A Candid Conversation with Dr. Lori Desautels: Restraint & Seclusion from a Neuroscience Perspective

Join us for “A Candid Conversation with Dr. Lori Desautels about Restraint and Seclusion from a Neuroscience Perspective.”

Dr. Lori Desautels, has been an Assistant Professor at Butler University since 2016, where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Education. She was also an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis for 8 years, where she founded the Educational Neuroscience Symposium. Currently, the Symposium is in its 10th year and now sponsored by Butler University College of Education. Through these conferences and symposiums, educators, parents and the community learn deeply about how adversity, trauma and resiliency impact the developing nervous system, helping our students to feel a sense of autonomy and purpose along with social, emotional and cognitive well-being. Because of her work, Dr. Desautels has been able to attract the foremost experts in the fields of developmental, relational and the social neurosciences, which significantly grow the conference each year.

Dr. Desautels has created a nine-hour graduate certification at Butler University in Applied Educational Neuroscience / Brain and Trauma. This certification has grown from six graduates in its pilot year in 2016, to over 400 graduate students in its now 7th cohort. The certification is open to students around the world as it has transformed into a virtual platform and format. The Applied Educational Neuroscience Certificate, created by Dr. Desautels in 2016, is specifically designed to meet the needs of educators, counselors, and administrators who work beside children and adolescents who have, and are, experiencing adversity and trauma.

Dr. Desautels’ passion is engaging her students through the application of neuroscience as it applies to attachment, regulation, educator brain state, and teaching students and staff about their neuro-anatomy, thus integrating Mind Brain Teaching, learning principles, and strategies into her coursework at Butler. Dr. Desautels has conducted brain institutes and workshops throughout the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, and Dubai on Mind Brain Teaching and Learning. She has created webinars for educators, clinicians, and administrators illustrating how educators and students alike must understand their neuroanatomy to regulate behavior and calm the brain.

Dr. Desautels graduated with a BS in Special Education from Butler University, an MS in counseling education from Indiana University, and earned her Ph.D. in philosophy with an emphasis in early adolescence/ thought formation from Indiana University and American Institute of Holistic Theology. Dr. Desautels resides in Indianapolis, Indiana, with her husband, Michael. She has three grown children, Andrew, Sarah, and Regan, and four rescue fur babies.

Transcript

Guy Stephens  0:11  

Well, hello and welcome and you are not imagining things. We're back with another ASR live. Of course, this is not our usual time, or well, it is our usual day. But we're usually here every other Thursday. But we have a special show today, which I'm really excited about. And I'll tell you a little bit more about it in a moment. But of course, my name is Guy Stevens. I'm the founder and executive director of the Alliance Against Seclusion Restraint. And of course, we're an organization that formed about four and a half years ago. Initially, we really were focused on restraint, seclusion happening in schools around the country. But as does happen, or our mission continued to grow and evolve. It's not just about you know, restraints, seclusion happening in schools, we don't want to see these things happening anywhere, whether it be residential facilities, elder care, acute psychiatric care, we believe in so many cases, we can do so much better. But of course, it's not just about restraint and seclusion, in a school, it might be restraint, seclusion, suspension, expulsion, corporal punishment, it might be kids kind of being moved down the school to prison pipeline. It's often what happens or what is done to kids in the name of behavior. And it's this foundational belief that we have that we can do better, we can do better for kids, we can do better for teachers and staff, we can do, really, better for everyone. So, if you're not familiar with us, by all means, go check out our website. And we've got a lot of, we've got a lot of podcasts back in our, our directory, as well. So, encourage you to go check them out on YouTube, LinkedIn, or Facebook. So today is a special event. I am going to introduce you in a moment to our special guest, Dr. Lori Desautels. And I'll tell you a little bit more about Dr. Lori in a moment. But we are having really a candid conversation about restraint and seclusion from, really, a neuroscience perspective. And really excited about this conversation. Lori and I have been collaborating for quite some time. And when we begin having some conversations around this, Lori’s like “I want to have a conversation, let's do a live,” and that's what we're going to be doing today. So, with all that, a couple logistics here. These shows, as always, are being recorded. So, if you're not able to watch the entire thing right now, rest assured, you can go back later and watch it on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, or you can even download it as an audio podcast. If you want to listen to it on the go, you can do that as well. So, with all the intro out of the way, let's get to the exciting part here. And I want to introduce to you, my friend, my colleague, someone that I admire immensely, Dr. Lori Desautels. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Lori. And you know, Lori and I were talking, she's like, “You don't have to read my whole bio” and I'm like, “Okay, well, I'll just, I'll just kind of wing it a little bit.” But let me tell you a little bit about Lori. I've known Lori, gosh, now for probably over four years, time kind of ticks away quickly. Lori, of course, I had the opportunity to learn about her work, and you know, the things that she's been doing and teaching and her experiences, and one of my earliest exposures was actually through one of my favorite books in the world, which is Connections Over Compliance, which was a fantastic book. And of course, all it took was reading the title of this, because it so much resonated with the work that we were doing the alliance. And what I've come to learn about Dr. Lori is that her work in Applied Educational Neuroscience is really amazing and changing the world. And what I mean by that is that Lori has experience as an educator, spends time, you know, now in the classroom as well, you know, creates these, these amazing books, which offers so much insight and so much really fantastic knowledge to help us to understand our brain and body and our nervous system. And really to have a different look at ourselves and really all the people that we interact with, whether it's children or co-workers or whatever it may be. So, Lori, of course, has written a couple of books. I mentioned Connections Over Compliance, most recently, this amazing book, which is Intentional Neuroplasticity. And all of us probably that are watching this today are, are aware of how trauma can impact the brain and the, the negative effects that can come from trauma. And I look at this book, Intentional Neuroplasticity, as a book about hope, a book about how not only can trauma affect our brains in ways that can be harmful. We have this amazing capability that I've learned more and more about from Dr. Lori's work about how we can actually change our brain as well in a positive way. So anyway, my introduction is probably going to get longer than if I had read the whole thing, but I just want to share with you really this amazing person and of course, Lori does a program in Applied Educational Neuroscience, which gosh, you've been doing now for five years—

