn't apply and we can expel children with behavior problems. 

Mm-hmm. 

No. Uh, anyway, so we had to speak out.

I mean, because you have to speak out when children are being wronged. And you say, wait a minute, these are people, and they have rights. And we treat everyone with respect and dignity. So I think that if people continue to look at this whole notion of how we treat people and how everyone has the right to an education. But, we continue to work on that.

It seems that our work is never done. 

Oh, never. Especially in academia and in education. 

That's right, that's right. 

I was [00:20:00] thinking about this when we had first met in December, and I wanna ask this if I can. So I think of extreme cases like here in Parkland when we had students with extreme behavioral circumstances where one of them ultimately caused a nationwide attention grabbing historical moment, like a massacre.

When you have students like that that are in our classes that, I for one, don't think that they're being treated like they're being put in a box like what you've described in other stories, but when they become a menace to the classroom culture, I was reading some of the notes from the trial once those went public and listening to the testimonies of his middle school teachers, who were my colleagues briefly when I had taught there in 2018-, 19. And a lot of them were saying that they literally, even at that time when he was a middle school student, would fear for their lives to be their teacher and would always need other assistance in the classroom, such as security, behavioral aids, to help mitigate [00:21:00] what was going on in their environment.

When you have extreme cases like that, what do you do for the student who is in need of other services that maybe we don't have, but still not doing that in the way that making us think that excluding them, like expelling is the only solution to what we have? 

Right, because expelling is not the answer.

Mm-hmm. Because essentially you're cutting off all of their contact. 

Mm-hmm. 

Uh, with other people. I really, having read a lot about Parkland, you know, there were multiple, and I mean multiple calls for help 

mm-hmm. 

With this young man. He needed help. And I have seen this so many times, and people, either want to ignore that there is a significant problem, or they don't want to address it.

They [00:22:00] might be in denial or there are not adequate services. 

Mm-hmm. 

And there is bottom line too, because people did ask to get him help. 

Right. 

But then there was the systems in place that were not working. And therefore he was not getting the help he needed. Not to condone the action, but when you look, you know, and, and people will say, these are isolated incidents.

No, they're not. They're never isolated incidents. There were warning signs. I mean, you can watch every time there's a shooting, they'll say, the person never had any problems. This is an isolated incident. No, it's not. There were warning signs. What did people try to get help?

And actually, in Parkland, there were teachers who came forward and said they had tried to get him help. 

Mm-hmm. 

I mean, they knew, and I say Bravo, that they were [00:23:00] trying to get him help, but the systems were broken. 

Mm-hmm. And when we think about the, broken system in itself for the teachers that attempt to seek out assistance and fall on deafness and blindness as a response, what can they do and what can that student do as well?

How can the system still remain intact to help everybody a part of it, find success in some way? 

I think that it's really important that educators do speak out when they need help with a student, they need help. And what tends to happen in some school systems, not saying all, they try to blame the teacher.

Well, they, well, the teacher just had better behavior management. They wouldn't have those problems. Mm-hmm. No, the teacher is asking for help. We need to give them help. They know their students. They know that their students are having problems. So let's not blame the teacher. Let's listen to what the teacher [00:24:00] is saying to us and let's get the student the help that they need.

I think that is just so important. And I say to teachers, put it in writing. When you are saying this child needs X, Y, and Z, put it in writing and keep a copy of it. I was involved with a student, this a sad story because he was being sexually abused by his father. And we kept reporting it over and over again and the family services agency would say, well, thank you very much, and it wouldn't do anything.

And I learned to say, give me your name, because I need to document this in writing that I've talked to you, and so that's why I would document in writing who I had talked to, what they said, sign my name. [00:25:00] Well, lo and behold, the child was very seriously injured by the father. Ended up in the hospital.

It went to court, and my colleague was subpoenaed into court and the family services agency said, well, you know, we were short staffed and nobody ever reported it. Oh my. She brings out her said, on such and such a date, Bev Johns called you, this person, and said this. On such and such a date, so and so called you and said this.

And the judge said, uh, wait a minute. Anyway, remove the child from the home. That's an extreme case, but the point being is you have to document your concerns. And I see sometimes that teachers become very frustrated, particularly when they're working with a child who has significant behavior problems and nobody wants to [00:26:00] help them.

And instead people wanna blame them. And, that teacher knows that child, we ought to listen to them. But again, the teacher needs to document who he or she has told that this child needs assistance. But, you know, the issue of mental health in the schools has been one that I have seen for many years, and I would work with schools and they would say, mental health is not our job.

