Creating Safe Spaces for Learning: Insights from Karen G. Foley of JPA

Karen G. 00:00:00

The big difference between now and 123 years ago is that we are working in schools, not just in the community.

Karen G. 00:00:07

And because of that, we develop long term relationships with schools.

Karen G. 00:00:12

We live our lives through a series of relationships.

Karen G. 00:00:15

And whether we're working directly with a child or the child's parent or the educator or the principal, we try to build strong relationships.

Karen G. 00:00:25

You always have to look at the intent behind the action.

Karen G. 00:00:27

And sometimes people do things that upset you or could even be cruel, but you have to look at the intent.

Karen G. 00:00:33

So if it wasn't intended that way, but it was an ignorant statement or action, you can have forgiveness.

Karen G. 00:00:40

Middle school girls are really struggling here in our country right now.

Karen G. 00:00:44

Higher rates of suicide and suicidal ideation, more attacks on young girls.

Karen G. 00:00:50

And we felt that we just needed something different.

Karen G. 00:00:54

And an intergenerational approach was what we thought would really be helpful.

Karen G. 00:01:01

The way I think about it is in the same way that chronically hungry children can't learn, neither can kids who are chronically hurting.

Karen G. 00:01:10

Do you remember your kindergarten teacher?

Karen G. 00:01:12

Because those of us who do, who have positive relationships, the research tells us clearly that is a predictor of social, emotional and even academic success.

Mark Taylor 00:01:25

Now those are the insightful and amazing insights from Karen G.

Mark Taylor 00:01:28

Foley of gpa, the Juvenile Protective Association.

Mark Taylor 00:01:32

Some things are more important than English and math scores, as we know here on the Education on Fire podcast.

Mark Taylor 00:01:38

And I think the conversation we have is so important for the people that she works with, but I think for people to hear throughout the education sector.

Mark Taylor 00:01:44

So I really hope you enjoyed this conversation and thanks again to the support for the national association for Primary Education for everything they do for Education on Fire.

Mark Taylor 00:01:55

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Fire podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Mark Taylor 00:02:09

Listen to teachers, parents and mentors, share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all.

Mark Taylor 00:02:17

Hi Karen, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Far podcast.

Mark Taylor 00:02:21

It's great to chat from people around the world, but the child is the most important thing and however people are helping them and supporting them is why we love sharing this information.

Mark Taylor 00:02:30

Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:02:30

So thanks so much for joining us today.

Karen G. 00:02:32

Happy to be here.

Karen G. 00:02:33

Thanks for having me.

Mark Taylor 00:02:34

So why don't we jump straight in?

Mark Taylor 00:02:37

Jpa, what does that stand for?

Mark Taylor 00:02:39

What is the organization doing and how are you helping children?

Karen G. 00:02:44

So JPA stands for Juvenile Protective Association.

Karen G. 00:02:48

It's a very old fashioned name.

Karen G. 00:02:50

Well, in context in America, it's an old fashioned Name.

Karen G. 00:02:54

We were founded in 1901 by Jane Addams.

Karen G. 00:02:58

So I'm not, I don't know if your audience is familiar with Jane Addams, but she really helped launch the progressive era here in the United States with Hull House, which you may have heard of.

Karen G. 00:03:07

And we've been working for 123 years now with children and families.

Karen G. 00:03:12

And what we do today is provide mental health services in school based settings in clinics throughout Chicago.

Karen G. 00:03:18

We also have a research and evaluation team that does a lot of work with child welfare agencies.

Karen G. 00:03:23

So we are steeped, as you are, in the interests of the child.

Mark Taylor 00:03:28

And how is it that you've seen.

Mark Taylor 00:03:31

Well, let me put it two ways.

Mark Taylor 00:03:32

How's the organization changed over that 100 plus years in terms of how it's worked?

Mark Taylor 00:03:38

And I guess there's been a lot of development certainly in the sort of 10 years or so that you've been involved in terms of the sort of the nitty gritty of how it runs and how it sort of affects people.

Karen G. 00:03:49

Well, the organization in some ways has changed tremendously.

Karen G. 00:03:52

In other ways, not at all.

Karen G. 00:03:54

In 1901, Jane Addams was serving immigrant families, families that did not speak English.

Karen G. 00:04:00

The very poor children who were being jailed because they were going to the park or to, you know, playing dice behind the alley.

Karen G. 00:04:09

And the interest there was, what can we do to make the lives of children and their families, particularly mothers, better?

Karen G. 00:04:16

And in some ways you Fast forward over 100 years, we're still working with children from under resourced neighborhoods.

Karen G. 00:04:23

Many of the children we serve, their families don't speak English.

Karen G. 00:04:26

Not all, but many.

Karen G. 00:04:28

And we are still working with children and mothers and educators now.

Mark Taylor 00:04:34

So in terms of that sort of mental health focus and an idea of what children need, are you coming in as a preventative conversation to help people before they're really needing that sort of crisis management, or is it much more?

Mark Taylor 00:04:52

We know that you're really struggling and we can help you in that sort of day to day while you're in this crisis.

Karen G. 00:04:57

I think it's both.

Karen G. 00:05:00

The big difference between now and 123 years ago is that we are working in schools, not just in the community.

Karen G. 00:05:07

And because of that we develop long term relationships with schools.

Karen G. 00:05:11

So we're not part of the school administration that's helpful to parents who don't want people in their business.

Karen G. 00:05:17

They can talk to us knowing that we're not going to share everything we hear with administration.

Karen G. 00:05:22

But because we're in the schools with these long term relationships, people get to know us and our interactions not only work with the individual child, but what teachers tell us is that we have a positive impact on the whole school.

Karen G. 00:05:36

And so we do both.

Karen G. 00:05:38

We do preventative work, and we do stabilization, and we do therapy for children who are struggling.

Mark Taylor 00:05:45

And in terms of that, working with schools, because this is the bit I find fascinating, because I know we might like a silver bullet to change the way the system works and maybe have a system that supports children sort of more innately within what they're doing.

Mark Taylor 00:06:00

But because you're having to sort of straddle that, be part of a school system where you're working with them in whichever way that was, as well as sort of being an association on your own.