Dr. Lori Desautels 5:10

Eight. Eight years.

Guy Stephens 5:11

Wow, even longer. Applied Educational Neuroscience was a program that you started at Butler University. And this program, again, I've had the honor of meeting many people that have gone through the program. And you know, what we always say is that, you know, all the people I've met, Lori, through your program, are people that are, you know, changing the world, and, you know, have all expressed the experience they've had, you know, in that program and how life changing was. In fact, we were on a book study last night, and one of our volunteers, Val Luther, is on the program, and one of the participants, Danielle, who is just amazing, has been in a bunch of our book studies, she's in your program, you know, so we have all these people that are doing this. So let me wrap it up. Lori, you are an amazing gift to the world, the work that you're doing is truly leading to better outcomes for kids, for, for teachers, for really all of us and excited to have you here for a really, I think, meaningful conversation today. So, all that said, Lori, I print longer than I probably should have, but you had me talking from the heart here. So, I hope the intro was okay.

Dr. Lori Desautels  6:28  

I thank you so much and I just want to give all that back to you because you are so gracious with your time, your energy, your passion. And, and it's just, you're on fire with this work. And I think both, you know, I think everyone can agree, you know, all, all of us know that you too are a gift, a huge gift to this work. And yeah, we're just super, super fortunate to sit beside you.

Guy Stephens  7:01  

I appreciate that. And you know, I think one of the one of the things that gives me a lot of hope is to be able to work with, with people like you and you know, many of the students that I've worked with from your, your cohorts. And when we come together, we can do meaningful things. I do want to mention here before we get started in our conversation that if you're watching live and it looks like we've got quite a few people. You know, people that are in our community kind of are already a step ahead of me. I usually tell people to tell us who they are and where they're from in the chat. And I see a number of people have already done that. Jennifer Abbanat, who I believe you know, as well, from Davis, California, another, another amazing Changemaker. Jamie from Nashville and Nashville, Tennessee. Adele from Memphis, Tennessee. We've got Trish here from Indiana and happy to be here. We've got from Charlotte--Sheridan from Charlottesville, Virginia. So, a number of people have already jumped on and are telling us where they're from. And we've got somebody here from Canada as well. And on cue, from all the way over in Australia, we have Gail Quigley who is a volunteer with the Alliance and who is up very early in the morning to watch this. So hopefully, hopefully, you know, across the, across the world, we've got people that are here to listen to you. And, of course, from South Dakota, Indianapolis, Minnesota. Lots of people joining on with us here live today. So, Lori, let's just give a little bit of background to this conversation. You know, you, and you know, I've had the privilege of collaborating with you for quite some time, I think I've shared with you before you, you've actually been our most frequent guests on this program. And I've lost track, it's probably about eight times that you've been on with us. And every time I get an email or a call from you saying, “Hey, we should, we should get together and do something on this,” I get excited. You know, because I think these conversations are really important. But you and I were recently talking about some of the work we're doing around you know, really addressing issues around restraint and seclusion, and of course, you and I were able to meet in Virginia a few months back and actually film a little bit of a documentary that we're working on about restraint and seclusion. And more recently in our conversation, after kind of talking about the problem, I think I'd shared with you some articles about restraint and seclusion in Indiana, you know, you know, your, your home state, and you're like, “I want to do something. I want to have—" And dogs are always welcome, by the way, you know that. We're very dog friendly. But you know, you reached out and said, “Hey, I really want to have a candid conversation about this one.” I want to you know, kind of share that through kind of a neuroscience lens and the work that you do. So, you had really, prompted us to schedule this event and, and talk about this. So, I want to let you kind of get started. Because you also mentioned to me when I had the, the privilege of running into you in person in Indianapolis, you know, things that you had been thinking about in terms of, you know how to kind of talk about this topic and get into it. And, of course, it is, it's a tough topic. You know, when we're talking about, you know, kids being restrained and secluded, we're talking about, you know, things that are being done often in the name of crisis intervention, often in the name of behavior, but they're being done in situations that, you know, are also unsafe to staff. And, you know, often the things that people know, maybe what they've been doing may not be actually helping the situation. And it's really tough, regardless of what side of the situation you may be on. I always like to remind people that, you know, these things are not only traumatic for kids, not only traumatic for families, but also traumatic for educators and others that might find themselves in these situations. So let me let you kind of kick off the conversation, and then we'll kind of go from there.

