This is thinking cluesive I'm Tim Vegas. In an article from 2016, published in educational and child psychology by the British Psychological Society, authors, Bettina, Honan and Tara Murphy suggest that for children to succeed in learning, they need to feel safe and be at a stress optimal environment have tasks that are within their achievable challenge level, engage in the positive cycle of learning, have positive beliefs and mindset about their learning, and ultimately become passionate and engaged learners. This view draws on neuroscience research to inform educational practice, and provides a framework for teachers to address learning and motivational issues in the classroom. It's 2024. And if you haven't noticed, neuroscience is becoming a more and more popular way to explain and support challenging behavior in classrooms. After a short break. I'm going to introduce you to our guest this week, Dr. Emily King, whose passion is supporting neurodivergent individuals, especially those who exhibit challenging behavior, you won't want to miss this conversation.
Hi, welcome back to Think inclusive where each week we bring you conversations about inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. Dr. Emily King has spent the last 20 years working with neurodivergent children and teens, along with their families and teachers in schools, and private practice. She has sat on both sides of the IEP table, first as a school psychologist, and then as a parent. Her focus is on understanding how developmental skills relationships and safety intersect to create an ideal environment for growth. After five years as a school psychologist and 14 years in private practice, Dr. King shifted her focus to supporting parents of neurodivergent children. She holds a PhD in School Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has extensive experience in psycho educational evaluations in school services. Dr. King's passion lies in helping parents connect with their children through loving and supportive interactions. In this episode of thinking cluesive Emily and I discuss the evolution of behavior support in education, emphasizing the importance of understanding the emotional experiences of students. Emily challenges the traditional deficit model and highlights the need for patterns and prevention strategies. Dr. King also addresses the silos between general and special education and offers practical advice for educators to create inclusive classrooms. She emphasizes the significance of building relationships with students knowing their interests and creating a safe and secure learning environment. Before we dive into our conversation with Emily, I want to tell you about our sponsor for this week. the Described and Captioned Media Program. DCMP is the nation's leading source of accessible educational videos. Membership is free and for families and school personnel with at least one early learner through grade 12 student with a disability and it includes free access to 1000s of videos and educational television series with captions, audio description and American Sign Language. DCMP also provides guidelines for captioning and describing educational media as well as professional development and e learning resources. The CMP is fully funded by the US Department of Education. And did I mention it services are free? Check them out@dcmp.org And now my conversation with Dr. Emily king. Oh and for free time this week, a preview of the MCIE summer institute this August in Annapolis, Maryland.
Dr. Emily King, welcome to the thinking cluesive podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, Tim.
Emily, I've been thinking a lot about behavior, a lot about challenging behavior, and about how educators have changed their thinking about how to support behavior ahead. And I'm wondering, is that something that you've gone through? Because as an educator who has been in schools, and now is practicing, know, with, with clients outside of the school setting, there's there's been a lot of changes with how we support so what, what's kind of your thinking around that?