Mark Taylor 00:06:09

How do you sort of find that that middle ground of being as supportive to the school system as well as the parents and the children needs to be without kind of getting caught up in that way?

Mark Taylor 00:06:20

Whether it's the bureaucracy or the red tape or any other sort of systematic issues which I know so many people sort of struggle against.

Karen G. 00:06:28

Well, it's because of this simple reason.

Karen G. 00:06:30

We live our lives through a series of relationships.

Karen G. 00:06:33

And whether we're working directly with a child or the child's parent or the educator or the principal, we try to build strong relationships.

Karen G. 00:06:42

It's just like a family.

Karen G. 00:06:43

I don't know what your family is like, Marc, but Thanksgiving dinner is going to be very interesting in America, talking about the big changes that happening in our country.

Karen G. 00:06:53

And yet we can still have all kinds of loving relationships with people.

Karen G. 00:06:57

And so we try and take that same attitude into the classroom, into the school.

Karen G. 00:07:02

We are here for the child.

Karen G. 00:07:04

We make that clear.

Karen G. 00:07:05

But we're also there for educators.

Karen G. 00:07:07

We're also there for administration and certainly for parents.

Mark Taylor 00:07:12

I think for me, taking away the fear factor is a really key point.

Mark Taylor 00:07:17

And I think what I loved about what you said there is the fact that you can really get into this sense of I must do it the right way, I must fill the right forms, and I must say the right thing to the right people.

Mark Taylor 00:07:27

But what I loved about the way you sort of expressed yourself there is the fact that it's about relationships, it's about conversations, it's about help, it's about support.

Mark Taylor 00:07:36

And when you kind of wash away all those other factors, I think there's a.

Mark Taylor 00:07:40

There's a relaxation, there's a calm, there's an environment there where you feel like you're almost healing, or you're certainly in a position where you're able to feel like there's a situation Here, which could at least plant the seeds for a better future or more support to future or something, which is going to help you grow from there on in.

Mark Taylor 00:07:59

And I think that atmosphere, certainly as you expressed it, there is probably a really important factor for how you're then able to communicate with everybody.

Karen G. 00:08:06

Well, thanks.

Karen G. 00:08:07

I appreciate that perspective on it.

Karen G. 00:08:10

You know, long, a long time ago, a good friend of mine was explaining some things that happened to her in her childhood.

Karen G. 00:08:16

And I said, how did you deal with that?

Karen G. 00:08:18

And she told me that what her mom told her is you always have to look at the intent behind the action.

Karen G. 00:08:24

And sometimes people do things that upset you or could even be cruel, but you have to look at the intent.

Karen G. 00:08:30

So if it wasn't intended that way, but it was an ignorant statement or action, you can have forgiveness.

Karen G. 00:08:36

And when you take that into a school and you model the behavior, we find that we have pretty strong relationships with all the people that we work with.

Karen G. 00:08:46

And that's very important because of course, that creates a community that stabilizes life for the child, and that's why we're there in the first place.

Mark Taylor 00:08:54

Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Taylor 00:08:55

And.

Mark Taylor 00:08:55

And I know sort of the extended family, you've got sort of grandparents as part of your program as well.

Mark Taylor 00:09:01

How does that sort of fit in with what.

Mark Taylor 00:09:03

What you're trying to do?

Mark Taylor 00:09:04

And how did that get developed?

Karen G. 00:09:06

Has such a fascinating angle with what we're doing now.

Karen G. 00:09:10

But this is a program that was actually created in Africa where a lot of girls don't have many rights and may have early marriage or don't get an opportunity to go to school.

Karen G. 00:09:22

And what the organization that was working with them, the Grandmothers Collective, found is that when you lean on the wisdom of women elders, the men will listen.

Karen G. 00:09:31

And it made such a huge difference for the girls.

Karen G. 00:09:34

And then that program was introduced here in America several years ago.

Karen G. 00:09:38

We were the first in Chicago when of the first in the nation to adopt it.

Karen G. 00:09:41

And the reason that we did it is that middle school girls are really struggling here in our country right now.

Karen G. 00:09:47

Higher rates of suicide and suicidal ideation, more attacks on young girls.

Karen G. 00:09:53

And we felt that we just needed something different.

Karen G. 00:09:57

And an intergenerational approach was what we thought would really be helpful every.

Karen G. 00:10:03

You know, I don't know what your relationship was like with your grandmother, but I remember both of mine.

Karen G. 00:10:08

I don't remember much of what we said or what they said to me, but I remember the feeling I have from sitting on the front porch, you know, peeling apples with one grandmother and sitting on a porch with Another grandmother learning how to play cards.

Karen G. 00:10:21

Those are really warm memories and they create safety.

Karen G. 00:10:24

So that's what we were bringing to our middle school girls.

Mark Taylor 00:10:28

I think that's such an important point, isn't it?

Mark Taylor 00:10:31

Because the, the actual relationship is different.

Mark Taylor 00:10:33

It's different being a parent and, and a child in that kind of sort of one, just a one generational relationship different.

Mark Taylor 00:10:41

There's something very special about the grandparents because they've got the experience.

Mark Taylor 00:10:46

They're not ultimately necessarily responsible for the day to day care or whatever, but they sort of have that wisdom and that understanding and I think there's a, I don't know, is it a different type of love?

Mark Taylor 00:10:57

It's certainly a different perspective because of, of the age difference and that ability to communicate in that.

Mark Taylor 00:11:03

I think it's something which occasionally does come up here on the podcast because the way so many families live now, they, their families might be spread around the country.

Mark Taylor 00:11:12

They don't have that ongoing interaction in a way that they did before.

Mark Taylor 00:11:16

I know my grandparents lived literally just sort of a mile or so down the road on one side of my family and even the other side on my mum's side.

Mark Taylor 00:11:26

They lived about an hour or hour and a half away in a car.

Mark Taylor 00:11:28

But we did see them on a regular basis.

Mark Taylor 00:11:30

There were lots of toing and throwing.

Mark Taylor 00:11:32

So like you, I've got those very sort of warm memories.