Dr. Lori Desautels  11:16  

Yeah, thank you guy. And I told guy before, when we were chit chatting, I have notes today, there's so much that I want to condense and share and to be very specific, and then I want to leave time at the end, also, for some practices, like some, I want to move in the direction of growth and solution and resiliency. And you know, and really say, “Okay, now what?” But I want to start, Guy, with, this was an article that was written by Larry Brendtro and Martin Brokenleg who is a Native American psychologist, and it was written, I'm not even sure, here, 1997. So, you know, we're going back 30 years, but it's one that I pull up every single year. And I've read it probably 10 times, and I take a new, I printed out and I underline because I'm not ready to hear some of the aspects of it until the time that I read it. So, I want to begin today just sharing the opening of this article. And that is Martin Brokenleg shares, as we approach, and this is I'm saying, we are approaching the third decade of the millennium. We applaud so many scientific achievements. Yet, in so many discussions about punishment, one still finds enthusiastic support from adults. So, I want to just really explore questions at the beginning of our discussion today, what sustains this antiquated practice of punishment in the face of all of the scientific evidence to the contrary? So, I think, you know, we need to really, we need to ask the questions, what societal values and personal belief systems and theories anchor our cultures below the waterline of reason, in this realm of human experience, and I think about that a lot. What thinking errors are used to uphold the belief that harsh punishment is effective in fighting defiance and delinquency in our own youth. And then, finally, Martin broken leg observed that each of us, this is me, because I'm telling you today, I am a recovering reactive punisher. I was as a mom, I was as a teacher of children with the classification of emotionally disturbed. I isolated them in the late 80s and early 90s. I restrained them. I felt sick to my stomach almost every single time, but I kept doing it, because I believed that if the consequence was painful enough, if it was uncomfortable enough, the behavior would lessen. And so, what Martin Brokenleg states and this is the last piece of this article that I want to share, “Each of us drags behind us a cultural tail, t-a-i-l, 1000 years long and this tail blends with our own child rearing experiences. It's a personal tail, to shape our beliefs about discipline. And when we go back those 1000s of years, when Europeans invaded North America, they brought a different ethos namely that children must always obey adults. The history of child rearing and pre democratic Europe is a litany of coercion with fear and punishment that has been carried down to 2023.” So, you know, as we think about this, these practices of seclusion and restraint, and we think about, Guy you said it's so well, it's not just seclusion and restraint, it's these the punitive practice of suspension, expulsion. We now have growing research that many of these punitive practices are with younger children. Many of these punitive practices are targeting our black and brown children. I'm going to put in boys specifically, and also our special education population. And it is challenging, and it is worrisome. So, I wanted to have this conversation today, not because I'm a neuroscientist, but because from the research of neuroscience, we now understand, and we now know that our nervous systems worsen, our nervous systems are negatively impacted, our biology is negatively impacted when we are using these traditional punitive practice. I want to share today a little bit about what's happening in the brain and body.

Guy Stephens  16:25  

That's it's such a powerful lead into all of this. And, you know, I can't tell you, Lori, how many times I've had this thought run through my head that, you know, here we are in 2023 and, you know, here in the United States, we still have schools that are permitted to hit children in the name of discipline, in the name of punishment, and it pains me to know, all of the information, all of the things that we know, and we know better. And of course, you know, I think you and I, and probably everybody else that's watching this today would agree with this idea that, you know, this isn't about judgment, this isn't about, you know, condemning people that are doing things differently than we are, but it's about when we know better, we do better. And the question is, how do we spread that awareness? How do we, how do we help more people to, to know better, and you know, the impact not only on the children due to the punitive discipline, but as you pointed out, in that article, the impact on the adults, the adult nervous system. This is really a change that supports all of us, and it's so critical. So anyway, I just, I’ve just been reflecting on that. I mean, it's so powerful. And, and when you said 1997 and said 30 years, of course, that scared me because 1997 to me wasn't that long ago, but you know, it's, it's, so I mean, if you think about areas of achievement in the last 30 years, and many things that have been accomplished in society and you know, medicine, whatever field you want to look at, there's a lot of tremendous leaps forward, but then to have this prevailing punitive mindset around discipline, it's almost shocking.

