S11 E3 Understanding Bullying: A Personal Journey and Call for Change with Kayla Taylor

1:04PM Sep 21, 2023

Speakers:

Tim Villegas

Kayla Taylor

Keywords:

bullying

kids

child

targeted

bullied

learn

families

feel

inclusive education

hard

communities

affecting

kayla

differences

bystanders

teachers

parents

happened

years

studying

When I picked my daughter up at school, the whole class was late. And the parents were annoyed. And then we started to get worried. And then they finally did come out. And my daughter took my hand as we walked away. And she said, you know, sorry, we're late mom. Some kids created an I hate Hana club. And the teacher needed to keep us after to talk about kindness. And she said this so matter of factly. But Hannah is my daughter, the exact child holding my hand. And it was at that point that I realized I needed to get educated fast.

Hi, friends. I'm Tim Vegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education and you're listening to think inclusive, our podcast that brings you conversations about inclusive education, and what inclusion looks like in the real world. We are already at episode three of season 11. So here's a quick recap. Episode One was with the one and only Dr. Shelley Moore. We talked about inclusion in secondary schools. Episode Two was with the amazing Andrea Teesha Fitzgerald, and we talked about the connection between anti racism and UDL. Today we have a guest that is going to speak on a topic that we have not covered nearly enough. Kayla Taylor, is a best selling writer, researcher, advocate and parent dedicated to raising awareness and addressing crucial issues affecting families and vulnerable individuals. Her book canaries among us blends poignant storytelling with groundbreaking scientific research, showcasing her passion for empowering families. For this episode, Kayla discusses her book, which explores the experiences of raising a child with learning differences, bullying and anxiety. She emphasizes the importance of sharing these stories to create a sense of community and support for families facing similar challenges. Kayla also delves into the complexities of bullying, the power dynamics involved, and the long term effects on both the targets and the children who exhibit bullying behaviors. She provides insights into effective ways to address bullying and create a more inclusive and caring environment in schools. Kala encourages educators to value and celebrate the differences of all learners, empowering them to reach their full potential. Thank you so much to our incredible sponsor for this week's episode, changing perspectives, an international nonprofit that partners with schools and districts to create inclusive and equitable learning communities for all students. They offer customizable teacher trainings, family workshops, and curriculum resources. They've already helped over 300,000 students, 12,000 teachers, and 500 schools. Visit their website at changing perspectives now.org To learn more, and schedule a free meeting. We've got a great conversation for you today. Make sure you hang around till the end of the interview to hear this week's mystery question. And for free time this week. Something come pletely different after a short break my interview with Kayla Taylor.

Kayla Taylor, welcome to the think conclusive podcasts.

And thanks so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.

So you have a book called canaries among us. And it's a fantastic book. And the writing is so well done. And that the reason I bring that happens because sometimes I think memoirs are that memoir style of writing. You don't always know what to expect, but you like, we're going to get into the big story behind it, and why he wrote the book. But I just want to let our listeners know that if you pick this book up, you're not going to want to put it down.

Thank you, Tim, though, in a way that's a little hard to hear. Because as you know by now it's a really vulnerable story. There are several times I almost pulled the presses on it because it is so personal to me and my family. But I did it ultimately because I felt like if we don't tell these stories, nothing will ever change. And so often the story or this self help book or the memoir comes out 20 or 30 years after the fact. But I think you lose some of the emotionality of it you, you know, when you look back on things, 30 years later, it's easier to paint yourself in a more beautiful light, as if you understood everything as it was happening. I mean, it's hard not to use your current understanding to repaint your past experience. I just knew how alone I felt in my experience, and I wanted other families to feel less alone. So I just decided to go for it and do that vulnerable thing and put it out there and with a goal of hoping other people will feel less alone.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we're probably getting ahead of ourselves. But I just I want for our listeners to understand the big story that you're trying to tell with canaries among us.