Mark Taylor 00:11:34

But I can imagine, you know, if you're sort of four hours, five hours or certainly in America, you know, you're sort of literally sort of eight hours on a plane or something to be able to get to where you're going to be.

Mark Taylor 00:11:44

You're not going to have those regular interactions which then doesn't have the same impact, right?

Karen G. 00:11:49

That's right.

Karen G. 00:11:49

And what.

Karen G. 00:11:50

There's a really charming story.

Karen G. 00:11:52

When we first launched our pilot, we had 10 girls in a particular school that were participating and the grandmothers were.

Karen G. 00:11:59

Maybe it was the second or third session.

Karen G. 00:12:01

So we meet with them weekly and we do crafts and things like that.

Karen G. 00:12:05

But the real point is to talk and to mostly for the grandmothers to listen and model.

Karen G. 00:12:09

But the, the girls were asking the grandmothers, how many grandchildren do you have?

Karen G. 00:12:14

And one of the grandmothers said, Well, I have five.

Karen G. 00:12:17

And the girls said, no you don't, you have 15.

Karen G. 00:12:21

They were already counting themselves as her adopted grandchildren and it meant so much to the women who were there to be embraced like that.

Karen G. 00:12:32

And the girls really got very fond of the grandmothers.

Karen G. 00:12:36

And we do that.

Karen G. 00:12:38

We're always sharing information with the parents of course, because we are not there to discipline or tell them how they should think or feel, but we are there to listen, and it's a wonderful opportunity for young women.

Karen G. 00:12:51

One of the funniest stories for me was when the grandmothers learned that we no longer teach cursive writing, at least in Chicago.

Karen G. 00:13:00

Fault.

Karen G. 00:13:00

And so they brought in these books and the girls were loving the way they were writing their names, and the girls learned cursive.

Karen G. 00:13:06

So now those 10 girls at least can write their name with flair.

Karen G. 00:13:11

Really fun.

Mark Taylor 00:13:12

Yeah, there's.

Mark Taylor 00:13:13

There is something very.

Mark Taylor 00:13:15

Almost mindful about writing in that format, I think, just in terms of those things.

Mark Taylor 00:13:20

And it.

Mark Taylor 00:13:20

It just reminded me of.

Mark Taylor 00:13:22

There was.

Mark Taylor 00:13:23

I can't remember where it started, but there was an organization and related to a school where they had children going into, like, a retirement home.

Karen G. 00:13:34

I saw those video clips.

Mark Taylor 00:13:36

So just.

Mark Taylor 00:13:37

Just amazing opportunities where it might be that the children were sitting down reading part of their school books or whatever to begin with, and then they would share stories and then they would share activities, and just that ability to have a different learning environment, because it's still a learning environment, just happened to be not within the classroom in that traditional setting, but the relationships that were form.

Mark Taylor 00:13:58

Formed and.

Mark Taylor 00:13:59

And I think the positive benefits from the child as well as the people in the home was just incredible.

Mark Taylor 00:14:04

And then you just sort of like.

Mark Taylor 00:14:05

It just sort of just struck me then because it sort of reinforces very much what you were saying.

Karen G. 00:14:10

Yeah.

Karen G. 00:14:10

I'm hoping that at the point where I'm in a home, children will come and visit me because I don't have any grandchildren, so maybe I'll have to go wherever they are, house myself in there.

Karen G. 00:14:22

But you're right, the ability to share what you know, to feel like you matter, to be listened to and validated, those are important things for human beings.

Karen G. 00:14:33

And it sometimes gets hard for us with all the noise around us, to do that deep listening, that real caring, and to learn that age is just one aspect of who we are, and it's not always the most important.

Mark Taylor 00:14:50

Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:14:50

And I think the noise element is a really key thing, isn't it?

Mark Taylor 00:14:53

Because it's very easy in sometimes when you think, oh, yeah, I've had this conversation with myself or with someone else, I feel like I'm feeling better, I'm supported.

Mark Taylor 00:15:04

And then you go back into whatever that noisy environment is, whether it's a physical classroom, whether it's just the hubbub of social media, whatever it happens to be.

Mark Taylor 00:15:13

And to sort of be able to have those skills to find yourself and to center yourself and to understand that this is stuff that's going on around you.

Mark Taylor 00:15:20

It's not essentially who you are that gives you the skills that you need.

Mark Taylor 00:15:24

But it's a really hard thing to do, I find, as an adult, let alone, like you say, is sort of a teenage child going through the system.

Karen G. 00:15:30

Yeah, that's why we started our Connect to Kids program.

Karen G. 00:15:34

And while the name is Connected Kids, it's really the nexus of the intervention is the teacher.

Karen G. 00:15:39

And the reason is children would come into therapy and we'd see clinical progress happening in the therapy room.

Karen G. 00:15:45

Kids were opening up or they were engaging in different ways.

Karen G. 00:15:49

They were sharing what was going on in their lives and processing and working through it.

Karen G. 00:15:53

A trusted adult.

Karen G. 00:15:54

But then they walk down the hallway back to the classroom and you didn't see the same impact.

Karen G. 00:16:01

And so we recognized that kids live in systems and we needed to do something more than individual therapy.

Karen G. 00:16:07

So we started this program just for teachers.

Karen G. 00:16:10

We have, gosh, hundreds of teachers who've gone through the program now in for the last nine years.

Karen G. 00:16:17

And that data that we collect every year is just remarkable because it turns out adults need that kind of care, validation, and listening to, just like the kids.

Karen G. 00:16:25

And where they're regulated, classrooms work better.

Mark Taylor 00:16:29

Yeah, yeah, I can really, really appreciate that.

Mark Taylor 00:16:33

And, and so for people who aren't sort of intrinsically aware of exactly how you work, are you able to give an example of, you know, what it looks like when you go into a school or when you're doing some of these other programs?

Mark Taylor 00:16:47

How long, how many people?

Mark Taylor 00:16:49

You know, some of those sort of.

Mark Taylor 00:16:50

Sort of nuts and bolts of what people would expect?

Karen G. 00:16:53

Sure.