Yeah, so just to give a little context of the timeframe, because this matters, right? I was trained in graduate school from 2001 to 2005. I was a school psychologist from 2005, to 2010. And in though that timeframe, you know, I feel like my grad school training was still very deficit model, medical model we diagnose Of course, we're trained to test and place and diagnose and get get kids access to help, right? Like, that's what we do. Once I was on the ground as a school psychology intern, and really challenged with, you know, I was supervised but I was, on my own like, at these meetings and working with kids and working with parents, and then had we have lots of supervision early in our careers. But still, I had more freedom to be like, hey, what do I really think about this, and so even back then, in like the mid 2000s, I just had a personal like, reckoning with like seeing kids get restrained or seeing kids, that I felt like were getting disciplined for things they couldn't help. So I started to have these like, moments of this doesn't feel right to me. And I was so young in the profession, you know, you are really super empowered to say anything yet. And you're working with administrators and teachers who are older and more seasoned than you, supposedly. And so, you know, as I've grown and matured in my career professionally, and also become a parent, honestly, about advocating as a parent, and understanding how helpful it is to know what teachers are going through in terms of, you know, just the time load, just like how many kids they have, you know, I worked in schools where I mean, I had, like, 60 kids on my caseload, in one high school, you know, like just the caseload alone of, you don't have as much time and as an educator to do what you really feel like you want to do, if you're a really thorough clinician and want to really help. So they're always things with learning how to support behavior that you're trying to figure out. So as my work evolved, and my mindset evolved, I definitely fell into this role of really loving consultation with teachers, because I felt like if I can partner with the teachers and help them understand what I'm thinking about maybe where this behavior is coming from, knowing that they may or may not have had any of this mental health training, or, you know, even back then it was more just either it was anxiety, or we weren't using the word neurodivergent, or neurodiversity. We weren't talking about emotional regulation. We weren't talking about any of that nervous system stuff we were talking about. This kid is having behavior. And Where's that coming from? Or like teachers will say it came out of nowhere, it came out of the blue and parents will say this, too. And really, from early on, I always felt like there have to be patterns. There are patterns to this, just you know, and I just remember the first time I saw Ross screens work, I was like, yes, like, kids don't want to do poorly, none of us want to do poorly. So when you know, I started learning from Ross screen Mona della hook, you know, Laurie, DISA tells like people who are in this field, that kind of putting the neuroscience behind it. It started to make more sense to me from a nervous system experience, rather than this child is showing up with this behavior. So I'd say the evolution of mine kind of came from, you know, I was trained in these like, identify the behavior figure out where it's coming from. And, you know, I learned obviously, how to do functional behaviors. assessments and behavior intervention plans. But I always asked the team and always those kind of squeaky wheel that asked the team, okay, but how are we going to get the kid to do what we put on the plan? Like, that's all, you know, cute and fun on the plan. But what's going to happen? Like when it asked like, how are we supporting? And why is this happening. And so there's so much we can do to prevent behavior, when we fully understand the child's emotional experience in classroom or in the school building. So all of these things I've been really thinking about for two decades. And I do feel like in the last five years or so I've had more language around it more science behind it, that I get really fired up, and we talk about it, because I want all teachers to have this information and to understand where behavior comes from.
Yeah, so thank you, thank you for sharing all of that and your journey. I also have done many, many functional behavior assessments. And when I was when I was a support specialist in a public school system, and I also have gone through this journey of trying to figure out and have language to there has to be something more than function. Right. And there's, and so I think, like, the, the question is always, why, right? Why is the behavior happening? What is behind it? And you know, and I think I think in behaviorist language, there's, you know, antecedent work, you know, setting event. And if you, if you're listening, and you're like, Tim, what are you talking about? There's, there's a lot of information about, you know, what, what behaviorism is, and kind of the behavior pathway, if you want to take a look at that. But I always felt like, we could still serve a student, even even if, as an educator, we're kind of locked into using some of this terminology to always look at just beyond the, okay, what's the behavior? How many times it's, is it happening? What's the setting, like, what's triggering it? And look into those preventative strategies. And a lot of times that it really does go back to regulation. I think the last times, the last few years that I was in the public school system. That was the conversation like, what tools are we giving the student to regulate themselves so that they're not even getting to the point where they're hitting that anxiety? You know, the anxiety curve, or however you want to say it? Right?