Well, mental health is your job. Because you've got children coming into the schools who have got very significant emotional and behavioral problems. So you've got to put systems in place where you are working as a community to help students. So you have the agencies involved that are working with the child and could give the services,

you have the parent involved who's saying what it is that they need, you have the educator involved. [00:27:00] We have to put more of those systems in place. 

Mm-hmm. When you say that schools are saying that mental health is not their job, that's concerning because I know that in our earlier meet and greet when we met a few weeks ago, you said that certain classroom practices and certain classroom decisions can really soothe our students with trauma histories. But it can also trigger it too if you don't do it correctly. So what are some different methods, and I'm not asking about quick fixes here, but rather, what are some meaningful adjustments that educators and classroom teachers can use to help

address and be present for students with trauma? 

Right. I, I believe that it's really important that we need to give children appropriate outlets for dealing with their own emotions. So this whole notion of emotional regulation, because I say to teachers, if the child comes in and they're upset about something, until you deal with it with them or [00:28:00] give them a chance to express themselves in whatever way they can, they're not ready to learn.

They're not going to be learning if they're upset about something that happened on the school bus or something that happened at home at night. So I like to call it that we have to give children ways to cathartically dump what's bothering them. So whether it's drawing, whether it's writing, whether it's music, whatever it is, that's why I believe in the restorative practices of the arts, because we have to deal with the emotional piece, before the children are ready to learn.

And so one of the things also that I always tell teachers, don't start the morning with something a child does not do well because you've set yourself up for failure the whole day. 

Mm-hmm. 

So build momentum for success. Give the child three easy things that they can be successful at, and then work into [00:29:00] the more difficult task. But also doing those emotionally regulating activities to kind of calm children first thing in the morning.

And I am encouraged because I'm seeing more teachers being willing to do that, because, you know, in the past we would say, a child would come in off of a school bus and they'd be upset. And they'd say, well, that's not my problem. That's a school bus. Well, yes, it is your problem, if they come in off the school bus and they're upset, you're going to be dealing with it.

So what are the strategies that you can put in place? Is there somebody when the child is upset, that the child can talk to? I remember this one little guy that I had. He would come in off the bus and he had always been wronged by the bus driver. And so if you would try to talk to him about it, he would escalate.

The bus driver did this, the bus driver did this and go on and on and on about the horrible things the bus [00:30:00] driver did. And I said, I tell you what, Spence, how about if you write your down your side of the story and I'll put it in your file? He looked like, huh? Well, okay. Because he was heard 

right. 

He had a chance.

And by writing it down, it was a cathartic experience 'cause he got it out of his system. 

Yep. 

Now, I would never do that if the child had a written expression problem. I've seen people do it, say, oh well I'm gonna have him write about it. Well, if they have a written expression problem, that's going to set him up for failure.

But that bottom line was this child, he had good written expression skills and once he could write it, it really calmed him down. I think those little things that people can do, where they can read the child, they know the child is upset about something. Now [00:31:00] maybe the child will talk about it, but maybe they won't.

Maybe they can draw about it though. 

Mm-hmm. Maybe 

they can write about it. Mm-hmm. Or maybe music, calms them. So I think we have to continually look at ways to teach children how to emotionally regulate. And one of the ways we do it is the teacher's, the model for the child. I mean, if the teacher is not regulated, the child probably isn't going to be calm either.

So we say, when the teacher's upset about something, what is it that they can do? Is there a mechanism that they can get help? Maybe give the child a choice of talking to somebody else, are just those little things I think that we can do. I always say that good educators have to be detectives, and it's a detective, not in a way that is about catching them doing something wrong, and having them get in trouble.

It's about [00:32:00] trying to figure out what the problem really is and how can I help the child with it. 

think about how you talk about cathartically dumping, and by the way, I'm going to introduce you to two more people. One is Chris Mukiibi,

and Chris is an educator for chemistry out in California. And with the work that he does, he has been interviewing educators really trying to understand what the burnout crisis looks like, what behavioral management looks like, and he said that students call him the safest adult to speak to on campus. And I want to think about for somebody like him, like how does that approach and that combination happen? So I want him to share some of those insights with you and have a great conversation on that.

I'm also going to introduce you to Emma G is what she goes by, and Emma G is quite well known as a songwriter. And what she does now is that she works in schools very profoundly and having students create songwriting in a [00:33:00] way that has it come to life for them.