Karen G. 00:16:54

Well, we work with about 300 individual students in schools, and those kids come to therapy every single week.

Karen G. 00:17:02

So as long as school is in session and the child is there, we're there.

Karen G. 00:17:05

It's usually an hour long session.

Karen G. 00:17:07

And the average length of time that kids are on our caseload is about two and a half years.

Karen G. 00:17:12

And you might say, why is that?

Karen G. 00:17:13

Well, it's for a couple of reasons sometimes.

Karen G. 00:17:16

What we found is that when children have had very difficult things happen to them and there's been trauma in their lives, it can take a year or more for them to feel safe enough, trusting enough to open up to talk about it.

Karen G. 00:17:29

Also, we work with young children from pre K all the way.

Karen G. 00:17:32

Well, we'll talk about that, but we're in a university setting now, so it can take some time.

Karen G. 00:17:37

And the other reason is children are young.

Karen G. 00:17:40

They don't Necessarily have the language they can't articulate.

Karen G. 00:17:45

They don't have the processing skills or the experience to put what happened to them into context.

Karen G. 00:17:50

So we'd like to stay and help stabilize their progress, because that's really what's important to us.

Karen G. 00:17:55

We're not there to do classroom compliance.

Karen G. 00:17:58

You know, we have children in our caseload who are really acting out like those passengers on planes, you know, and when that happens, it's not just the passenger that doesn't get to go to his or her destination.

Karen G. 00:18:10

The whole plane stops.

Karen G. 00:18:11

That's not what we're there for.

Karen G. 00:18:13

We do see those benefits, but we're really there to get to the root of the problem for that child and help that child heal so that that child can fulfill their potential, whatever that might be.

Mark Taylor 00:18:25

And I suppose my next question I probably know the answer to already.

Mark Taylor 00:18:29

So you sort of said you're working with sort of 300 or so children.

Mark Taylor 00:18:32

How many could you be working with?

Karen G. 00:18:36

Well, there are 600 schools, I think, in Chicago.

Karen G. 00:18:43

Many, many more.

Karen G. 00:18:44

Yeah, we usually, you know, we have one school where we work with almost 20% of their population.

Karen G. 00:18:55

And there are lots of reasons for that.

Karen G. 00:18:56

It's not.

Karen G. 00:18:57

Sometimes it's the poverty in the neighborhood.

Karen G. 00:18:59

I worked with a group of college to career kids in a prior role and an organization that I still support and love today, Chicago Scholars.

Karen G. 00:19:10

And what I learned working with young adults is that when they were in my office with the door closed, or when I visited them in a psych ward or in a park bench or in a restaurant or coffee shop talking to them, they weren't crying about financial aid.

Karen G. 00:19:25

They were crying about the things that had happened to them as children.

Karen G. 00:19:29

And so we want to be able to be there for kids for as long as they need us.

Karen G. 00:19:35

And we also want to work with the adults so that they're not saying things like, well, what's wrong with that kid?

Karen G. 00:19:40

But rather what's going on for that child.

Karen G. 00:19:43

And we also find with our C2K program for teachers, you know, teachers bring in all of their baggage into the classroom as well.

Karen G. 00:19:52

I don't know why we think that as adults, we're fully formed.

Karen G. 00:19:55

We're not.

Karen G. 00:19:56

There's a lot of developing that we can do with our emotional, social, emotional capacities as well.

Karen G. 00:20:01

And we're really better off when we do.

Mark Taylor 00:20:04

Yeah, I was just having a conversation earlier today, and it was exactly that.

Mark Taylor 00:20:07

The person was saying they've learned as much from their experience in their education environment is the.

Mark Taylor 00:20:12

Is the students had as well, because we're all growing and learning, learning from each other.

Mark Taylor 00:20:17

And I think understanding that's a really key factor.

Mark Taylor 00:20:19

And I think over the sort of the 400 episodes that we've done here on the Education on Far podcast now, it really is a sense of.

Mark Taylor 00:20:29

There are some organizations, some teachers in some situations that really, really understand that what we're trying to do from an education system point of view doesn't work at all until you're meeting the.

Mark Taylor 00:20:42

The needs of that child.

Mark Taylor 00:20:43

And the sorts of people that we're talking about, you know, we're talking about, are they eating, are they sleeping, are they looking after parents?

Mark Taylor 00:20:50

Are they.

Mark Taylor 00:20:50

Do they have a home to go to?

Mark Taylor 00:20:52

Do they.

Mark Taylor 00:20:53

You have the.

Mark Taylor 00:20:54

The understanding in the facility that's needed to actually come to school.

Mark Taylor 00:20:59

So talking about, like, say, maths and English and any given thing you have to do for any given test is so far down the road from what they actually need in order to be a person who wants to even take that journey.

Mark Taylor 00:21:11

Because, I mean, you just can't cope with.

Mark Taylor 00:21:13

With those sorts of understandings.

Mark Taylor 00:21:15

And I think the people that are able to support those children to understand what they need and to create an environment that enables that just to start to happen, I think is just an incre.

Mark Taylor 00:21:25

Opportunity, incredible situation.

Mark Taylor 00:21:28

The empathy and the understanding that's needed for that.

Mark Taylor 00:21:31

I take my hat off to people to do it, and it's why I love having these conversations so, you know, to.

Mark Taylor 00:21:36

To hear and to understand that there are people out there that are able to create this for many, many children and for us to share these stories so that the people listening, even if they're not directly involved in that kind of way, normally can at least think, oh, I just reframing maybe what a particular situation is, what a particular behavior is, what a particular comment.

Mark Taylor 00:21:56

Where's that coming from?

Mark Taylor 00:21:57

And why is that doing it?

Mark Taylor 00:21:58

And like you said, as a teacher or an educator, why is it affecting me in a certain way?

Mark Taylor 00:22:03

Because of what my preconceptions are as well.

Mark Taylor 00:22:05

So it's.

Mark Taylor 00:22:06

Yeah, it just really strikes me as being such an important thing.

Karen G. 00:22:10

Yeah.

Karen G. 00:22:10

Well, I really appreciate your saying that.