Yeah. And the functional behavior assessment language has always kind of bugged me. Just be honest. So like, when you tell I mean, it's a little bit different, how FBAs are written in different districts. However, the reason it bugs me is because I don't feel like it's detailed enough to really paint in the picture of what a child's experiences if we think about our behavior as emotional experience, some of the language on FBAs are things like, okay, so what was the antecedent what came before? So that's the trigger? And then what happened? And then you know, the behavior and then why did it happen? And then the list of those things, why did it happen is only a few things. It's usually like to escape and activity, or to get it or, you know, things like that. So, if I hear, you know, an educator or a parent say they wanted to get out of that activity, or they wanted to get my attention. That's actually begs the question. Okay. Well, why did they want back? There's one more step back, we need to get why were they trying to escape the activity? Is it overwhelming? Is it too long? Is it too fast? Is it too much? Like, that's the stuff we need to know about so we can accommodate the activity next time and make it and feel more doable? So we reduce the anxiety from the get go to prevent it next time and get out of this reaction feedback loop that we sometimes are in? Because many teachers I know we all I am parents, I'm a parent. I know we all want to know, but what do we do when the behavior happens? Yeah, I'll never forget one time I was interviewing Ross green. And I asked him that question. I'm like, if anybody knows what to do, it's Ross Freeman. And he said, you know, once the behavior happens, I got nothing for you. He was like, it's all about preventing it. And I'm like, okay, there you go. And so, when a child is like way before the stress state right their way before they, you know, are so dysregulated Can't we're just keeping them safe at that moment, or we're, you know, giving them some some time and space to regulate or helping them co regulate before we can solve the problem. I feel like the FBAs can help us. But we need a little bit more information of the Why do they want our attention? What are they avoiding, and those are usually rooted in anxiety or an emotional experience that could be based on a previous traumatic experience could be based on their neuro divergence. And whatever the task is asking them is not aligned with their skills. We've just got to get curious about why they're, they're doing the things in the first place. And anytime I know, you know this as an educator, the first thing we all all say is this kid did X, Y, and Z. And I'm often obviously I want to make sure everyone is safe. But usually, I'm often not super concerned about what they did. I want to know, like, let's back it all the way up about why did they do it? When did it happen? Who was it with? Like, let's find the pattern?
Yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm just remembering all of the trainings that I did for behavior intervention plans with educators. And because you talked about, you talked about a lot of times it's reactive, you know, in, I think in really good behavior intervention plans. There's a lot of preventative strategies. Yeah. And, and we, of course, we want all those. But it always does go back to what you said, Well, what happens if they exhibit the challenging behavior, then what, and then there's a list of intervention strategies, right of the things that you do when the behavior happens, and there
are sometimes consequences in that list a lot of times.
And a lot of times, those consequences aren't great for either the student or the teacher, right. And sometimes the teacher misinterprets, how to use the BIP like, I remember, I remember we were supporting an educator in a classroom. And the educator actually read off the BIP read the paper to the student. And you can imagine how that went we
effective Right. Right. Thank right.
I'm, I'm wondering, though, for, for a lot of educators, in ones that are veteran educators that have gone through and have seen the effectiveness of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports FBAs BEPS. And see that they see that as a very positive thing. Right. And it certainly it certainly is, and can be when when done a certain way. But what I'm wondering is, with all of this new information about it's been, there's been a lot of information for years, but it feels like like we said just over the last five years, it's become more in the kind of the zeitgeist of what we're talking about in how to support education. Neuroscience, trauma informed. How do we know that this is research based based on science? How do we know it's effective?
Yeah, I think to start with the PBIS question, you know, when we have veteran teachers who see positive behavior, intervention support working, or seeing bits working or seeing Functional Behavior Assessment working, they are working, because they're usually well written, and the staff understands them and is implementing them consistently. But the other reason they're working, is because skills are emerging, to actually be able to do what's on the plan. So if if we write a functional behavior assessment, in a bid for a child who's not able to achieve what's on it, it's not going to work. So it has to be developmentally, I always think about Vygotsky zone of proximal development that'd be like developmentally, just beyond what they could do. So we move them forward and support them and scaffold them. But it can't be so far outside of what they're ready to do developmentally, whether that is impulse control, or, you know, recovering after a setback or whatever the behavior is that we're trying to coach and reward. If they, first of all, they never achieve it, then we're not gonna be able to implement any rewards that are on a bet. But if they also never achieve it and keep getting consequences, it's going to start breaking down