Right? So simply canaries among this is a personal view into what it's like to raise a child struggling with learning differences, bullying, and anxiety. And in our case, the learning differences weren't obvious to me. So it started with bullying. And then I was, as I was trying to understand, when my child was being bullied, I realized it's because my child's a bit quirky. And then so I started down the learning differences, you know, journey. And then things got so bad that it led to some pretty bad anxiety. So then I needed to learn a lot about that. But it's just trying to honor the real lived experience of so many families, I mean, I think is, you know, 20% of kids, one out of every five qualifies for an accommodation in school. So it's considered, you know, to have learning differences. And that's not just in the segregated classrooms that's in the general education classroom, that's, you know, every adult every kid. And I would actually argue it's more than that, because that 20% statistic includes things like dyslexia, ADHD, some things we're used to, but it doesn't consider a lot of like anxiety, it doesn't consider sensory processing issues, as far as I'm concerned, it definitely, I think, doesn't include can include a lot of the physical disabilities people have, I don't think it includes, you know, speech impediments. It doesn't include a lot. So I think if we consider how many people don't fit in a box, that number would be much higher than 20%. And, you know, I also cover bullying which 20 to 30% of kids deal with, directly and all kids deal with it indirectly is bystanders. And then pre COVID, I think is, you know, probably a third of all adults, adolescents dealt with anxiety. And we can only assume that number has severely skyrocketed. So these are issues when you pile them on top of each other. But it's hard to believe that, you know, not that every family or every other family, if you're not dealing with it now is going to be dealing with it at some point in your child's life and your family career. And so I just think it's really important for us to start having conversations about it and being vulnerable. And you know, these issues, yes, they're highly stigmatized. But if we don't start talking about them, they're going to keep weighing us down, and they're going to hurt kids the most. And of course, kids grow up to be adults, I guess they heard all of us, but I really appreciate you know, the work you do, because you're really bringing these conversations and ideas to the forefront so that we can start helping kids be their best selves. Oh,

appreciate that. Thank you. As far as bullying is concerned, what are some things that you've learned about bullying? That maybe you need to think differently about?

So when my child has been bullied, I realized now I know, I think I would have had strong opinions on bullying, like we all so easily have opinions. But the more I researched, the more I understood that I actually knew very little about it. I think so often, what we don't realize we don't identify bullying because we don't understand what it is. And so it's probably worth saying that most academics, most scholars, most researchers who really spend their lives studying this, you know, of course, there's variation in definitions, but generally they hone in on an idea of that of something like bullying is the act of repeatedly and intentionally causing physical and or emotional harm to another person with less power. And so, I think, you know, I didn't understand that a lot of things that maybe qualify as bullying are so easily dismissed. So as you know, for example, we all know about physical bullying, but verbal bullying, taunts and threats and social bullying, you know, exclusion and human humiliation can be highly devastating, right. And so I think when we don't aren't able to identify them, we aren't a able to respond to them. I think another thing that's really often lost and was definitely lost on me is that that power dynamic, it says, Yeah, you know that people are targeted with less power. So 20 to 30% of kids are our target will experience bullying. But the higher the rates are even higher for racial minorities, people in the LGBTQIA communities, people with disabilities, kids with learning differences are really anyone deemed different. So I think when we don't manage that power, dynamic, and create communities that respect and value all people, then we're likely to have bullying, but too often it's treated like a rite of passage, if a kid comes and talks about it, people suggest that they need to stop tattling, or to be less sensitive, or to toughen up, you know, act stronger than they won't, you know, hurt you or you need you need to learn a good uppercut or, you know, whatever it is, but I think we have a really hard time advising kids, when we don't understand the dynamics at play.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of probably bad advice given to children from adults, or maybe from other parents or other family members that you have to stand up to bullies.

And often, I think, you know, as you know, bystanders are known to be huge deterrence. And so bystanders are often told to stand up to the bully. But again, when you consider that power dynamic, that might be easier for the kid with a lot of social power on the playground, but that makes other kids who have less power very vulnerable to being targeted themselves. So there's actually other advice that might be useful, for example, you know, just walk away, because sometimes the kid who is targeting others is doing so for attention. And decreased audiences are less interesting. And maybe you can walk away, you know, saying that's mean, you know, calling calling things out, but doing something away, that doesn't make yourself vulnerable to attack. Another thing that can be really helpful for bystanders to do is to follow up with a child who is targeted after the fact. So so often, that child goes home, knows that these kids said or did awful things to them, and they didn't see anyone else stand up to that. And that child will interpret that as being everybody else agrees with what happened, they're all complicit, they all feel the same way. Often, that's not the case. But but that's how the child feels. So in another child, a bystander, a child comes back and says, you know, you didn't deserve that I saw what happened, and you're a good person. And I care about you. What that what that does is huge. So there's the initial trauma that's caused by the attack. But then there's this shame that the shame of leaving everybody else agrees can often even have a larger impact. So when a child comes back later, and says You didn't deserve that, that severely lessens the long term traumatic impact to that child. So I think advice like that, which is not generally understood, I have spent, you know, years studying the research of, you know, the bullying experts. And often love the firsthand accounts are from the children themselves, you know, kids who are living the experience, often adults tell other kids what to do. But really, if you listen to the kids themselves about what they need, and center their needs, you can often be more responsive and more effective.