Karen G. 00:22:12

You know, the way I think about it is in the same way that chronically hungry children can't learn, neither can kids who are chronically hurting.

Karen G. 00:22:20

And so when we do reframe with the teacher, it's interesting because it provides an opportunity for that individual teacher to reflect.

Karen G. 00:22:31

You know, we had this.

Karen G. 00:22:33

We got a call about a child in kindergarten, actually, and the teacher had just blown a casket.

Karen G. 00:22:40

And I Don't blame her.

Karen G. 00:22:41

This young boy had sunk his teeth into her thigh.

Karen G. 00:22:45

I mean, she didn't have to go to the hospital, but, you know, he gave her a good chop and, and they were about ready to throw that kid out of school.

Karen G. 00:22:53

But when we started working with child, it took a while, but what we learned is this child was in a home where the mom was with a paramour who was abusing her.

Karen G. 00:23:02

And at any given time, in the course of any year, about 30 to 40% of all the children out of case live in a home with domestic violence.

Karen G. 00:23:11

And that is very, very common.

Karen G. 00:23:13

There's almost 250 domestic violence calls in Chicago every year.

Karen G. 00:23:18

That's staggering.

Karen G. 00:23:19

And so as we worked with this child and were able to explain to the teacher what was going on, her whole perspective about this kid flipped.

Karen G. 00:23:29

And she became so compassionate and such an advocate for this little boy that, you know, he stopped, he stopped misbehaving and having challenging behaviors in the classroom.

Karen G. 00:23:40

We were able to work with a mom.

Karen G. 00:23:42

Fortunately, she, you know, toss that guy out, which was a good thing for the family.

Karen G. 00:23:47

And when we checked back a year later, what we learned is he was thriving.

Karen G. 00:23:52

He had friends, he was doing well in school.

Karen G. 00:23:54

There was a lot of stability.

Karen G. 00:23:56

But we came really close to losing a young five year old.

Karen G. 00:24:02

And we don't, you know, I don't know what these kids are going to be when they grow up.

Karen G. 00:24:05

But here's what I do know, and I feel really convinced about this.

Karen G. 00:24:08

We need each and every one of them to be their very best selves.

Karen G. 00:24:11

You know, we don't know they could grow up to be the servant, you know, the surgeon that saves our lives or our new mayor or, you know, any number of roles that they could be.

Karen G. 00:24:20

A podcaster like my Mark Taylor.

Karen G. 00:24:23

Important things to be done in the world.

Karen G. 00:24:25

And we need every kid to do their best, be their best.

Mark Taylor 00:24:28

I, I completely agree.

Mark Taylor 00:24:30

And I think the other thing that I always think about is the fact that I think as an adult, sometimes it's very easy to forget that people don't know what they don't know.

Mark Taylor 00:24:39

And that's certainly true when you're talking to another adult, but when you're talking about a young child that's only got limited experience in terms of their age, but then also limited experience in terms of what their home life might look like or their, their family situation or any of the experiences they've gone from.

Mark Taylor 00:24:55

If they don't know they haven't experienced love, they haven't experienced, like you say, an environment which is going to be supportive or they can't even imagine it being any different than what it is, then how is that going to make any difference or change like you say, until they start to feel what that is or when someone like yourself is able to step in and kind of change that situation for them.

Karen G. 00:25:15

Yeah.

Karen G. 00:25:16

And that's true of no matter where they live, they could be living in the wealthiest suburb or city or in an under resourced community.

Mark Taylor 00:25:25

Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:25:26

And take me a little bit into, into your journey of all of this because I know like say you've worked in other organizations and been very passionate about this type of the world.

Mark Taylor 00:25:39

Where did that passion come from?

Mark Taylor 00:25:40

Where did that understanding and that empathy come from that made you want to spend your time doing this sort of thing?

Karen G. 00:25:45

Well, you know, my dream as a kid was to go to New York City and work in the business world and be a successful businesswoman.

Karen G. 00:25:53

And but while I was having those dreams and I was lucky, I had grandparents and parents who encouraged me.

Karen G. 00:26:01

But you know, I was the first in my family to go to college and not the first to get her graduate degree.

Karen G. 00:26:06

My sister did that.

Karen G. 00:26:07

But, but I went there and had a successful career in business and it was very exciting.

Karen G. 00:26:16

But my husband and I have a little boy and I was traveling too much and I was gone too long and so I took a step out and.

Karen G. 00:26:25

And then one day my son fired me and said, don't you think it's time to go back to work, mom?

Karen G. 00:26:29

And in fact it was so I certain looking around for a job and.

Karen G. 00:26:35

But you know, I wanted a lot more flexibility.

Karen G. 00:26:38

I realized that presence for kids is hugely important and I'm very supportive of women having careers and I wish that our communities would be more supportive because so much of that burden falls on women.

Karen G. 00:26:51

But I was fortunate enough to work at this organization called Chicago Scholars and we built that and that's really where in part I got my passion for, for mental health.

Karen G. 00:27:01

Because as I said earlier, I was talking to so many young people every single day on their journeys into college and into their careers.

Karen G. 00:27:11

There's so much they didn't know, so many stressors on them, but it was really the kinds of adverse childhood experiences that they had that were getting in their way of being successful.

Karen G. 00:27:22

And that became very important to me.

Karen G. 00:27:26

So when I had an opportunity to join JP I was delighted to do it.

Karen G. 00:27:30

And one of the first things I did was I called a roundtable of those scholars to come and advise me what do I need to know?

Karen G. 00:27:38

Because I'm working with you as younger kids or your siblings.

Karen G. 00:27:43

So a lot of the kids I worked with graduated, but oftentimes sometimes their siblings, cousins, didn't succeed.

Karen G. 00:27:50

What do I need to know?

Karen G. 00:27:51

And that has really been part of my journey, is trying to figure out how do we put the resources around young people?

Karen G. 00:27:58

Because even if they don't have the experience, even when their parents love them, but they haven't been nurtured, how do we provide the context for them?

Karen G. 00:28:06

You can only do that.

Karen G. 00:28:08

And you know this because you were in schools playing music.

Karen G. 00:28:11

You know, you have to touch their souls as well as their minds.