relationship. Have the people around him around them who are expecting these behaviors. So I think those school wide systems absolutely can work for the kids who have the skills to do them. And the purpose of the school wide systems are just to increase consistency to just increase practice. And then once we get more specialized like we do with IEP is in bets. My struggle with PBIS is when we hold kids with bits to the standard of the whole school. So I always caution everyone, could we have a goal, like I know some schools do, like, let's say, brings a ball of fun Friday, you have to do this, this and this earn the fun Friday. Well, one kid may be earning Fun Friday for something doing something different than another kid. And yes, that the little bit of extra work. But for a kid to have to sit out of Fun Friday for something that they're actually not capable of achieving yet, because of impulse control, or inattention or something that they that is a part of their disability that they cannot help that's defeating and harmful to that child's self esteem, right? Or like to, here's an example, this came to me actually, last month when I was on vacation, and I was in a spinning class on vacation, go with me here. Now there's evil in this spinning class. And three of us, including myself, raised our hand has, have you ever done this before? So I've been taking spinning classes for two years, I'm comfortable with it. I kind of know my body and my rhythm, and I love the music. So four people in this class have never done it before. What is the instructor was like, Okay, everybody, you're gonna get a reward, a reward for making it through the class, and everybody gets the same thing. And if you've never done this before, I'm sorry, you just won't get the reward. One person in the class quit midway through shaman said like, you're a great instructor, but I hate this, like some people just don't like it not know. And then the other three people were just really struggling because they had never done it before. It is a skill, you have to I mean, I don't even love riding bike. But I do love spinning for what it's worth. I feel like I'm locked in and I can't fall. So it's an example though of like when you're in a class like that. And you're all asked to do the same thing, which is very similar what we asked our students, and then you don't get the reward for doing what you're asked to do. But you're actually not skilled enough to do it yet. It just feels so unfair when we say it like that, right. So sometimes I think about that with PBIS, or with behavior intervention plans, we have to make sure that the plan and the reward fits the child's capability to earn the thing that we're asking them to work towards, where it makes sense that they wouldn't be motivated to work towards it.
Yeah, yes. You know, it's so it's so thank you to for not completely throwing it away. You know? Yeah,
I don't think, too,
I don't I think there, I think there is a sentiment that we just need to get rid of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports and any sort of use of them. And I'm not so sure about that. Especially because I am part of the practitioners who really did see a benefit. But But in saying that, I always was like, There's got to be something more that we're that we're doing here. And I think I think what you taught what you're talking about with making sure that the learners have the skills to so that we can implement these plans effectively. I think that's, I think that's a really, really good summation of maybe what are part of what is missing?
Yeah, and it is, you know, a little bit of extra work for an educator, if there's only once we have a school wide rewards situation like PBIS. It's tricky, because kids figure out oh, so and so didn't earn the thing. And then it becomes socially embarrassing for some kids, which can be shaming. So we don't want that to be a thing either, right? Well, I see the solution as educators knowing kids skills really well. And being able to tweet and have a personal conversation with that child on let's let's say it is a week long reward and have a conversation on Monday and say, Hey, this week, you're working towards earning Fun Friday for this thing that that teacher knows the child has done before but maybe is doing inconsistently or cannot not due yet by themselves, but he's doing it with a reminder. What can they do successfully to earn that thing? And yes, it takes a little bit of outside the box extra thinking about that, but it's no different than accommodating reading or accommodating math or accommodating writing.
Right. Yeah, well, and also, it's like when we talk about the tears, I know people have, yeah, you know, thoughts about tears. But when you're talking about really highly specialized instruction, whether that's for academics, whether that's for reading, writing, or math, or whatever, it also can be for social, emotional and behavioral. So that's just their special education. Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Speaking of special education, I was perusing your Instagram, and social media feeds, which you're an inspiration, I wish, I want to be like Dr. Emily King, when I grew up with my social media, it's really great. And you're also talking to a lot of people about a lot of things, but something I heard or watched was about this. These systems, right. And I've said this before on other podcasts, you know, we are our education system is really two systems. It's general ed, and special ed. And a lot of times those systems do not communicate work together for the benefit of all learners. And, and so I'm wondering if you, how do we exist in a system? That is so siloed? And for educators out there, I know, they want to move beyond it. But a lot of times, they feel helpless. So what are some what are some things that are on top of mind that an educator can either help in their school or just in their own professional development? Like, think about how to break through those?