So you talk about art and performance and music, she's the music piece to that. So you would love to talk to her about what she's doing as well. And you talk about cathatically dumping here, as well as narrative medicine and restorative practices with the arts. We met through Lisa Kay. So tell us a little bit more about the work that you did in talking about restorative practices with the arts with Dr. Kay. 

Right. And we did a book, which we're really very proud of, called Restorative Practices through the Arts. 

Mm-hmm. 

I had known Lisa, because she helped us with another project on anxiety, and then we also did one on trauma.

And so she helped us with that and she said, you know, I really wanna do something on restorative practices in the arts. And of course, she's a very talented artist. And Donalyn Heise is also a very talented artist. And [00:34:00] my field is working with children with behavioral issues. And, you know, I see all the possibilities.

I'm a writer, but, those two are very talented, in the visual arts. And so she said, let's work together and do an edited book on restorative practices using the arts. And so we gathered individuals, who had experience with dance, with puppetry, with art use for individuals who are grieving, mindfulness practices, and the list went on and we collected the work of them and we wrote the intro, and did the editing of the book, which came out in 2025, by Davis Publications. And we did that and [00:35:00] introduced the book at the National Association of Art Educators, which was in Louisville, Kentucky last year.

Had rooms full of people interested in this topic. Because we all value the arts and the role that the arts have, in giving people, giving children and adults an outlet, an appropriate outlet for their emotions. So when I think of, the students who don't get, the help that they need, that why is it that someone could not have found, what was the missing?

How could we have helped them with their depression? How could we have helped them with their tremendous anger? Because the anger builds up. And so it has to have an outlet, but it could have an appropriate [00:36:00] outlet, if we would just find what the magical piece is. Like one of the authors did the grieving walk and , she does grief retreats for students of which is phenomenal, and you're seeing more mindfulness being done in schools and more dance in music.

And I think that unfortunately in some schools, those are the first place they cut. Oh, budget is tight. We're cutting the arts. Well, our students need those outlets, and we have to help them find those outlets.

I totally see how the arts are a major advocate for students as well. And I see that many teachers are also really overwhelmed, they feel like they're being blamed, and even underprepared when they work with students who have those intense behavioral needs, especially when those students are lacking the resources for their own.

And, we talked about this earlier, and , I want to come back to that a little bit. And what do you wish that schools including as soon [00:37:00] as teacher preparatory programs can do differently to help teachers feel more equipped for those circumstances? And I know that a lot of these come from, like, you can never be fully prepared for what the job actually has, but what more can we do to at least get faculty a little bit closer to where they want to be for those moments?

Well, I think that, one of the bugaboos of mine is we say the teacher's burned out. 

Mm-hmm. 

I don't like the term burned out. I think the teacher is being devalued and demoralized. Mm-hmm. Yes. A wonderful book out on the demoralization of teachers. It's, they are not feeling like they are valued and they need support.

Mm-hmm. Uh, some years ago we did, a couple of studies. We did one, that was 800 teachers who work with children with emotional behavioral problems in the United States and Canada. 800 of them. And [00:38:00] so we said, what is it that is missing for you? And what is it that's bothering you?

So you expect, well, it's probably that the child maybe bit them or spit in their face or some of those. It was not those things at all. It was lack of administrative support. 

Yes. 

I mean, it was pretty darn clear lack of administrative support. So we were presenting our findings and some administrators were saying, well, what are we supposed to do to support 'em? so one of the things we found is you have to convey a message of trust To the educators that you trust them. Well, what has tended to happen is, so let's take that an administrator is in a school and they have maybe two special education classrooms in their school, [00:39:00] and they don't really know a lot about special education, particularly students with emotional behavior problems.

So you know what they do? They tend to leave the special ed people alone. They say, well, they know what they're doing. We'll just leave 'em alone. Well, the special ed people interpret that as you don't care about us. 

Mm-hmm. 

And so the communication piece and that trust piece is a two-way street. So we said the administrators, you've really gotta reach out and you've gotta do, it's the old, there's a wonderful book out.

It was for years called Management by Wandering Around, meaning you are in the classrooms, you're seeing what people need. Hey, do you need a break? You know, how about I cover your class for 10 minutes so you can go get a drink of water or whatever. But they're wandering around and they're really seeing what's going on in the classrooms as opposed to sitting in their office.

Not to say that they all sit in their office, but they might be tied up in a lot of [00:40:00] meetings. But educators need to see the people out there and conveying the message, how can I help you? 

Yes. 