Mark Taylor 00:28:15

Yeah, I mean, that's really so well put because I think understanding the structure of how education is, understanding how people have learned, understanding, like I say, hearing those stories of what would have it been like had you understood this at 5 or 10 as opposed to later in your teens, you know, or is it about the right time, the right place?

Mark Taylor 00:28:37

And so you need those experiences younger on good, bad or indifferent, in order for you to take on the learning opportunities and the skills that you need later on.

Mark Taylor 00:28:45

I mean, there's a wider discussion about kind of the way life works in that particular way.

Mark Taylor 00:28:49

But I think hearing lots of different stories in those ways and different situations, I think if you can see that framework, if you can see that bigger picture, I think that sort of almost bird's eye view of what's going on for everybody, I think that changes how you can get up and how you can do your job and you can support people every day.

Mark Taylor 00:29:09

Because you see it much more in the round.

Mark Taylor 00:29:11

Maybe.

Karen G. 00:29:12

Yeah.

Karen G. 00:29:12

I don't know what it's like where you are.

Karen G. 00:29:14

Our teachers here in America are burned out, stressed out.

Karen G. 00:29:19

And the pandemic for us was really traumatic for schools that were closed for long periods of time.

Karen G. 00:29:27

Teachers didn't feel that they could really see their kids, know them very well.

Karen G. 00:29:32

How do you teach people that you don't have a relationship with, especially when the screens are off?

Karen G. 00:29:37

And for a lot of young people, they were there on their own, trying to do it because their parents were essential workers.

Karen G. 00:29:42

They did not have the luxury of staying home and supervising their child's education.

Karen G. 00:29:47

And so there's.

Karen G. 00:29:48

We're still.

Karen G. 00:29:50

I don't think the pandemic for us is over.

Karen G. 00:29:52

It's just in a different phase.

Karen G. 00:29:54

And I think it will take a long time for us to work that through.

Karen G. 00:29:56

I don't know what it was.

Karen G. 00:29:57

What was it like for all of you?

Mark Taylor 00:30:00

I think it was the same thing.

Mark Taylor 00:30:01

You had Some people who were just able to be at home and they were sharing time and that was a positive thing because it might have not been what they were able to do before.

Mark Taylor 00:30:09

It might be their work was flexible enough that they could support their children.

Mark Taylor 00:30:13

And exactly the same thing.

Mark Taylor 00:30:15

Some people were essential workers and had to go out and leave.

Mark Taylor 00:30:18

And then you've got to sort of see how that works out.

Mark Taylor 00:30:20

And I think, I think what you said is so pertinent about the fact that maybe it's not over because we don't know sort of intrinsically how it's affected people.

Mark Taylor 00:30:32

You sort of, you know, you remember exactly what happened then in the year after and back to school and life's gone back to normal, but it hasn't for so many people in so many different ways.

Mark Taylor 00:30:39

And it's really hard to quantify in any way what that then looks like.

Mark Taylor 00:30:43

It's only when I think, especially the younger children who were just around starting school, come out of school in their education to really understand what difference that made to them as to the people that will have never experienced it or people that don't remember it in a way and had a more normal and averted common sort of school experience.

Mark Taylor 00:31:02

And how, I think how you support people to sort of not even get over it, but appreciate it, understand it and realize how it fits into your life.

Mark Taylor 00:31:11

Because everyone goes through things and it's how you sort of deal with them and how you sort of frame it and how you do it, which is really important, but also to just sort of think, right, well, what can I take from it?

Mark Taylor 00:31:22

And how is that going to frame what I'm doing?

Mark Taylor 00:31:24

And like you said, that experience then takes them into how they want to study, where they want to study, what they might want to do with their life, how they can support other people.

Mark Taylor 00:31:32

But I think having these honest conversations about where we are and how it's affected people is, is not happening in a way that maybe it should, which would actually be more supportive for people generally rather than we've now moved on.

Mark Taylor 00:31:44

What is that you're worried about or what are you struggling with?

Mark Taylor 00:31:47

It's all fine kind of thing, right?

Karen G. 00:31:49

Well, we love to put problems in the back view mirror and then flip up the visor so we don't have to see them at all.

Karen G. 00:31:59

We often hear teachers say things like, well, that child should be able to do this.

Karen G. 00:32:03

And what I, I got some advice years ago that I find really helpful and my question then is, well, what age of the child are you dealing with?

Karen G. 00:32:12

And they might give me the chronological age and I'll say, no, that's not what I'm talking about.

Karen G. 00:32:15

You know, children have almost four different ages.

Karen G. 00:32:18

They have chronological age based on when they were born.

Karen G. 00:32:23

They have an intellectual age, and that could be higher or lower than their chronological age.

Karen G. 00:32:28

They could have a social, emotional age, and that could look very different.

Karen G. 00:32:32

And then they have a physical age.

Karen G. 00:32:34

You know, their motor skills, fine and gross.

Karen G. 00:32:36

You got to ask yourself, when you're working with a young person, what's the age of the person I'm dealing with right now?

Karen G. 00:32:42

And then adjust your responses appropriately.

Karen G. 00:32:45

That is not easy to do.

Karen G. 00:32:47

And, you know, when you're in a classroom and you've got 25 or 30 kids and you've got a couple kids acting out, you've got a lot of pressure from administration.

Karen G. 00:32:54

We got to make up all this academic content and we've got to stay focused, and we need an educated workforce.

Karen G. 00:33:00

It's really challenging.

Karen G. 00:33:02

And that's one of the reasons why the C2K program for teachers has been so successful.

Karen G. 00:33:07

It's an off ramp for a while, but it also gives them the ability to reflect on, well, who is this child I'm talking to right now?

Karen G. 00:33:16

And maybe, quote, technically, they should be able to do this, but in fact, you're right, they're not there yet.

Karen G. 00:33:23

And that does put a big demand on teachers to try and individualize content.

Karen G. 00:33:29

But there's no way to get around it if you're not able to adjust.

Karen G. 00:33:34

And sometimes those adjustments can be really, really small.