Yeah, so I want to step back and give a little background here just to make everyone feel a little less alone. This system is has been created for us because of historically, how education evolved. I'll just talk about America. Sure. And, you know, I'm, I'm so thankful for public education. I'm so thankful that we have it. Is it perfect? No. Is it still evolving? Yes. So you know, we, of course, if you're an educator, you know, this, but just, we have education, compulsory education, we've had it for 100 years. We need our society to be literate and be able to do math and all the things and that's all wonderful. And then in the 70s were like, so we should probably educate everyone. And so, you know, we created this separate system, at that time felt appropriate, right? That like, isn't this great. We're educating everyone. And we they can come to school now, because prior to that they couldn't even get an education. So yes, that was better at the time, right? Yeah, here we are. 50 years later, I feel like we are evolving again. And now we're like going this like next level of okay, how do we integrate all of this so we can be an inclusive culture and society and workplaces and kids are starting to talk about all their neurodiversity with each other. And then we've got, you know, all kinds of diversities that are becoming more celebrated and normalized. And I think this is just a part of that. So I know teachers out there like, Yes, I'm with you. I'm on board. But guess what, I didn't learn how to do this in school. So that's why I do the work I do. That's why I do professional development for teachers. That's why I talk so much about parent teacher collaboration. Because I feel like another thing that siloed is parents and teachers, right? Like parents feel like I don't know what's going on at school and teachers are like parent will tell me what's going on at home. And then we've got a child who's experiencing both so sit a little bit similar to like, our regular and special educators need to collaborate and our parents and teachers need to collaborate because we are all the village around these kids. So if you find yourself being that teacher who wants to be like, the one who gets their students like I talk with kids all the time and alert my teacher get me and that's like, the best compliment you can get as a teacher, because it's this intangible like I feel seen. They understand what's hard for me, they understand what I'm interested in. And I don't feel like they're going to spring something on me or expect something of me that they don't think I can that I can't Do. So if you're that teacher and you want to know more, start by thinking about how a child navigates your classroom or navigates the school building, like starting with like, body regulation, like, are they do they move quickly? Are they sluggish? Are they quiet? Are they talkative? Like what is their energy light? And these are all things I've learned from OTS over the years, right? You know, what are they sensitive to? What are they seeking out? You know, we've got kids that pretty much it's four or five categories of kids, you know, we've got the active ones, we've got the quiet ones, we've got the talkers, we've got the ones that ask a million questions, and then we've got the ones that really want to be in charge. So, you know, we've got a few categories of temperament that we see in classrooms and learning your students that way, and then figuring out what are their interests, because this sounds so simple, but it's so true, when a child is able to engage with their interests, their anxiety is going to go down, and they are going to be able to express themselves better. The number one thing I coach teachers on is this intersection of anxiety and learning, where if our anxiety is too high, we can't learn. And this is why kids and people kind of go quiet, go silent when we're upset and overwhelmed. And then when we feel comfortable and safe, and our anxiety is low, then we have the cognitive acity. To learn and grow and be curious. Learning is vulnerable, Curiosity is vulnerable. So kids have to feel safe and secure and your relationship and your classroom. And sometimes you can create this as a teacher just in your relationship, it gets tricky. If you have maybe a student with a lot of externalizing behaviors that may make other students feel unsafe, like there are definitely things I know that happened in classrooms that are out of your control. But the more you can do to help your students just feel safe and secure, to be able to take risks and learn and know that you're just going to show them a better way, when they make a mistake, you're not going to approach with a punitive, you know, consequence, or things that might feel overwhelming to their nervous system. That said, some kids do need a boundary, some kids do need a teacher to show up and say, we don't do that near because that's not safe. every kid's going to be a little bit different. So I would just start with that deep understanding of how your students regulate and how they seek attention or when they need the problem solved. Are they asking for help? Do they not even know how to ask for help? Those are all things that end up turning into behaviors, if we don't fully understand what children need in those moments of frustration.
Yeah, and I'm hearing what I'm hearing too is, is really focusing on relationships with your students. And knowing really knowing your students like you would know, like a friend, not necessarily be their friend, but you know, you are understanding interests and your understanding passions and your understanding, you know, kind of what, what, what makes them excited, right?
