Life in the IEP Tribe
Join us as we dive into the world of special education with two educators who have walked the same path as many of you. In addition to teaching in self-contained and collaborative settings, our hosts bring a unique perspective to the challenges and triumphs of raising a special needs child. From classroom strategies to heartfelt family moments, they offer practical advice, empathy, and a community of support. Discover how their personal experiences can shed light on your journey and gain valuable insights into navigating the complexities of special education both in and out of the classroom. Welcome to the tribe!
Life in the IEP Tribe
The Intersection of Empathy and Learning
What if our perception of being the main character in our own story blinds us to the struggles of others? Tune in as we promise to unravel the complexities of trauma-informed care, focusing on the transition back to routine post-holidays and the role of empathy in our interactions. We'll discuss how recognizing each person's unique narrative can foster compassion, particularly in sensitive situations like suicide. Whether you're a parent, educator, or engaged in human relationships, this episode offers insights into how understanding diverse life stories can transform our support for one another.
Join us as we explore the profound impact of childhood trauma on behavior through Bandura's social cognitive lens. We'll highlight the challenges faced by children in foster care, those with disabilities, and how adverse experiences shape their worldviews and coping mechanisms. With a critical eye on home and educational environments, we'll spotlight the intricate ties between experience and behavior, making a case for why empathy and kindness should guide our responses to children's actions.
We'll confront the hurdles educators and parents face in supporting students with Individualized Education Programs and trauma backgrounds. It's time to acknowledge the demands on teachers and how lack of special education training impacts their capacity to nurture strong student relationships. By advocating for community involvement and intentional compassion, we'll chart a course for improving outcomes for these children. Equip yourself with the knowledge and tools to support students in navigating the complexities of trauma, education, and human connection.
well, the holidays have come and gone, we have passed christmas and new years and rolling back into the school year and working with our students and it was really funny to me that we were kind of I don't say excited about getting to school, but we were pumped up and ready to go. And that was Tuesday and by Wednesday we were like yeah, we're tired again. Yes, I don't think we want to, like I'm ready for another weekend.
Speaker 2:Just wade back into this thing, even though we did have Monday, to kind of get our bearings back.
Speaker 1:Not quite the same though. Not quite, but that's okay like we're in it and we're in it to win it. We're in no okay so anyway.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'm pretty excited about what we're going to be talking about this evening.
Speaker 1:Well, it's evening while we're recording, because I think it's something that is really easy to overlook. And here's something I've learned about myself and some things I've I kind of assume about others and please understand when I say assume, that's not from the judging standpoint, saying, oh, you do this, but see, I know this is what I do, and I like to think that other people kind of view the world the same way. So each and every one of us, we kind of live as the main character in our story, right, everything we see is first person. Everything happens around us. We view it with our eyes, we hear it with our ears, we smell it with our nose. Right, like that's how we experience life and the only life we live in, that first person. Everybody else is a member of the story that we're living in. And while that I do believe is normal and I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I don't know how you change that. Like, even if it was wrong, how in the world can you not be in your head?
Speaker 2:Right, I don't know. This doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:No, so I think it's safe to assume that, in the same way, other people approach life like that. I believe that you, laura, are actively the main character in your life. Everything else you see happens around you, but your brain is the only brain that you see all the time. I mean not see all the time, that didn't even make sense, but it's the one that you use. Right, you live inside of yourself and see everything on the outside, and so when we live that way, it's very easy for us to minimize the experiences of others. Right, we allow things to get to us that probably shouldn't of others. Right, we allow things to get to us that probably shouldn't really bother us all that much, but again, the only feelings we have are ours. We don't feel other people's. I mean, I know there's sympathy and empathy and all of that, but we have no idea what it's like living in the brain of somebody else. And so as we go through life, it's very easy for us to kind of lack in compassion when interacting with others.
Speaker 1:You know, we find ourselves oftentimes saying well, you know, it's really messed up that this person does this or this person did that, and while whatever their activity may have been and it may well have very well been a horrible thing. We don't know why One of the things that we talk about I don't want to say on a regular basis because that just sounds weird, but I know that we've had a conversation even talking about suicide, and people have different views and opinions when it comes to that and how they view it, and some people get angry about it. Others, of course, are heartbroken. But the one thing that we have to ask ourselves is you know what happened to this person, that they came to the conclusion that taking their own life was the best option? I mean, that's crazy, right? It's crazy to think and to try to put ourselves in that situation where I can look at, you know, a world full of billions of people, social media, my contacts and my phone there's so many people that I can interact with and I come to the conclusion that ending my own life makes the most sense.