Karen G. 00:33:38

I remember my clinical director telling me that a teacher had really had a difficult challenge with this child and really didn't like the kid.

Karen G. 00:33:46

But after, after working with their C2K consultant and learning different approaches and being able to spot certain behaviors, oh, I can see that that child's getting a little agitated or that child looks a little sad.

Karen G. 00:34:00

And at one point, she kind of very quietly went over as the child was kind of ramping up, and she bent down and just put her hands out and said, what can I do for you?

Karen G. 00:34:11

And that little kid put her hands back in the teacher's hands.

Karen G. 00:34:15

And that's all it took.

Karen G. 00:34:17

That's all it took.

Karen G. 00:34:18

So not every interaction can be that small, but all those interactions can be that meaningful.

Mark Taylor 00:34:25

And I think that's really powerful.

Mark Taylor 00:34:28

And I think understanding that everything is very individual, isn't it?

Mark Taylor 00:34:33

And like you said, when you're in a class of 25 or 30, it can be really difficult to do that.

Mark Taylor 00:34:37

But I think some of These conversations about how you set your classroom up, how you go about it, how you can frame it even within the confines of the system and those sorts of things, which is why I love having these conversations.

Mark Taylor 00:34:48

They're so incredibly important.

Mark Taylor 00:34:50

And I think one of the.

Mark Taylor 00:34:51

One extra thing I'd just say from what you said about all the different ages and how you are as a child is that there are some children who just struggle with certain things anyway.

Mark Taylor 00:35:01

And just because the government says this should be possible, it might be that it's never possible.

Mark Taylor 00:35:07

You know, if they.

Mark Taylor 00:35:08

If they're really struggling in certain areas, if they have certain skills which they're finding really hard, whether it's a motor skill, whether it's a cognitive skill, whatever it happens to be, it's really hard, I think, within the current system to be able to say, it's okay, you don't need to be able to do this, or your level of being able to do this is absolutely fine.

Mark Taylor 00:35:29

It doesn't need to be anything more.

Mark Taylor 00:35:30

That isn't to say we're not going to work on something or we can help you develop or whatever, but it doesn't have to be like this now.

Mark Taylor 00:35:36

And I think any support, like.

Mark Taylor 00:35:38

Like you said, like your program to understand what that is, so that a teacher at the end of the day can.

Mark Taylor 00:35:43

Can sit back enough to be able to say, we did brilliant work today, not because this child reached the.

Mark Taylor 00:35:49

The level that we've been told they should be, but because they reached the level of understanding that they needed for today.

Mark Taylor 00:35:54

And our relationship had that kind of level of understanding, which means that tomorrow is a better day and it's a day that we can grow.

Mark Taylor 00:36:02

And I think then all of a sudden we're in a positive frame of mind in an environment where we can support everybody and.

Mark Taylor 00:36:09

And not make it look a certain way because it has to be.

Mark Taylor 00:36:12

And it's such a difficult thing to do.

Mark Taylor 00:36:15

And I.

Mark Taylor 00:36:15

I take my hat off to all those people that are doing it, but again.

Karen G. 00:36:19

Well, I'm sure you did this as a, you know, going into schools.

Karen G. 00:36:22

Not every child is a musical genius.

Karen G. 00:36:25

So I'm sure you heard plenty of flat notes and kids that just are not going to be musicians, but you expose them to something beautiful that they could appreciate and what a gift that is.

Karen G. 00:36:37

But, you know, we could talk about, let's reorganize the whole notion of school, the school day.

Karen G. 00:36:44

It's so antiquated.

Karen G. 00:36:45

But that's another conversation.

Mark Taylor 00:36:47

Exactly, exactly.

Mark Taylor 00:36:49

And I'm curious, is there a teacher that you remember, or an educational experience that you remember that had an impact.

Mark Taylor 00:36:56

And I'm always really interested when people are then involved in education.

Mark Taylor 00:36:59

Is there anything about that that you've been able to bring into the organization or been able to share in a story or whatever way that's been able to be.

Mark Taylor 00:37:07

To be helpful?

Mark Taylor 00:37:08

And that's not to say that your experience would have been positive or negative, but it sort of had that impact that you want to bring forward.

Karen G. 00:37:15

Well, let me ask you this question.

Karen G. 00:37:17

Do you remember your kindergarten teacher?

Mark Taylor 00:37:19

I do remember my younger ones, yeah.

Karen G. 00:37:21

So ask your audience.

Karen G. 00:37:23

Pause for a moment.

Karen G. 00:37:23

Let's ask the audience.

Karen G. 00:37:24

Do you remember your kindergarten teacher?

Karen G. 00:37:26

Because those of us who do, who have positive relationships, the research tells us clearly that is a predictor of social, emotional, and even academic success.

Karen G. 00:37:37

I remember mine.

Karen G. 00:37:38

My kindergarten teacher was Mrs.

Karen G. 00:37:39

Budd.

Karen G. 00:37:41

And so these relationships that we've been talking about are so critical.

Karen G. 00:37:47

And they started the very earliest.

Karen G. 00:37:49

They start long before that, too.

Karen G. 00:37:50

But at least in the US Kindergarten, pre K, those are really, you know, the start of official school.

Karen G. 00:37:56

And so we want to pay a lot of attention to our little ones because that sets the foundation.

Karen G. 00:38:02

But I remember my theater director.

Karen G. 00:38:06

I remember going to my, you know, my.

Karen G. 00:38:08

Sadly, my brother passed, and I remember going to his funeral.

Karen G. 00:38:11

And all of a sudden my theater director walked in the door and I had not seen him in decades.

Karen G. 00:38:18

And I burst into tears.

Karen G. 00:38:19

It was so powerful because that experience had been so amazing for me.

Karen G. 00:38:24

So, yeah, I had a lot of amazing teachers in my life.

Karen G. 00:38:28

I'm really grateful.

Karen G. 00:38:28

I wouldn't be here today without them.

Mark Taylor 00:38:31

It is amazing how you even can't articulate sometimes what it is, can you?

Mark Taylor 00:38:36

It's that connection and that understanding and.

Mark Taylor 00:38:39

And that's what I love about it so much and why people are so incredibly influential in so many different ways.