Yeah, because there will be moments where you have something in the curriculum that a student has to do, and you're not totally in control of the curriculum. You know, we I talk a lot with teachers about what we can tweak what we can flex and what we can't. And every district and school is a little different. But to be able to validate for a kid and say, Look, I know this is not your favorite thing. We're gonna get through it together. And this, you know, this is what I can blacks, and this is what I can't just that like I'm walking along beside you, as opposed to we have to do this now. And you have to do it and that feeling of they have to do it alone. You know, the goal here is not to always do things that are easy for our kids, right? Like we want them to learn how to persevere and, and tolerate frustration. But there's that window of tolerance. And what if they go to school, and they always are outside that window of tolerance. They're either not going to learn the schools too easy, and they're not being challenged, or they're going to be in a stress state all the time. And they're also not going to learn in that stress state.
There seems to be an increase of learners experiencing anxiety, trauma that affects their experience in school. Is there is there any data research to explain why that is?
You know, I don't think it's really clear yet. There are changes in there certainly shifts and generations of how we're parenting. Which I'll talk a little bit about and then we do know The kids are more anxious post COVID. We do have data on that we know that there are more mental health impacts after COVID. We didn't get to socialize enough kids, that depending on what age they were, you know, we absolutely are seeing some lags and executive functioning, some lags and independence and some frustration tolerance. Yes, we are seeing that as COVID. We do have some data on that. In terms of the generational shifts, you know, I'm a parent of a 10 and 16 year old, and so I was raised in the 80s. And that there's this shift of empowering our kids actually to feel their emotions and to talk about their emotions. I think about this a lot. Like sometimes I feel like, our kids aren't necessarily more anxious, but they're talking about it a lot more. I mean, I know in the 80s, we were just told to like, you'll be fine. Just like, I mean, boys certainly are told not to cry, suck it up. Girls are like, don't be a problem, you know, do what you're told, these are gross generalizations. But you. Yeah, I do think that there is a cultural shift in this generation to express for kids to express themselves more, which means that we will have to set more boundaries on them when they crossed the line. And they say too much to a friend or a teacher or something that is out of line. It's better, though, in the long run, this is what I think about a lot, it is better in the long run for a child to express themselves, and then learn how to do that appropriately, than to stuff down feelings, not express themselves, and just do what they're told all the time. So I can see how looking at it from a bird's eye view, we've got all these behavior problems, quote, unquote. But historically, in very traditional parenting and schooling, where, you know, there weren't as many, some people say, none as many behavior problems. But remember, before 1975, no one went to school who had any weaknesses in executive functioning or impulse control, necessarily. So we miss a whole swath of kids before that time, yeah, looks really different. Because when you include everyone, you've got to learn how to teach everyone. And I feel like over the last 50 years, we've done a great job, you know, including that, like ever, okay, we're all here. But I'm not convinced yet that teacher training programs have caught up with that I'm not convinced yet that we have understood how to include everyone in the school, the full school community, we do a pretty good job, you know, training special educators to work with that population, you know, back to our silos conversation. But most of I mean, I speak to all different kinds of teachers and support staff, but most of my professional development is geared towards regular education, teachers who have many, many kids who are in general education, with support needs that they were never trained to teach. And so I, my hope is that moving forward, more teacher training programs are including courses in there, just in just regular, like elementary education degrees, that you would get this information and a class that's beyond I think there might some, you might get like a classroom management course, or abnormal psychology course, or child development course. But those still, I think, are taught in a way like, this is what you need to know. But it's not like, Well, what do I do? Right? If
that's really interesting, that your perspective, especially as a parent, I'm also a parent of three children. One of my oldest is actually graduating this year from high school. And then I have two middle schoolers. And I've just noticed how I reflected about this with my wife all the time. It's like, our kids have completely different childhoods than we than we did. Yes. Like, I, I grew up in the 80s. And I did not talk to my parents about what my kids talk to us about. Just right, it just don't we just, I just didn't do it. I kept all that to myself. You know.