So why, you know, not every parent who is had, you know, their child bullied goes and writes a book or researches can you know, the reach that, you know, the, the statistics on bullying or? Like, why? Why is this important to you? Yeah,

why did I choose this path? Yeah, I think it's, it's part of just my nature, I tend to solve problems by the analytical and their negatives to that, right. Like a lot of people respond emotionally. But for whatever reason, maybe the way I was brought up or trained, I've historically worked in a male dominated environment. And so responding emotionally often wasn't helpful, but coming with facts was, and I found pretty early on in this, I was being told, Oh, that's not bullying, the child is just being too sensitive, and you're being a helicopter parent. And I really felt that in order to counter that I needed to have the facts behind me. So I did a lot of studying I did a lot of journaling. To help me just work through my feelings because so many people around me good close friends validated me but they weren't in that school environment with me. The people who around me, were less validating, much less validating. So I did a lot of journaling. And then I did a lot of studying. And it was interesting to see how those two types of writing you know when I took notes for my study And when I journaled for my emotions, how often they impacted one another how they validated one another. So I spent years doing that. And then after a couple years I, I got my kids on better footing. Although I'll admit, during the prior years, I really I felt like I was in a deep dark hole, I probably went to somebody depression, I felt all alone, completely isolated. And then when I got my kids to better footing, I started looking around, and I saw so many other families were dealing with these exact same issues. And they too, felt alone. Remember, I said bullying affects 20 to 30% of all kids learning differences 20% of all kids anxiety, very high number. So I now understood that, and I could look around and see so many other families hurting. And it just seems strange to me that they all felt alone, but they were all right next to each other. And so I started to feel somewhat of a moral obligation to pay it forward. Because I recalled how many times I would have craved someone to lend a hand to be an ally, to me and to my family when we were going through a hard time. And so I felt a need to do that myself. Otherwise, you know, I'd be somewhat of a hypocrite, you know, the thing I craved the most, I wasn't willing to be myself. So that's somewhat how I got over my, my nerves in terms of releasing this book.

And then what have you learned about bullying? What have you learned about bullies? The people or the kids who bully? Because there's, there's got to be like, you know, their origin. Story, right?

Yeah. So first of all, one of the things I learned, and I am hesitant to say this, because you, I don't want to correct you. But one of the things I learned that I did myself is that we shouldn't or should be very careful about calling the kid a bully, and calling a kid a victim, because what that does is it basically solidifies that role. And so instead, what is helpful is to talk about the behaviors the bullying behaviors. And, and when you do that, then it tells the child that you believe they can change and be a better person. It's, it's consistent with restorative justice practices as well. And same with a child who has been victimized if we label them as a victim that can feel very shaming and debilitating, right. So in both cases, we want to try and talk about behaviors, rather than categorize a kid you know, which with a label that can affect them their whole life. And then I also thought was interesting is a lot of the researchers didn't seem to agree on what, what, how to categorize a child who targets others. Some would say that these were children who perhaps were bullied at home, dealt with severe trauma. And we're bringing their angst and shame to school and releasing it on other kids. Others would say, you know, some of them are, lakhs have trouble with some social skills, and they miss cues on how to get attention and esteem from their friends. Other experts said you don't know. These kids who target others aren't always experiencing shame and trauma in their own lives. Some of them have an inflated view of themselves and believe they're morally superior, or, you know, superior in all ways to others. I think this often happens in cases and communities that treat some kids is superior to others. So So for example, say you have a championship football team, right? Or a championship lacrosse team. And those kids are treated like they're better than others. And, you know, understandably, it's hard for kids not to believe what's being said to them. And in this in this case, actually, in a lot of cases, the kids actually often don't have remorse for how they treat others, they often actually say, well, that kid deserved it that kids weird or strange, and, you know, blame their their target for their behavior or the mistreating them. It's it's twisted. But I guess that's a long way of saying that it's, we need to be careful about too quickly categorizing kids, because there's a lot at play here.