Mark Taylor 00:38:44

And I love the fact that you said about the really sort of young children and.

Mark Taylor 00:38:49

And those early years, because it's something here, which is the conversation's already starting with a change of government, and they're looking at curriculums and those sorts of things, and it's so easy to overlook.

Mark Taylor 00:39:00

Learning starts younger than people expect it to.

Mark Taylor 00:39:04

You know, here for the early years with the nursery, the foundation stages, there's so much learning and it's been done in such a brilliant way, especially in this country.

Mark Taylor 00:39:15

There's some incredible things happening which you can take through into later parts of learning as well.

Mark Taylor 00:39:20

But it's all part of the journey.

Mark Taylor 00:39:21

It's all part of the extension and it's.

Mark Taylor 00:39:23

I think often a lot of that gets forgotten because it's all about the testing later on.

Mark Taylor 00:39:28

It's about schooling, which is going to get you into a job, and it's going to be supportive for the country, which may or may not be true, but it starts much earlier than that.

Mark Taylor 00:39:36

And if you can invest and see and understand the value of some of those earlier years and those conversations and the influences and the teachers and the feelings that are going through, I think that Runway into the.

Mark Taylor 00:39:47

The later part of learning would actually be so much more successful.

Karen G. 00:39:51

I just had an opportunity to participate in a fellowship program at the Erickson Institute here in Chicago.

Karen G. 00:39:57

And they are primarily focused on early childhood.

Karen G. 00:40:02

And their question is always, where's the baby?

Karen G. 00:40:04

And every policy question, everything.

Karen G. 00:40:06

Because when you think about the brain development and the neural development of very, very young children, it starts early.

Karen G. 00:40:13

It actually starts in the womb.

Karen G. 00:40:15

And so what you were saying about, you know, paying attention to how the kinds of environments that kids are growing up in, like a petri dish, we really need to make sure that they're safe and nurturing for all the children.

Karen G. 00:40:30

And because your kids are going to go to school with other kids and they're going to bounce off ideas and concepts with one another and learn together.

Karen G. 00:40:39

So we really do need all the kids to be healthy and well.

Mark Taylor 00:40:43

Exactly, exactly.

Mark Taylor 00:40:46

And you've shared some amazing advice already.

Mark Taylor 00:40:48

So I'm.

Mark Taylor 00:40:48

I'm curious, is there a resource as well that you might like to share?

Mark Taylor 00:40:51

Whether it's a podcast, video, film, song, book, but something which is.

Mark Taylor 00:40:56

Yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:40:57

Giving you something positive to.

Karen G. 00:40:59

Well, you know, I'm going to point you to our website, which is www.jpachicago.org.

Karen G. 00:41:07

we have articles there, and we are going to be starting up a short series of questions and answers with our own clinical team.

Karen G. 00:41:16

We have an amazing clinical team.

Karen G. 00:41:18

They're diverse.

Karen G. 00:41:19

They come from all kinds of different backgrounds.

Karen G. 00:41:22

They have different perspectives, and we want to share some of their wisdom and experience in the classroom or in the clinic.

Mark Taylor 00:41:30

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:41:31

It's so important, isn't it?

Mark Taylor 00:41:32

And just sort of say to know you can have conversations which aren't any.

Mark Taylor 00:41:36

Don't have a side.

Mark Taylor 00:41:37

It's just the ability to share and to do that.

Mark Taylor 00:41:40

It's a.

Mark Taylor 00:41:41

It's a skill that so many people would benefit from in so many walks of life.

Mark Taylor 00:41:45

That's another podcast as well.

Karen G. 00:41:48

Yeah, that's right.

Mark Taylor 00:41:49

Exactly, exactly.

Mark Taylor 00:41:51

Now, obviously, the acronym FIRE is important to us here.

Mark Taylor 00:41:55

Education on fire.

Mark Taylor 00:41:56

And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment.

Mark Taylor 00:42:00

Is there one particular word or something about that that springs to mind?

Karen G. 00:42:07

I love all of them.

Karen G. 00:42:08

Resilience is so important.

Karen G. 00:42:12

The world is a complicated, tricky place.

Karen G. 00:42:15

I was just watching, I have to stop watching these shows on the solar system because I learned that there's something 12 billion light years away called the far far out.

Karen G. 00:42:24

That's the scientific name.

Karen G. 00:42:25

And I sometimes get overwhelmed when I think about who am I in this context lives.

Karen G. 00:42:32

It's the resilience that we can wake up the next morning and take a fresh start and we have the ability to reframe and we're not afraid to learn something new.

Karen G. 00:42:42

So I'm going to pick resilience.

Karen G. 00:42:44

I love that.

Karen G. 00:42:45

And that's one of the things that we hope as kids heal from things that are bothering them, that as part of what they're doing is they're creating a new internal narrative.

Karen G. 00:42:54

I am capable.

Karen G. 00:42:56

I am resilient.

Karen G. 00:42:58

I can do this.

Mark Taylor 00:43:00

I think that's such a beautiful place to finish.

Mark Taylor 00:43:02

It's been so fascinating talking to you, Karen.

Mark Taylor 00:43:05

I really appreciate all the wisdom and all the work that you're doing.

Mark Taylor 00:43:08

It comes across as an organization.

Mark Taylor 00:43:10

I'd certainly love to.

Mark Taylor 00:43:12

To be involved and love to certainly to be able to sort of share with people.

Mark Taylor 00:43:15

So I hope people certainly within the Chicago area are now aware more if they weren't before.

Mark Taylor 00:43:21

But I think the.

Mark Taylor 00:43:22

The sort of, the universal things that we're talking about, I think people can take into any given situation, whether they're par.

Mark Taylor 00:43:29

Working in education in any particular way.

Mark Taylor 00:43:30

And I hope they've all managed to get as much out of it as I have.

Mark Taylor 00:43:33

So, yeah.

Mark Taylor 00:43:33

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Karen G. 00:43:35

So grateful to be with you and thank you for all the work that you're doing to help all of us understand that education is on fire.

Mark Taylor 00:43:44

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.