Dr. Lori Desautels  18:11  

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I just want to just give huge gratitude to the researchers and the scientists like Dr. Bruce Perry. You know, like Dr. Stephen Porges, you know, so many, Dr. Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk. I mean, we just, you know, we go on and on, because they are providing the sound robust literature that informs us as educators. And so, what I've tried to do this afternoon is to really pick and choose because as Dr. Perry says, you know, we're on inch 2 of a 10-mile journey with what we know about the nervous system, and every model is inaccurate, it's very schematic when we talk about. So, I'm going to be very schematic, I just want to share that today. You know, the brain doesn't work in regions or systems. But I'm always very careful and very aware and intentional about how we use the neuroscience because I'm not a neuroscientist. And, and so, you know, as we think about children, and, and, you know, we know that are five and six and seven and eight year olds are, that's a huge population of children that are being secluded and restrained, you know, suspended, expelled, and called out. The brain is developing, and the nervous system is developing. And so, you know, I want to begin by saying our nervous systems are social structures, and this is huge for us to think about today. You know, the nervous system finds stability and it finds balance with others. And when we are isolating, when we are restraining, when we are sending away children and adolescents, who are, literally, their nervous systems are the stickiest for experiences, we are unintentionally re-traumatizing and activating their stress response systems. So, I also want to begin, Guy, today with it is well, well known that there are three conditions that the brain and also the nervous system cannot take. And this is true for adults. So, you know, as we think about it, and I also want to say this is not about blame or shame here. I am, I'm a mom, who has consequenced punitively. I am a teacher that has secluded and restrained. So, I'm not, my fingers are not pointed today to anyone, I just, I'm learning every day. But I want to share these three conditions. Because when you think about punitive practices in our schools, in our communities, these three conditions are, I mean, we impact these conditions. So, I want to begin with the very first one, and that is chronic unpredictability. That is something that a developing brain cannot take. And when adults are in survival when I am in my fight flight, when I am escalated, I don't reason I'm not logical, I don't think clearly and I'm extremely unpredictable. I was as a teacher, and I was as a mom, you know, we don't we don't have the capability to sit back and to, you know, to really think about our words. And we're, we are unaware in a survival state of our tone, of our gestures, of our posture. I mean, I'm so glad they're not video recordings of me parenting my own three children when I was escalated, you know, and as a teacher of children with the classification of emotionally disturbed. So, chronic unpredictability is also an aspect of every one of the adverse childhood experiences. So, this is really important for us to think about today. The second condition that the nervous system cannot take is isolation. And for the reason I began with today, is that our nervous systems are social structures, we depend on one another, for stability and for balance, you know, we cannot survive without another. So, when we isolate, it is terrifying to the developing nervous system. And then the third condition that the nervous system and brain cannot take is physical restraint, and emotional restraint. And I wrote about this last night, and I put it on social media. And this is from Andrew Huberman's research and, and also Dr. Feldman's research in the 1930s. And so, what we know is that in a heightened stress response, we have excessive carbon dioxide in our bodies. And that carbon dioxide creates irritation, it creates angst. And, and we now understand through research that we can rinse that carbon dioxide through movement. In fact, we talked about this, Danielle's on we have a couple of my graduate students on right now, we talked about this this summer. There's also a little tiny norepinephrine cell in the base of the brain that is called the locus coeruleus, it’s a part of the brainstem and it has receptors for serotonin and when we exercise when we move our bike, not exercise, when we take a five minute walk, when we, we walk with our kids down the hallway, when we take deep breaths, we can literally lessen and dampen down our stress response systems by releasing some of that carbon dioxide. So chronic unpredictability, isolation and physical restraint, even emotional restraint is impacted in these punitive practices. And it literally worsens the conditions of the behaviors that we are so misunderstanding. And with, with the emotional restraint, when a child is unable to say comfortably, and freely what they need, what they what, what feels, I'm going to use the word soothing, to them, when they can't say what they need, their authenticity is compromised. And every single human being will always choose attachment over authenticity because attachment is a basic need. Attachment is the developer of the nervous system. So, I will do anything to belong. If, if, if I, if even, if I feel like what's happening is wrong, I won't, I won't want my personhood called out. So, you know those, and Dr. Gabor Mate talks about this, that attachment and authenticity are our two greatest needs. And when we are physically and emotionally restraining, then we are, you know, we are not only escalating the stress response systems, but it is much harder for us to ask for what we need. And that's really important for teachers and for parents to understand.