Well, you know, thank you for sharing that about the language. Because I still catch my eye I should know better. Because that's something that we talked about. We're talking about kids with challenging behavior. It's the same thing. I remember we had Dr. Ross screen on a while ago, his whole thing about kids do well if they can, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Like if you don't have the tools to interact with peers, then there's going to be some of those behaviors that shake out and Some of those aren't going to they're going to be, they're going to negatively affect everybody. And so the other thing that came to my mind when you're talking is that specifically around bullying, I think there are some really strong, like immediate tropes, that that probably don't help, right? I rarely do. Because, I mean, certainly in the last 10 or so years, tropes around disability have gotten better, more representation across media. But I'm just thinking about the things that I've watched with our family in the last just like a few months, and the bullying tropes that come to mind, it's certainly not helpful, I would imagine.

Right? Well, I think when you flatten any issue, to maybe the most obvious, or the or the easiest story to tell, you miss the complexity, you miss the richness of the situation, you miss the depth, you miss the the real feelings you miss a lot, right? In all cases, we're complex creatures, right? And the world is a complex place. So you know, to your point, I think we're all getting a little more discriminating when we watch shows or read books or see movies, if we want to see things that really make us think I think that are deeper and give more honest representations of the complexity of our world.

So then, how should we be thinking about the problem of bullying? Like, how big is it? I know, you put out some statistics that it's affecting, you know, it was like 20 to 30% of families. Is that really any different from other issues that are that are affecting families?

Well, I think a lot of families these days, I mean, we've been through a lot the past couple years. So there I don't mean to demean any of the other issues that are affecting families, there are very real issues other than bullying that affect family. So I don't want to take away from that. But in terms of the seriousness of bullying, you know, as I said, people often dismiss it as a rite of passage. And I was somewhat flabbergasted when I was doing the research to see that people actually the experts considered considered a form of victimization, with serious social justice implications, especially given that power imbalance we discussed, you know, kids who are targeted, most are the ones who are already being discriminated against. And the impact is real. So you know, threatening behavior, help makes kids feel unsafe, it activates the limbic system, the amygdala, and causes a stress response, you know, the fight, flight or freeze. And when kids brains are in this state, they can't learn, they can't reach their academic or social development potentials. And so, you know, they're not gaining access to I think what a lot of people would consider, you know, human right. kids deserve to learn in an environment free of abuse, our whole societies often predicated upon, well, if you study hard, if you work hard, you can live a decent life. And we are taking that right away from kids when we allow bullying to continue in schools. You talked about it affecting the targets, which it definitely does. But yeah, I'd argue that the implication is much broader than that. Science shows that the kids who are targeted definitely do socialize, isolation, low self esteem, that leads to academic impairment, substance abuse, delinquency, stress related ailments, like headaches and stomach aches or problem sleeping, mental health issues, anxiety, depression, and unfortunately, you know, what, what has been called bully side. And it can also lead to long term health risks like, because the chronic stress of it causes inflammation, which a lot of people associate with diabetes and heart disease. So the effects on the target can be lifelong. But what I found interesting was that the bystanders experienced similar outcomes, they to feel unsafe in environments that don't enforce community codes. When they see adults looking the other way, it makes them feel unsafe, you know, what does this mean for now? And what does this mean for my future? And will I be the one targeted tomorrow? Children bystanders can also feel a sense of moral failure, when they don't help, especially as we were discussing earlier, people tell them they should stand up to the bully, but that's terrifying. So does that mean they're weak? Does that mean they're insufficient? What does that mean? And so that can have serious effects on the bystander. But here's what I found most fascinating. Some of the most detrimental effects are on the youth who bullied themselves or who bully. They have all the same outcomes as Kids who are targeted in the bystanders, but also later in life they study showed me of higher likelihood of having difficulty maintaining relationships and jobs, there's a higher rate of spousal and child abuse, and even criminal behavior. I read a statistic that a repeat bully by the age of eight has a 25% chance of having a criminal record by the age of 26. So the effects on the whole community are significant, and they're lifelong. And it's not just in the classroom, because all these kids go home to their families. And the they likely has happened in my case, and you'll read about in my book, or you read my new book that, you know, they often take it out on their other siblings, especially younger siblings, and then the parents can be distraught, you know, as in my case, I thought bullying should be simple to handle, like, Oh, child targets, and others, you know, we help the check target who is targeted, we help the child who was aggressive and learn, you know, teach them Kinder ways and how to repair and everything will be fine, this will be easy. And none of that happened. For us. It was mind bending, and we were definitely gaslit a bit. So it definitely affected you know, as adults, us in the family, and it made us doubt, you know, our own position in the community and humanity itself. And then here we are going after our own jobs and doing other things not being our best selves. And, you know, the spillover effect just continues from there. So, you know, I hopefully, I've painted the case, that it's extremely important to acknowledge bullying when it occurs and address it and in constructive ways.