Speaker 1:And I think, when we start to look at the way that people live and interact and the way that minds work, that we can learn to have more compassion and care and look for ways to support others and not necessarily sit back and judge and okay, well, you know, I clearly would never make that choice. So I'm a better person than them, or that's not an issue I'm dealing with. So it's easy for me to dog somebody because they're in the middle of that, and so, as I'm rambling on, you may ask the question what does this have to do with A being a special education teacher or B? That's right. I used A. I put up one finger instead of saying one. I have to let people know that, because they can't appreciate it if I don't. So, yes, I'm saying A and B and then I'm using one and two on my fingers.
Speaker 1:But, you didn't say A and two, right, because that would just be ridiculous.
Speaker 1:So so what does that have to do with being a teacher in special education, being a, being a parent in special education, being an administrator in special education, being a parent that has a child with special needs, being a parent of a child with special needs, being a parent of a child that doesn't have special needs but maybe goes to school with friends and peers that have special needs?
Speaker 1:I think, foundationally, what it means is that we have to learn that, while we might be the key person of our story, that there's other people living lives and they're the key person of our story, that there's other people living lives and they're the key people in their story, and so we need to take the time to consider what might be going on in their lives. And so, leading to the topic, I mean, I feel like I just ramble and ramble and ramble, because I guess I kind of do and I hope, hope it made some sense but leads us to the topic of conversation, uh, on this episode being trauma-informed care, or we're going to talk about the impact of trauma in the lives of students and and and let's see, let's just see where that conversation goes, all right. So, laura, what do you know about trauma?
Speaker 2:Well, I happen to have done some studying on trauma and the trauma-informed care, trauma-informed practices, informed care, trauma, informed practices and, um, if you want to go about a general definition, it's about the uh, the response, both emotional and physical, to whether it be multiple events or one event or an environment that leads to harm of an individual, harm that's emotional, physical, psychological, and it's typically long-lasting and it impacts an individual's well-being and functionality.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's take that definition and kind of paint me a picture. What might that look like? Like what kind of trauma might our students experience?
Speaker 2:Trauma is known as and we're talking about children adverse childhood experiences. It could be in the form of violence, either witnessing violence of a loved one, or having physical abuse or neglect, or caregiver, parent abuse, grandparent may die unexpectedly, mental health issues of family members and all of these things can impact and be considered trauma.
Speaker 1:So it's not necessarily. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's the impact of horrific violence, but it really has a lot to do with the impact of actions, the impact of the actions of others, the certain situations and context. That is just a little too much for this child to process and understand. I mean, let's be honest, even as adults, we don't understand our emotions very well, right. There's oftentimes that we act out in ways and we don't even realize the why behind it. We don't even realize the why behind it. So if we were to do like a little psychological study and we read up on some of the information recorded by Bandura Albert Bandura, one of his things was the whole social cognitive theory, right. And the idea being that we learn our behavior based on our experiences, right. So if I touch a stove and it's hot, I learn touching hot things is bad, it hurts, right. If I decide that I'm going to run out in my drawers and it's, you know, 26 degrees outside and snow everywhere and I get cold, I'm going to learn I need to put some clothes on, absolutely. So we experience these things and they shape the way that we view the world around us. Now, those are silly. I don't even call them extreme, but those impact of interactions are what create the way that we see the world around us, and so these children are the same way. What they see feeds the way that they view and interact with the world around them. And so, with that in mind, if we think about this trauma, I mean them. And so, with that in mind, if we think about this trauma, I mean here's an example that is not far-fetched and that, unfortunately, people experience a lot.
Speaker 1:Kids experience a lot is that you know they'll have parents that have substance abuse issues or addictions, and these children, under I mean no fault of their own, end up being removed from where they live. And the parents they know whether they totally understand what it was that mom and or dad was doing. They just know that now I'm no longer in that house and now I'm being put into another house and I don't know these people, and they're going to try to interact with each other and they're going to try to function in a family-type way. However, they're not family. It's like they haven't grown up together. They haven't, you know, the foster parents didn't raise them, they didn't, they weren't there when they were born in most cases.
Speaker 1:And then you have these children who I understand that mom and dad are supposed to be the ones that take care of me, that lead me, that teach me, and now I don't have them and I'm in somebody else's home. This could be an incredibly traumatic experience, right? So then what happens is? The result could be a child genuinely feeling alone, even though they just went from one house to another, genuinely feeling alone, and so, again, I bring up that example only to say that trauma isn't just one thing, or two things, or three things. Trauma isn't just one thing or two things or three things. It really has to do with how these children are impacted by whatever experience, right?