Like, ecologist colleague, whenever we joke about this, whenever one of our children says something really opinionated, we joke with each other and we're like, taught that child to speak their mind. Oh, that I gave them permission to Do you that sounds like, Oh, right. So I've empowered them to speak their mind to not hold in their feelings to express themselves. And now I need to show them the edges of like, where and when and with whom they should say things like,
yeah, yes, yes. Yeah, it's kind of you know, and that no one's got to completely figure it out, I don't think so. But I much prefer my kids bringing things to us, so that we can talk about them, rather than the not. And we want, we want our kids to feel comfortable to share things, even if it is uncomfortable. The topics. So anyways, um, and I think that that goes to just the general sense of, of educators, sometimes feeling well, these kids are too soft. You know, like we put, we haven't put enough limits or enough boundaries on learners. But I like what you said about, you know, we are educating more and more learners, more and more learners are actually not only in schools, but in general education classrooms are not separated, segregated into these special programs for classrooms. So that means we're going to have a wide variety of skills, and a wide variety of strengths, right, whatever.
Right. And then, you know, this gets into a conversation about universal design, you know, I think that probably where we're headed, and we, you know, every teacher I talked to is like, I can pretty much tell you, I'm gonna have one or two, just like the ones we're talking about when I consult with teachers every year. So you can you know, once you learn, once you have a child with any kind of differences that you figured out strategies you add to your toolkit as a teacher. One thing I will caution any administrators listening is, try not to put all the kids with the same teacher that you know, can handle it, because I know this happens a lot, just logistically speaking. But I'll talk with administrators a lot about a fan know you've got that one teacher, you know, can do it. But what about helping that teacher train their colleagues on how to do it, so we can spread out the dysregulation that there's going to be some in a classroom? Because I know that something that teachers have voiced to me that sometimes are worried to voice that to administrators, because it is true, like, if you're good at what you do, people will just ask you to do more of it. And that's good. I feel that confidence. Yeah. And so, you know, you have to figure out, then be careful about overwhelming educators to Yeah,
yeah. Oh, my goodness. Well, you have a lot of resources. So not only do you have your website, which, you know, it has a lot of great trainings for parents and educators to take. But you also have a sub stack, which is, has tons of information, and then you have social media, and then you also have your podcast, so why don't you share with our audience where people can find you. And some of the things, maybe it's some of the most popular resources or things that you want to make sure they know, are available.
Yeah. So my overall mission is to make school better for our nerdy neurodivergent kids and teens. So I have grown out of this place of working with parents and have extended that to educators too, because that's where I started as a school psychologist. And what that looks like to me is working both with parents and with teachers. So I do online workshops for parents monthly, which you can bind at Learn with Dr. emily.substack.com. And then I do professional development for teachers, which you can find all that information at my website, which is learn with Dr. emily.com. I have my podcasts and my social media where I like to highlight things around, of course around this, my ideas about education and inclusion and where I feel like we're going but also parent and teacher mental wellness. So I'll cover topics, you know, I just recently did a podcast on sobriety. Because that's something that lots of moms have been talking with me about lately, of taking care of ourselves so we can take care of our kids and our students and, and also just lifting up neurodivergent voices, so any programs that are happening, any people who want to tell their stories and help all of us understand different perspectives because as we know, every single neurodivergent perspective is different. And so I try to highlight those as much as I can on my social media and podcasts and most of my substack is free but there are some some more detail All the paid subscriptions that you get more info with directly with me or with the workshops.
Fantastic. Emily, can you? I don't know if you listen to the podcast before, but we have something called the mystery question. Are you would you like to participate?
I'm game. Okay. make any promises? Who have my answer right we
have I'm trying to figure out where my deck of cards went. Hold on a second. While
you're looking for that, can I do a plug for my summer PD sale? I just remembered that this is coming out in May.
Yes, you go right ahead. Well, I looked through my cards. Got
it. And this time of year, I run a sale for teachers for 20% off my professional development, which is called the neurodiverse classroom at six hours of on demand PD. And if you sign up by the end of May, you'll also get bonus live console calls with me in June. So just go to learn with Dr. emily.com/teachers. for that. Awesome. I still can't find them. Have you make up the question?
I'm gonna have to Yeah. Oh, there they are. I eventually will, because I'm going to run out of cards. And so I think there's like 200 of them. So and they're gonna do there may well, just one. Usually, that's just one. Usually it's just one and I try not to preview them, but some of them are not great. So we just pass on it. Okay. This is a good one. What would you do with an extra hour in your day? Ah,
well, today, I would listen to the Taylor Swift album, which I listened to. And I listened to a song and I'm like, just stop and listen to all these lyrics because they're so good. That's my day today. By the time this podcast came out, so if I had an extra hour, I would probably go on a walk with my dog and listen to music.