No, one, what are some constructive and effective ways to address bullying in for all the reasons you you just painted for us?

Well, I think like in medicine, probably the one of the best things we can do is preventative care. Right. And I so wished that there was one guidebook on how to handle bullying. That has not been created yet. There is a lot of there are a lot of good books out there. But I, I found that I had to pull bits and pieces from everywhere to create a decent summary. So basically, what I found is one of the best preventative metric measures is just having an authentic culture of caring, mutual respect and inclusion where differences are valued, and not demeans. And that's role modeled on top. So you know, authentic authoritarian leaders who use power plays and maybe mistreat teachers to show who's strongest. I'm obviously characterizing, maybe I'm using a trope here, I should get away from it a little bit. But, you know, authoritarian leaders are people who just don't generally demonstrate and role model how to be kind and how to be caring and how to respect one another, probably will have a harder time getting the best results. I think it's also I've read, it's also really important to empower students, you know, we don't preach to them, but we encourage them to define their own culture and their own norms, and train them in empathy and social skills, I'd say especially repair you know, just telling kids to say sorry, it that doesn't repair anything, and often, like a flippant, sorry, can actually even do more damage, right. And it's really important to empower bystanders or upstanders. And acknowledge and reward kindness when you see it, you know, a lot of times a few people who mistreat others command a lot of attention. So it looks like that's the norm. But if you can point out acts of kindness and goodness, you can help kids see that actually, you know, there's a lot of really good stuff around you, and then that can perpetuate this new vision of what our school should be like. I think, you know, along those lines, in terms of preventative measure measures, a lot of times people make the mistake of slapping a poster on a wall that says, you know, zero tolerance for bullying and having a one off assembly. And either that doesn't really do anything, efforts need to be pervasive, and they need to affect all the people. So not just the kids, but the teachers, the administrators, the parents, the bus drivers, the hallway monitors, all of everybody should be on the same page about the kind of culture we're trying to build. And so that, of course, means not just in the classrooms, which that's important because most of the aggressive or targeted behavior happens on playgrounds, or in hallways, or in the vessels when no one's looking. So we need to encompass all environments, all people throughout the year, not just at a one off assembly and you know, transparent and well defined expectations and procedures definitely help with that. I could also get into a response. I mean, of course, prevention is great, but just assume that bullying will never happen would be naive. They're also important things to do in terms of response. Yeah, please go ahead. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I think one of the key things is to take each report seriously. So often kids are told not to tattle, or likely to sit earlier just to be less sensitive or to toughen up. But, you know, start bawling.gov, the national government site on bullying says a child should hear, you know, no one deserves to be bullied, we will do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen again. And the child who targets others should be told that is not okay. It is not, you know, we cannot let that happen again. And then, of course, I liked hadn't seen this in much of the research, but I like the ideas of integrating social justice in terms of really creating the tools for helping that child learn how to be more pro social, and hopefully give them the opportunity to be included in in the culture and the sets in the community in a way that is constructive. You know, so it was, you know, one strike in Europe policies apparently don't work that said, you know, if one child is being so disruptive and making all kids, you know, so many kids feel so unsafe, that they can't learn, and it's so disruptive environment, after some time, some serious consequences might need to be taken. But I think it's a kinder and more humane approach for the outset to believe that all children have the opportunity and hope and want to be good. Right? And yeah, them all to make that happen.

Yeah, it seems like the it seems like the zero tolerance policies actually would do more harm than good, you know, given you know, all the information that you just shared with us.