Speaker 2:What do you think? No, I agree that it's what they experience and what they come to know and, like you said, that's how we learn and how we know how to cope. And if they're in a situation that the person supposed to be taking care of them, the person supposed to be taking care of them they, you know dies, or they abuse them, or they neglect them or they, then they don't these, they don't develop those coping skills because there's nobody to teach them that the people that are supposed to be doing this for you know, sometimes reasons not of their own choosing, but are not able to provide that for these, these children, and then, um, like you said, some they're removed from the home and then they go to um. A lot of times it's a stranger's house and, um, they might not be the only children there. And so, I mean, we know that there are some fantastic foster families out there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Some that we love to death.
Speaker 2:Right, but there's also some that are not so good that these children have dollar signs and so that, can you know, bring on even more trauma. And then it impacts them in just about every part of their being emotionally and socially, academically, behaviorally, physically, mentally. It has an impact all over, Right.
Speaker 1:And so what we have also found and we're going to tie something together here real quick is that research shows that it is prevalent in students that have been diagnosed with a disability or an exceptionality to present problematic behavior. I mean they kind of go hand in hand, not saying that every kid that has an IEP is a problem child.
Speaker 1:But, what we do find is that along with that comes problematic behavior. And so what does that? What do we do with that? What does that look like in the school setting?
Speaker 1:Little Jommy Jommy, little Johnny or little Jane, she is coming to school, she has an IEP she struggles with, I don't know. Let's just, let's say that she is, we'll just use autism. That seems to be you know a big one, right? We'll just use autism. That seems to be you know a big one, right? So she already has different ways of processing and understanding the world around her. And now, on top of that, there are things that are happening in the home that prove to be traumatic for that child. Again, we can't sit here and say that it's well, they're either getting beat or they're, you know, being abused in some other way, but they're experiencing something, something in the home that emotionally psychologically, that emotionally psychologically really kind of unhinges them a little bit. So now we're going into the school setting, an area that I'm kind of struggling with anyway, because I do have my own learning disabilities, and then on top of it, I have this trauma. What are some things that we might see in the school, in the classroom?
Speaker 2:A lot of time that the students that have experienced a trauma and also have another disability on top of it, they have a hard time self-regulating. They get spun up and then they can't just turn that off and then sometimes they don't have the coping skills to be able to learn, you know, to calm themselves down and they're just typical life events. It impacts their typical life events or friends, interactions with friends, interactions with their teachers. They may, depending on what it was that happened, they may not trust the grownups, or they may not trust women, or they may not trust men. It impacts their attendance. A lot of times they're absent. It impacts their learning, because their academics usually fall, and their neurodevelopment, because those types of actions they tend to impact their brain development.
Speaker 1:They kind of put a strain on it.
Speaker 2:Right, and so it can. It just messes them up all the way around, yeah, and so there's a it makes school hard yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, way harder than it needs to be needs to be. So what we have is we have a student that will, either will one of two ways express this trauma and again, not even necessarily knowing that what they are doing or what they are feeling is a product of something they've experienced. All they know is one of two things either A what's going on inside bubbles up so much to the point that I have to externalize it. Right, I've got to get this out of me. I'm angry. There's this feeling inside of me that I cannot leave alone.
Speaker 1:I remember hearing one time and this isn't necessarily a direct correlation, however it kind of paints a picture I was reading an article one time about a young lady who was nonverbal and she learned to communicate through a device. Right, she could type out—they didn't even know that she could spell anything but she would type out what she was feeling and could communicate in that way. And they asked the question why is it that you get flappy Like? Why do you? Why do you flap? What is with that? And the way that she described it was that there's this big ball of energy that builds up and I don't know how to get it out, and so I flap my hands right.
Speaker 1:So if we take that same, that same kind of idea, that same perspective and we kind of wrap it around a child that has experienced trauma, the same thing is going to happen. There's either A going to be this hurt, anger. However, it presents itself in their body, in their mind. That has to get out, and we see that in the form of, you know, chairs being thrown, desks being flipped. You know, there's a number of things that that that we've seen now, and that's not suggesting that every kid that flips a table or a chair has some sort of trauma in their life. However, it is one of those indicators, right, like there's something going on inside that they just got to get out, and oftentimes you won't even know what triggers it. Or, if it's not being externalized, it's being internalized. So then you end up with a child that is either incredibly anxious or real what's the word I'm looking for? Like real withdrawn and to themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, depressed and antisocial, and yeah.