Guy Stephens  25:52  

You made a point and this is a point that, you know, I think is really important that, you know, these things that are often being done, you know, things like restraint, seclusion, ultimately, are likely to result in an increase in, in stress related behaviors and stress responses. And you know, what we find sometimes is that, and somebody mentioned this in the chat about the number of times that they had been restrained and included, and I'm really sorry to hear that that was their experience. But we often find that that people are doing these things repeatedly. And you know, I mean, it really goes counter, I mean, if your, your goal is to help someone who's having a difficult time and exhibiting behavior, you don't want to do something that's going to make it more prevalent, but that's exactly what happens here when you're doing these things, correct?

Dr. Lori Desautels  26:46  

Absolutely. Absolutely. And again, not to blame. But, you know, we the reasoning, and the logistics of this, and the emotional regulation of the adult comes from when we step away, and we are aware of our own nervous system. And in the heat of the moment, you know, none of us do well, in survival. I mean, you know, we all are, you know, reacting talking louder talking faster, consequencing and, and feel like this insurmountable loss of control or power.

Guy Stephens  27:27  

I know, you've got a lot to cover. And I just want to ask one more question. Kind of related to what you were talking about. One of the things that probably, probably others that are on this call can, can relate to is that there's sometimes is a blind spot to trauma that is inflicted on children in places that are there to help them. And what I mean is that sometimes we don't think that a kid could be traumatized by what happened at school or what happens in a medical setting. But in fact, those can be quite traumatizing things. So, when we're talking about, you know, restraint and seclusion, you know, we actually believe it or not hear people that question whether or not they're traumatized. And, and of course, you said, those three, three things that the human brain really can't tolerate. Can you speak a little bit about the impact of using restraint and seclusion and how that changes, you know, I mean, getting back to what we said a minute ago, but how that changes, and impacts an individual that has experienced that?

Dr. Lori Desautels  28:33  

Yes, so I do I want to talk about that. And remember too, that, I was, you know, trauma happens on a continuum. And so in, I read this week, somebody in an article said, “There's no such thing as a small trauma” and I so agree with that, you know, trauma, as we've heard from Dr. Porges, and Dr. Gabor Mate, say, “trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside of you.” And so, you know, the children and the adolescents that are, that are going through the seclusions and restraints, and I say this every, everywhere I travel, if you look at your discipline data in your schools, and in, you know, and if you are a teacher, or even in my own home, I mean, I looked at the things that we were using as disciplinary measures, and they weren't working, because we were not, the behavior, you know, was not getting better. But if you look at your discipline data, the children and the adolescents that were struggling in August, were struggling in October, they were struggling in January, and they were struggling in May, and they left you at the end of last school year, and they still were, were challenge, the behaviors were present. So school, even though it is a place, it is, you know, a, hopefully, a place of external and relational and meeting environmental support, we are a child's relational field, as a teacher, I am that child's, you know, I'm there for them. And so, it doesn't mean that I am excusing behaviors or that I am agreeing. But what we now understand is that school can be a very traumatizing place for our children, where adults are not understanding that behavior management is about the adult, it is not about the child. And so, when you know when we deeply embody, and this is the key word here, when I embody that my tone of voice can set a child off, that my physiological presence can throw a child into an implicit memory and this is what I want to talk about, Guy, that my gesturing and my posture can activate a child's stress response system even though I didn't mean to do that, I mean, none of us wake up in the morning thinking that, you know, we're going to send a kid out in the hall, or we're going to suspend them. You know, this, it's an, I, I don't want to, this is so hard. You've got 30 kids in a classroom, or 40 kids in the classroom and, and you have the responsibility to teach. But, but I want to share this piece of this today, it can be very traumatizing for a child who experiences being called out, being clipped down, having their behavior shown in front of the entire class, being sent away, all of these punitive practices can create a traumatic response. And so, and I want to be very clear about this, trauma isn't actually held in the muscles or the bones, when we say trauma is held in the body, I want to be very clear about this, it's not that it's held in the muscles and bones. Instead, the need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the amygdala, in the brain, and in the memory and emotional centers of the brain. And so when a situation happens, where a child is reminded, if there's a tone of voice, if there is the height of a person who is standing over a student, if there is a white van driving across the parking lot, if there is an ambulance siren, a person walking down the hall, slamming a door, all of those sensory pieces can literally activate a behavior from a child or adolescent’s past that, for them, it feels like the trauma is happening right now in this moment.

Guy Stephens  33:03  

And of course, that's not cognitive. So, you know, I mean, we're, you know, it can be something that doesn't even make sense to us, right. So, you know, maybe a child had a bad experience with law enforcement. And to one person seeing somebody in uniform might be reassuring to another, it might signal a threat. And it's not a kind of like, let me look at this and think about it, but just a smell a taste, you know, something in the air. I mean, so many things can bring that back, right?