Right, right. So I mean, there are a lot of things that can be done in response. But I think the most important is just acknowledging what happens and working with everybody involved. And actually being vocal about this is not okay, so often, this happened, in our case, the poor behavior was managed behind closed doors. So, you know, my child never saw anything happening. And so, you know, my children believe that the school believe what happened was okay, and we never saw anything that was happening happening, you know, the priority seemed to be prioritize the privacy of the child who was the aggressor. And while I do think it's important to respect everybody, I think it's very important for a school to take a stand and say, you know, in validate what their values are, and their mission statement is, and when, when that's been called the question, I think it's a great opportunity to really call out what their values are. I think, you know, it's also really important to when something wrong has happened to really think, Okay, why did this happen? Like we said, it's often in power imbalance, what happened to make some kids feel that they were superior to others, and that it was okay to demean others? What do we need to do in our communities to correct this power imbalance? I would say there are many other things that I've listed them, I look at actual say, on my website, Kayla Taylor, writes.com, I have a resources page. And at the very top of that Resources page, I actually because I care so much about this topic I I've included for free the chapter on bullying and bullying, prevention and everything I learned in hopes that it might help others. So there's more information there. I could probably go on for another hour, I'd take all your time.

Well, for the for the educators, the school leaders that are listening, what are some things that that they can do to help learners feel valued? And and have a just a more inclusive culture in a classroom?

Right? I think this is probably you talked about this every week, but it's I'm sure a million ideas have come. I think the first part is just being patient with yourself. I think being a teacher and educators one of the hardest things anybody could ever do. And just to acknowledge that and you know, your frustration, especially since teachers are not resourced with, you know very well, they're not paid well. They're not given the materials they need in the classroom, they're not given the knowledge they need to support children. There's actually a great report called forward together, which was produced by understood and NCLD the Gates Foundation helped produce it, I would encourage reading that because it just shows just helps us acknowledge generally that teachers are under resourced and are not given the information they need to understand kids, or to identify kids who learn differently. So if you have a hard time doing that, it's understandable. Don't blame yourself. You haven't been given the information that that would be so so helpful. And then I think anything you can do to step back and before reacting really try and value kids who learn differently. So maybe is there an opportunity, you know, often people tell the kid who is bullied or who's marginalized. They're given tips on how to act more like the average kid or the standard kid, which is essentially victim shaming, right? Like, oh, you wouldn't be this awful I think this victimization wouldn't have happened to you if you weren't just you weren't different if you behave differently, really, the people who miss who judge others who discriminate against others who demean others are the ones whose behavior needs to change. So instead, how about maybe highlighting that kid's strength? Show like showing the whole giving that kid like the opportunity to show, you know what amazing gifts, say. You know, for parents who are listening often, it can help to help involve the kids and other communities where they're respected, help involve them in other afterschool activities that really help them lean into their strengths and their passions, so that they can know that they are deserving of their inherent dignity, that they are capable. But I think anything you can do to be looking to appreciate kids differences, is amazing. But that's hard, because we have a system that is based on averages and standards, like everything's standardized, right and timed. And it's, I just want to acknowledge that it's difficult for teachers, given the systems that are at play, but but we're all capable, you know, teachers come into this business, because they are good kind people who care about children, right? They're not doing it for the money. But I understand that it can be frustrating. And after a while, you maybe want to throw up your hands and you know, you're dealing with your own sort of trauma for the way you've been mistreated in the environment. But if you can kind of reclaim that joy for the querque kid for the difference, and actually means your price all the science shows that your ability to have an impact. You know, I think teachers go into the business because they want to be that person that created an inflection point for a kid. And it's, you're less likely to create the inflection point for the caterers are already fitting in a box and society is already saying that they're, they're fine, right? You're more likely to have a huge lifelong impact. If you look out for the kids that are struggling, that are that go against the grain that the that are quirky and different, and help legitimize them and show just how capable they are. Because everybody I mean, I don't care what sort of thing you have going on. Like we all have impairments, we all have differences. I don't care what your impairment is, everybody has something valuable to offer. And how fun would your classroom be if you can create a place of joy of celebrating that? Hey, what gets fun, I think versus Stephen kitten boxes that just that just takes the joy out of my heart so quick.

Yeah, don't make me don't stuff kids in boxes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, literally or figuratively. Thank you. Exactly. Right around the corner, Kayla Taylor, and I answer the mystery question.

So here we go. I feel like this is safe. So what do you consider yourself an expert at?