Speaker 1:I just said, have anxiety? Yeah, because I can't. I don't know why I feel the way I feel, but I'm not willing to and allow somebody else to add on to that, because I mean things like anxiety, and they're not necessarily what's the word I'm looking for. They don't always make sense, right? We have fears, and we have healthy fears, and we have fears that just aren't grounded in any kind of fact, right, any factual concern. And a child can feel these things, and, again, it may have nothing to do with the physical presence. Them being in the classroom, may not have anything to do with the classroom whatsoever, but it has everything to do with what has been shaping their mind, what has been shaping their perspective. And so, with that in mind, what are some? What are some like responsibilities that we, as we'll just say, adults, whether it's teaching, being teachers or parents in the home, or whatever the case may be, what are some? What are some responsibilities that we have and how we should approach a child that that may have experienced trauma in their life?
Speaker 2:I think and I think we've discussed this before the first thing that we have to do we have to get to know our kids and so and then we'll know this behavior is typical or not typical, or especially with something new, you can find out what is going on. And and you talked about empathy and have that have that empathy, because we don't always, they won't always, tell us what's happening. So I think that if we, if we approach them with kindness and love and try to find out what's going on before just getting upset with them for presenting some undesired behaviors, try to understand the why behind it and because, yes, there are behaviors, you know, hand in hand with some of these exceptionalities. However, there's typically a reason for them. You know, we have those teachers that say behavior is communication, so they're trying to tell us something. So, as adults, it's our responsibility to try to figure out what they're trying to tell us and help them to be able to tell us what it is that's going on.
Speaker 1:Well, a common approach and perspective especially if you've grown up down south is there are certain expectations that often are placed on children when it comes to their interactions with adults, and I'm not saying that that's wrong. I'm not saying that we don't teach our kids to respect adults and respect each other and respect themselves, but there are cases to where sometimes, as adults, we just want them to do what we tell them to do and act the way that we tell them to act, simply because we're the adult and they're the child.
Speaker 1:Right keep in mind the what like what you're saying, the why behind it is there. Is there something going on? Because if we're so quick to shut down a child's behavior just by, just stop, just stop doing it, because I'm telling you to stop doing it, but don't take the time to understand the why behind it. Not only are we not offering support, we're compounding the problem. So, on top of what they're feeling, that's been formed outside of the classroom, that's been formed outside of the school system, now we're going to add on expectation to the top of it, and so, in turn, I mean we're placing incredible weight upon the shoulders of the children, who are again oftentimes carrying something with them that was not their fault, right, whatever that experience may have been. And so it's important as adults, it's important as teachers, it's important as parents this, you know that's something that I can say that I certainly did not earn the gold star in with with the boys, and that is, you know, I was not always a let's kind of figure out what's going on here.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes it's just I don't have time, do what I tell you to do, right, and let's roll. No, you know what you're acting out. You just go sit in your room or you go, you know whatever, and just kind of push it to the side because we're so stinking busy that we just can't take the time. Now I understand that not everybody is a psychologist, not everybody is a therapist. I mean, either one of us are right. We're special education teachers. Now we've read some stuff right.
Speaker 1:And different articles and journal articles and stuff like that. But we don't have to be therapists to understand genuinely caring for these students and what they experience. So we have an idea of what trauma is and we know that we need to be trauma-informed. What do you think it is that keeps us from as educators, as parents, as adults? What do you think it is that keeps us from moving forward in better understanding trauma in the lives of these children and students?
Speaker 2:As you started out with, is that unless we've experienced it ourself, we probably don't understand it. It and so I think that there is lack of a better term some ignorance there, because it's not natural for these children to experience some of the things that they experience, and so that ignorance, you just don't know about it also. So not only can you not understand it, there's also it's becoming more and more talked about. You hear a lot of that, you hear trauma more and more lately, but there's still not, it's not widely taught in schools and it's not widely taught in like teacher prep programs, and I think that is is probably at the top is just a lack of knowledge and understanding.