Dr. Lori Desautels  33:32  

Yeah. And I read this last night, I thought this was just exactly right. And, you know, what happens in trauma is that those experiences get fragmented. And I was reading last night, it's like shrapnel. And I've never heard of that, you know, analogy before. But those fragments, and those fragments are images and they are sensory experiences. So, when our brains and bodies, when our nervous systems have gone through a traumatic time, then the method of remembering them gets distorted and it fragments out. And so those fragments act like shrapnel, which injured the brains natural recovery process. So those fragments will manifest as symptoms that we punish. And I'm not excusing the behavior, but we have to understand that they are they are so misunderstood. And, you know, in all of us can remember times when we've gone through a sliver of trauma, you know, all of us experience we don't go through life without adversity and traumatic experiences happening. We look back on that trauma. We, we don't really have a narrative for it. We don't have a story for it. But we do, just as you say Guy, a smell we can remember, looking at holiday cookies as I use, or, or hearing tires screech, or, you know, a fork, you know, so or somebody's posture, or someone's-- 

Guy Stephens  35:11  

Somebody wearing medical scrubs, you know, I mean, it could be so many different things. And you know, it's interesting, you talk about memory and even, even the best case scenario, I think people often have misconceptions about how our memory works. I remember reading a fantastic book years ago, it’s by them, Daniel Kahneman, I believe it was. It's called Thinking Fast and Slow and talked about memory. And it talked about really the fact that our memories are not necessarily what we think they are. They're not these continuous full stories, but in fact, they're often, they're often fragmented. And then what happens is, all of us, whether we're adults, or kids, as we recall, a memory we, we sometimes are filling those in with other pieces of information that make a story out of it and may not, in fact, be consistent with what actually happened. So, you know, memory is such a funny thing. And of course, we know that trauma affects memory as well. So, there's so much there that's, that's really interesting.

Dr. Lori Desautels  36:06  

Well, and Bessel van der Kolk, made the statement, and I love this, he says that trauma comes back as a reaction not a memory, you know, and those reactions, we misunderstand. And I've said this for so long, you know, if, if we're only looking at the behavior, you know, we're missing that that nervous system, you know, all behavior, and Mona Delahooke says this, you know, her wonderful work, you know, she says behavior is just an indicator or a signal, you know, that the nervous system is struggling and-- 

Guy Stephens  36:39  

Yeah, yeah. No, I like, you know, and people often say behaviors communication. I like, Stuart Shanker often talks about like, behavior is biology, right? There's all this that’s below behavior. And if, if you're asking a kid, like, why did you do this? Guess what, the kid might not even know. When you're talking about, you know, trauma, you're talking about something that comes back as a reaction. It's not cognitive. It's not “I plan this, I thought it, I did it.” It's, “gosh, something set off my threat detection system, I didn't feel safe and this is what happened, right?” So, I think even our expectations are sometimes really misaligned. And we want to think that, you know, I mean, not only do we want to think that kids have fully developed prefrontal cortexes like an adult would, but you know, my son, I remember when he was young, and would occasionally have a difficult time with something, you'd ask him, you know, like, “why did you do that?” “I don't know, my brain made me do it.” And that “I don't know, my brain made me do it” is so profound when I reflect on it because so much of what we do, it's not, and of course, we would expand that to say, our brain and our nervous system, and our senses of, you know, sensations and feelings, right? 

Dr. Lori Desautels  37:48  

That, no, exactly. I love that, you know, and you're exactly right. I mean, you know, and the other thing that I was thinking about, you know, before as we prepare, as I prepared for our conversation today is that, you know, we really live in a cortical cognitive centric world. And so I just want to give grace, you know, to all educators out there, and to parents, you know, we, we come into the world, and, you know, at in utero, and as infants, we identify with our sensory systems, but as we are conditioned, you know, into experiences out in the world, it's like, our heads go one way, and our bodies go the other. And so, when you are, you know, when, when we are disconnected from our body, and you know, and we're, we're just, we are just kind of thinking, talking, reacting, threatening, nagging, yelling, using words and language, the behavior can oftentimes look intentional. And the behavior can also look manipulative. Because we're so focused on reason and learning, and, and forgetting that implicit memories are those emotional sensory memories that the brain couldn't process for a lot of reasons, and they fragmented. So, the tension, the tightness, the tears, the buzzing in the ears, the sweating, the rapid heartbeat, all of those sensory experiences, feel and tell the body you're not safe. You are, and so, we then see a child or adolescent, running, fighting, and, and reacting in a way as if, as if there was that traumatic event happening and I know I said this but the hippocampus which is our little, sits next to the amygdala in the limbic system, and they work together to process emotional memory, and when there is trauma, it is, it overwhelms that area of the nervous system, and the memory cannot be time stamped. And I think that's a really great way to explain it. Dr. Albert Wong talks about that in his work. And that, and, and Bruce Perry says the brainstem doesn't tell time. So, it's, it's like it's happening all over again. You know, and the other thing that I want to share really quickly is that in trauma, which you know, is in a survival state, just as you know, this activated stress response where our windows of tolerance are nonexistent or so small, our physiology, and this is what we have to understand, our physiology is in a state of threat. And I'm not excusing the behavior. And I'm not saying that, you know, a child or an adolescent doesn't need to repair, or they don't need to, you know, to follow through with a plan. But what's happening with seclusion and restraint and punitive practices is that we have a very dysregulated adult, that is, unintentionally, hopefully, retraumatizing this child. This goes back to me, this goes back to us, it is about the adult nervous system, I, I cannot emphasize that enough. I'm, I'm learning every day that I, and you've heard me say this, Guy, in so many presentations, what I'm thinking about this year, as school has begun here, is when I'm in the classroom, is my nervous system, capable or strong enough to hold this child in myself for a minute or two? That is discipline, that is discipline, that is where we begin to embody the experience and really, to really desire so much more than compliance. If I can hold that child for a moment and share my nervous system, then we're moving in the direction of growth rather, in states of protection.