I mean, , and that's really, I think you know what it's all about. And then just like we say, we need to listen to our children, we need to listen to our educators as well. And not put the blame on them.

And I think that also has to do with a sense of even micromanaging. There has to be a good balance where like, if I feel like I'm being micromanaged now, you don't trust me to operate on my own. So instead of that message of, I remember my first year teaching, I had a fourth period class. That admin even looked at my roster when they hired me back in August for my first full year.

I was hired in January as an interim. 

Mm-hmm. 

And then they rehired me in August full-time. And I left in December. 'cause they looked at my roster. I was gone by Christmas break I was out. They looked at my roster. And in this K to eight school, they said, wow, in your fourth period, you have some of the most difficult students in this [00:41:00] entire

school. And my gut reaction was, well, did you think to not do that to your brand new teacher? And yeah, they micromanaged that class in a way that it was like, well, didn't they teach you how to, didn't you figure this out when you were subbing for all those years? What about in pre-training programs? Did you not ever have training on how to handle these students?

The AP said to me once in November, a couple weeks before I left, he walked in and he said, all of our other teachers, we can walk into the rooms and we cannot tell the difference if they're teaching honors or remedial and your class, we cannot say that about you. And instead of that approach of how can we help you, it became a how can we 

help you?

Yeah. 

It became a, what's wrong with you? , Why don't you know how to do this? 

And therein is the problem. Yeah. And you don't blame the teacher. Mm-hmm. You look at what the systems are that should be in place. 

Mm-hmm. 

Because I've seen teachers walk off jobs in February. And you think, oh, [00:42:00] what is it?

That that teacher didn't feel like they had support. One of the things that we do now as we have something called Solutions Sunday for the Illinois Counsel of Children of Behavioral Disorders, where on Sunday afternoon, it's like office hours. 

Mm-hmm. 

That if a teacher is struggling with a child, they can come strictly confidential.

We're not gonna tell their administrator that they came and participated. And we listen and say, what about this? Or what about that? Never putting the blame on the teacher, but looking at what might be done. Just trying to help people because my goal is to keep people in the field.

We need to keep good people and we're not gonna do that if we don't support them and look at what their needs are. 

Mm-hmm. I love that. And I wish more states and districts also included those helplines for teachers like me who really found themselves struggling and didn't feel like they [00:43:00] had any way to progress.

And when you feel depleted and defeated, you feel like walking away is going to help you find success elsewhere. And that's exactly how my narrative came to end. So after all these years in the fields that you participated, and again, thank you for all of your service, what continues to give you hope about the future of special education and even trauma responsive classrooms altogether?

Well, I believe that we all have to keep working together to look at what the needs are and to talk about what small part, each of us can play in helping, and just, you know, I say to retired folks, I say, wait a minute, you may be retired, but you're needed in the schools. And we have an obligation to help educators in the field.

And so that gives me hope that we're seeing people coming [00:44:00] together to look at what services are needed. And you know, there will always be a lot to do. There's also a lot to learn. I always say good educators are lifelong learners. 

Mm-hmm. 

You don't ever have all the answers you wish you did.

But we don't because with the complexity of the children, in today's world, we all have to work together. And so what gives me hope also is that I see more and more people reaching out for help. Rather than saying, oh, I gotta figure this out myself. No, you don't. I mean, there are lots of people who can help, and that's what we all have to have a part in.

Thank you so much for that. And are there any final takeaways for our listeners that we haven't had a chance to talk about today that was on your mind? 

Well, I think because, you know, I've worked with children with special needs for so many years, I think that we all need to really take a look at the complexity of children's needs.

[00:45:00] Mm-hmm. 

And not look for simple solutions because there are no simple solutions. We wish there were. And so I think that we need to do thorough evaluations. We need to work in collaboration with families, and we need to work in collaboration with systems that can help and support the work that all of us are doing.

Thank you so much for that. So that was Bev Johns here to remind us that the major emphasis that we should carry on as educators is by being present, having patience and noticing others. And the work that we do in schools isn't about perfection, but rather it's about staying in positive relationships with students, even when the behaviors are allowed and continuing to support each other within the school community.

So thank you for listening and we look forward to hearing from you next time while making sure that our students are staying well as well as ourselves.

Thank you for joining us on the Classroom Narratives Healing and Education podcast. If today's [00:46:00] episode inspired you or made you think differently, I'd love to hear from you. Drop a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts and stay connected with us on the at Classroom Narratives podcast over Instagram and Facebook.

Remember, together we can transform our scars into stars and education, one conversation at a time.