Yeah, that's sometimes. Nice. Nice. I try to go on my walk on a walk with my dog every day. Actually. We have a routine. So I go in the morning. At right after the kids leave on the bus. And my dog. I don't know if you can see him. But he is Oh, no, I can't. He is you can or you can't know. Okay, it's dark. It's too dark. Well, he's a black lab. So it's really hard to see.
Right to see him because he's in the dark. Yeah, he's
dark. He's on the bed. Hanging out. His name is Jupiter. And he's doing the stretch right now. What would I do with an hour extra? Well, I guess if it's me time. Um, I also like to listen to music, but I so I like documentaries. I like documentaries. And I've been watching this documentary called quarterback on Netflix. And it's, it's, it's, I think it's a couple years old, but a friend of mine, that I should watch it and it follows three quarterbacks, Kurt cousins Patrick mahomes, and Marcus Mariota. And it's like, just it follows them with their lives. I had no idea that this would be so captivating. But it's it really is. I mean, I do like football. But it's kind of nice to see that they're just regular people. You know, it's not like I didn't know that. But it's really well done. And I would definitely watch so like I guess I'm a sucker for sports documentaries, because I just finished Welcome to Wrexham, which is also another sports documentary. So I think I'm watching sports documentary documentaries of my extra hour. Love it. All right.
I'm listening to the new Taylor Swift album while walking my dog with an extra hour.
There you go. There you go. Dr. Emily, King, thank you so much for being on the think lucid podcast.
Thank you so much for having me, Tim.
That chime means it's free time. And just reminder if you are new, free time is a segment where I share whatever is on my mind. It could be an extra interview, an article I've read or just something I want to promote. This week, I want to make sure that you knew about the MCIE Summer Institute happening August 6 and seventh in Annapolis, Maryland, is going to be a full two days of learning about inclusive school leadership, team collaboration, and specially designed instruction for educators, families and partners on the journey towards inclusive school. Lily, we have two fantastic keynotes. Jordan Zimmerman is a passionate educator and disability advocate. After being diagnosed as autistic at a young age, she did not receive access to augmentative communication until the age of 18. That arduous journey fuels her beliefs around leveraging tools and supports to drive change. She now thrives on boldly showing up and redefining what is possible in learning spaces and throughout the broader community, and has personal experience challenging the status quo, which is featured in the 2021 documentary. This is not about me. Under Tasha Fitzgerald, an author, international speaker, presenter and facilitator embodies audacious perseverance. Her mission is to transform organizations into inclusive anti racist safe zones for all learners. With over 20 years in education. She has served as a teacher, curriculum specialist, administrator, and director. She is passionate about Universal Design for Learning, culturally responsive teaching, and anti racism. Her award winning book anti racism and Universal Design for Learning, building expressways to success equips educational institutions to address equity. Will we see you in Annapolis this August? I'll drop the registration link in the show notes. And feel free to reach out to me with any questions you can always contact me about this or anything else. At Te vas@mcie.org That's TVILLEG a s at MCIE e dot o RG. That's it for this episode of thinking cluesive thinking cluesive is written, edited, designed, mixed and mastered by me, Tim Vegas, and is a production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. Original Music by miles credit additional music from melody. Thanks again to our sponsor for this week. DCMP check them out at DCMP dot o RG. A special thanks to Mickey Mellon for encouraging me to sign up for pickleball this spring. We got a second place finish in a recent tournament. Don't ask us how many teams actually showed up to the tournament. Also, congratulations to all the graduates out there. You know who you are. Thanks for your time and attention. And remember, inclusion always works.
Today has not been the best with tech stuff. And I'm hoping that this will be better. That's how I'm feeling right now. Frustrated. Okay, here we go. Let's make this nice and big. Oops. And let's do Fit to Screen. See if there's a false There we go. Full Screen. All right, here we go. This is thinking cluesive Oh, I Oh yeah, I'm recording right there. Goodness. MCIE