Guy Stephens  42:29  

Right, and sharing, hopefully, a well-regulated nervous system and how much a difference that can make to somebody that's, that's having a hard time. You know, I was, I think I shared this with you, we were in Houston together and you were presenting, and as you were presenting, something struck me, and you know, how you have these things that strike you and they're maybe, they're not really that ground shaking, but at the moment, it's like, it hits like a lightning bolt. And, you know, the, the realization that I had, in fact, I was presenting later that day. And I remember, after you said what you said, it led to this thought, I'm like, “Oh, I gotta put that in my presentation later.” But, but really the, and I'm trying to remember the exact point that you made, and I don't know if I remember that. But what it led me to is this idea that people don't even realize that very often the consequence, the punishment, the thing that, you know, they may want to do to someone for whatever they did, they don't realize how in fact, dysregulating that is. When you're putting punitive consequences on people, when you're punishing them, it's dysregulating and what happens, of course, is you know, that dysregulated nervous system, that, that punishment may even to a degree, be traumatizing to a kid. And then of course, we're feeding into stress responses. So, the more we do these things, the more we're feeding into these responses, and then we're seeing the same thing.

Dr. Lori Desautels  43:53  

And our in our discipline data shows that. I say to every school and, our children that are, you know, being constantly, you know, secluded or restrained or, or even expelled and suspended or called out or clipped down, or, you know, you know, when we are only focusing on the behaviors, we are leaving out the private logic of a child. And so we somebody made, I think maybe Bessel van der Kolk calls that a child or adolescent’s perceptual map, I love the term private logic, because the logic of children and adolescents, the logic of adults that have experienced, adverse, you know, it's like you know, whether they are relational adverse experiences, external, you know, adverse experiences or internal like meaning a surgery, a sickness, those experiences shape our nervous system, and remember that our autonomic nervous system is a human lab. Think about that. You know, it is a lab and so when we think about the nervous system, it has plasticity, but it's very hard for a nervous system to find homeostasis or balance when we're in survival. So, you know, I told you, so I want to think about, and Bruce Perry talks about this a lot, you know, get to know the history of a child. So, I think it's even deeper than the history, I think we have to understand the private logic of a child. And what I mean by that is, for some of our kids, their private logic is I don't trust one damn adult and why should I? Why should I? Here's another piece of private logic. You know, why would I soften my defenses for anybody that I don't trust? Or that set or for anyone who is going to hurt me? You know, and again, it's, life is about perception, you know, perception, it's not about, it's our perception is built from our embodied experiences. From our generational trauma, from our evolutionary biology, even take it there, you know, we are, you know, we are constantly, you know, looking at, like, the human nervous system is all about survival. Nothing more.

Guy Stephens  46:22  

Right. Right. Yeah. I was reading one point, Robert Sapolsky’s work, which I think as I recall, you have right behind you there, Behave. And I remember, you know, kind of that point that, it's like genetics and experience, right, you can have the genetics, but until you have the experience, sometimes there are things that will become, that, that will be, come to the forefront with the experience that you've had. So, you know, certain people and of course, we all respond to experiences differently. But we all also have different genetic makeup, we have, you know, kind of the field of epigenetics is getting interesting as well. There's a lot that's going on there that's below the surface.

Dr. Lori Desautels  47:05  

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, when you think about, you know, Dr. Jim Beam, who is, not Jim Beam, Jim Bean, and we always have--

Guy Stephens  47:18  

I thought you called him Jim Beam. I’m like, “oh, wait isn't that a whiskey?” 