Very little, which is why I did so much research and studying I actually I'm always very timid to speak up. Because in this is probably you know, we were all raised in this society about you. You can't, you don't want to be caught having a mistake, because nothing could be worse, right? We're now teaching kids the growth mindset. And we actually learned through the mistakes and all that Oh, yeah. So unfortunately, yeah, I came along too late. And I have many decades of breeding that you don't want to make mistakes. So I often go into things, assuming there's an actually it's very, it's pretty much 100% The case that there's someone in the world who knows more than I do on a topic, so I'm hesitant to call myself an expert on anything. That said, I have studied a lot about bullying, prevention, compassion for kids, appreciating kids differences, learning differences, all of that. So I care deeply about those things.

Yeah, I I think some people would call me an expert on inclusive education, although I feel like I still have more to learn.

Don't we all? Is that the whole point? Yeah. If you think you know it all now then we're just stuck where we're done. Right? And that there's still many so many beautiful things to consider and so many kids to support and yeah, that would be just so sad if we were just done because it's a journey, right? Learning is a journey. Life is a journey.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we'll leave it at that. And see that was that was fun. Jam your fun. Oh, thank you. Kayla Taylor, thank you so much for being on the thing conclusive podcast. We appreciate your time.

Hi, Tim, thanks so much for having me and talking about my book canaries among us. And if people want more information, I encourage them to visit my website, Kayla Taylor writes with an s.com. As I mentioned before, there's some resources that I've put there to help people who are interested in any of these topics.

That time, it means free time. And this week, I'm veering off a bit to share something that I just think is pretty cool. So when I was a classroom teacher, I kept a record player in my room and had a number of singles, LPs and 70 eights that I would play for the kids. And while I was planning for this episode, I thought, wouldn't it be fun to play a 78 for y'all. Now things like playing music and a podcast gets a little tricky. But this one is nearly 100 years old. And it's from the Library of Congress. So I think we are good. Now a 78 record is a disc that was typically made of shellac and played on a phonograph in the early 1900s. And it's called the 78. Because you have to play it at the speed of 78 revolutions per minute or rpm. They're actually pretty heavy, and they're super fragile, meaning like you don't want to drop one, because they're likely to shatter into a million pieces. Anyways, records are a special interest for me, and I thought, what a better use of our free time to date and just share a little bit of nerdiness. So the tune we're about to listen to is called the 12th Street Rag, which is a classic Ragtime composition, composed by U de l. Bowman, an American pianist, and composer. It's from 1914. And it's named 12 street because there's a street in Kansas City, Missouri, which was known for its vibrant entertainment scene during the Ragtime era. The song became popular in the early 20th century, and has been recorded and performed by a number of artists and in various musical styles. It's actually a pretty well known piece, I think you're going to recognize it and if you have visions of Spongebob Squarepants while listening to this, it is probably because another version of this song was used as background music in the show in the late 90s, early 2000s. Okay, here we go. Let's listen to 12th Street Rag and when it's over, we'll roll the credits.

For more information about inclusive education or to learn how you can partner with MCIE on school transformation or professional learning opportunities, visit MCIE.org Thanks again to our incredible sponsor changing perspectives. And do you love think inclusive? Here are a few ways to let us know, rate us on Spotify or leave us a review on Apple podcasts, become a patron for extra stuff. This week, we get a little bit more personal with Kayla Taylor about the creative process of writing canaries among us. And y'all, this book is so good, you are not going to want to put it down. So if that interests you, it's all included if you are a patron, but if you're not, why don't you join these fine people? Thank you to Carol Q. Aaron P. Jarrett T joiner a, Kathy B. Mark C. Gabby M. Kathleen T and Paulette W. We appreciate your continued support of think inclusive, thinking inclusive is written, edited, designed, mixed and mastered by me, Tim Vegas, Original Music by miles credit, additional music from melody. Thanks for your time and attention. And remember, inclusion always works.

I think for me, things typically come out in the conversation. But if there's something I really I want to bring out I'll ask follow up questions. But I'm really here to amplify your story. And and hopefully our audience will connect with that. I really think it does. Because with the story and the bullying aspect, I think it's not something that I cover a lot. In fact, I don't know if we've had a podcast episode about bullying specifically. So I think it's just be a great conversation.

I can't tell you how often I hear that, which I guess it's not surprising. It's hard to get people to talk maybe we should save this but it's hard to get people maybe to come talk about their experience because it's so shame making so many people are bullied so many kids especially kids in March already marginalized groups, so the incidence is really high. Thank you for amplifying the need for more understanding and awareness

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