Speaker 2:And then that, like you were talking about with parents, and I'll think also with with parents and also with teachers, is that that time constraint. Okay, well, I've, I've got, I got to teach this lesson where I've got to do. I don't. I don't have time to go sit for 30 minutes over here to to figure this out, so I just need you to sit there and be quiet. Um, because there's so much put on responsibility to put on these, these teachers, that on these teachers, that they oftentimes have a hard time finding the time to build those relationships that they need to build with the students and not saying that they don't work that in and that they don't try their best. But it's hard and there's some days that they're overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:Well, here's something to consider. We know that, nationwide, 17% of all of our students that attend public school have an IEP right, so they have either some sort of a learning disorder or some exceptionality that impacts their ability to learn. What we also know is that the majority of those students right that the pool grows as you go up from preschool. So I had the opportunity to work in an elementary school as a collaborative special education teacher and the year my very first year I worked with two grade levels out of six and I had more students. There were upper grades, fourth and fifth grade, and I had more students to serve than the teacher that worked with the kindergarten first, second and third.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because there's the whole identifying process. And so I said all that to bring up this point is that while we may have one in every five student with an IEP, those numbers are small in the beginning but then they, you know, blow up as you get older and things are more identified. They, you know, blow up as you get older and things are more identified. So we may have a classroom with, oh, I don't know, let's just say, 15 students with an IEP, and of those 15 students, some of them may have behavior issues based on trauma. We don't know, it could be behaviors, because they just are struggling to kind of wrap their head around what's going on. I guess this kind of ties in with trauma too. But so now we have ready a teacher, a general education teacher, where, at the very least statistically, one in five of their students has an IEP.
Speaker 1:We know that problem behavior is prevalent in students that have an IEP, and we live in a really jacked up world where kids have to experience things that they didn't quite experience when we were kids.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can remember living in pennsylvania, uh, like from the ages of like seven to ten, six to ten, something like that, and we could grab our fishing poles, walk a mile down the road to the creek and nobody cared because it was like this really tight-knit small community. But it's not like that now. There's a lot going on. The internet has allowed access to so many things that are unhealthy not only for children but for adults, and so we are taking think about this. We're taking a teacher, we're taking a man or a woman that has finished a teaching program that has not had any extensive special education instruction, has not had any probably minimal psychology, right, because we all have to take a little bit of psychology in our bachelor's programs. But then these teachers are being put in these rooms with special education children, children that have experienced trauma in their life along with the weight of performance, right. So these teachers have to get passing grades, right? Not a whole lot is I mean not a whole lot is addressed as far as mental health.
Speaker 1:I think especially at those at the elementary school age and it's like good luck, yep, figure it out, teach. I was reading an article not too long ago that talked about general education teachers and their willingness to and desire to work with kids that have special needs work with kids that have special needs. And what they found in their research is that not only did gender or amount of years time that a teacher was involved, that if they receive special training, if they receive training in how to work with special education students, the not only acceptance but desire to work with those students grew astronomically. It didn't matter if they were a young 20-something right out of school or if they were a seasoned vet. If they had the training, the teaching efficacy rose right, their belief in what they could do was elevated and then they had this desire to work with kids.
Speaker 1:What if I'm just going to throw this out here Us as teachers and I know we're all busy us as parents, we decided that we're not going to wait for a school system or a district to teach us how to work with these kids. We're not going to wait for teacher prep programs to teach us and goodness knows as far as raising children goes you can't go buy a book that gets it all right. There's no guide to owner's manual for children with disabilities. There's no owner's manuals for children that have experienced trauma.
Speaker 1:But what if, collectively, we decided that we were going to do research, that we were going to take the time to do whatever we could to learn about how to love and care and listen to these children? What do you think would happen? Like what if we were willing, as a society, again, to not wait for the government to save us but, as communities, to invest in and research and reach out to those who we know have experienced that trauma and then be compassionate enough to keep our eyes and ears open To ones that maybe others haven't seen or identified as a child that's experienced trauma. I mean, what if? What if, like, we just started loving people and caring about people and really being what's the word I'm looking for Intentional, intentional, about caring about others and not being the lead role in our own story. Right, what can happen?
Speaker 2:I don't know, change lives.
Speaker 1:That's kind of like why we're in this thing, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, unless you have anything else to say, this is kind of an abrupt ending, but I don't have anything else left.
Speaker 2:No, I think that there are some topics that maybe we can cover next week and get in a little bit about the teachers and different types of trauma-informed care and what it means and what the classrooms mean. But I think we've got to—I think we did good. I think that's enough for right. I think we did a good. I think that's enough for right now because it's a heavy topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think we might be chit-chatting about this trauma stuff for a while, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we need to revisit this next week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're going to wrap up this episode of Life in the IEP Tribe. If you thought this was super horrible, I apologize. Not really.
Speaker 2:We had fun.
Speaker 1:We had a good time and hopefully this conversation maybe can help you or spark an interest or at the very least, maybe you can shoot us some ideas or questions. You can do that at lifeintheeptribe at gmailcom or check us out on the Facebook. That's kind of where we are. The most is the Facebook. Shoot us a message, ask questions, give us ideas. We like all that stuff. So until next time, I'm Jared with my super awesome wife, Laura, and we'll see you later. Bye.