Dr. Lori Desautels  47:22  

He's a pediatrician that I work with closely in the certification at Butler. And, you know, and he was sharing with our graduate students in the past that, you know, there's a step, at least a 17 year gap, between what the medical field and the medical science, you know, is exposing and sharing and the, you know, in doing incredible research, compared to how physicians practice today, and you know, and he said, you know, he looked at my graduate students a few years ago, he spoke at Butler, and he said, “Can you imagine what it is for us as educators?” You know, with 17 years, so, you know, what, how I was prepared in my pre-service years, how I was trained, we did not know, like, teachers didn't, were not prepared to teach to the nervous system. And, and we, again, like you said, Guy, it even goes, I wish I could think of something different, like, yes, when you know, better, you do better. But, you know, also, it's when you embody the research, then you embody solutions. 

Guy Stephens  48:34  

Right, right. Well, it starts with you, right? So, if it doesn't start with you, you can't become, I mean, this is, this is something I think you can't become a practitioner of, if you're not actually applying it to yourself, right? If you're not able to take the ideas, and understand your own body and brain nervous system connections. It's not just a skill that you can master without kind of bringing it into your own, right?

Dr. Lori Desautels  49:00  

Absolutely. And this is something that, you know, and I really want, you know, I, I'm learning every day. Like, I can't even tell, I study harder right now than I ever did in any of my degree programs because the research is changing so quickly. And I tell my graduate students that every year, this is cohort eight that just started this summer. And these clinicians, mental health therapists, educators, administrators are coming in with much more knowledge than Cohort One or Cohort Two because the field traumatology is evolving, relational social neurosciences is evolving, polyvagal, the work is evolving. But here's what I really want to say this afternoon. It's not what you know, it is really what you embody. And I'm going to emphasize this to my graduate students because I'm walking that walk too. It's not, it’s not the knowledge, you know, that, it's not the templates that you create that, you know, are we truly embodying it in our lives? And do we really, do we really, just sense it, experience it in our own nervous systems? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's important. I wanted to spend I, I hope this hasn't been negative. I hope it's been hopeful. But I do want to spend some time talking about some things that we can do.

Guy Stephens  50:32  

It’s funny you say that because I was thinking just a moment ago, like, “Okay, we know the impact. We know, kind of broadly like that we've been, you know, that, as a society, we've been doing these things. We've been doing them for a long time,” and I was actually going to ask you like, what's the hope? Give us hope, what can be done? How can we change things? And, you know, I mean, I acknowledged in your intro, and I feel it in my heart here that the work that you're doing with the Applied Educational Neuroscience Program, is making waves and ripples and changes in the world, but speak more broadly. And what can we do? I mean, what were where do you see the hope? And what can be done to help move things forward?

Dr. Lori Desautels  51:17  

Well, I first of all, the hope is plasticity. And I want everyone to understand that the nervous system has plasticity. And Deb Dana talks about that. You know, she's a very well-known trauma therapist that works alongside Dr. Porges. It's not just the brain that has plasticity. Our nervous system has plasticity. And that is so hopeful. And that's what I talked about and that's the title of the book, Intentional Neuroplasticity. And really, Guy, it's, you know, it really is about our awareness. And I want to say awareness is transformational. You just don't think that it is. But I, and I want to read this to you, I wrote this down. And this is just, this is when we have awareness that I that I am pissed off, like when I am aware, which I was like three nights ago, our grandson is here. My mom stopped over, Nelly, our rescue dog was being ridiculously jealous. I jumped on Nelly, I was short with Michael, I was so dysregulated, my husband, I was so dysregulated, and I’ve never gotten that angry at Nelly, our rescue dog. And, and I stepped back, and I thought, “oh my god.” I mean, look, like I just, like, I escalated everybody in the room, including my mom, who was annoying me. But she couldn't help it her cognition, her memory. She's struggling right now. And I dysregulated. So, I just want to say, and I'm going to finish this now, not only is awareness transformational awareness provides predictability. And when we have predictability, when we know that we could be uptight, when we know that this kid triggers us, when we know this student activates us when we know this colleague, when we know this time of day is frustrating, when you know your dips and valleys, then we can get out ahead of it. So, and I just I love that I can think about okay, this is going to be a day so I have the ability to really get in front of this with some deep breathing, with some, I love yoga nidra, it's, it's a new it's, it's, it's not new at all. It's ancient practice, but it's being well researched right now at UCLA, and it's an awake sleep. So, I can do that for 10 minutes. I can drink a cold bottle of water, I can walk for five minutes. I can hum. I mean, these are things that we now know these practices can, can really begin to shift, you know, our nervous system states. So, I, you know, I want to share that. That's hopeful. I also, I also want to talk about oh, yes, that was something that's okay. I'll come back to that. But I want to emphasize that this work in our classrooms when we think about discipline, it is really about morning, meaning, discipline happens at the beginning of class. I just cannot emphasize that enough. It is preventative. It is relational. Its nervous system aligned. I know, Guy, you've heard this ad nauseam, but it's really getting out in front of the behavior. And I worked with a very challenging school district on Tuesday that had never heard of this work. And they were, like reading their nonverbal. It was real. I was so challenged. But then I began to model it. And I showed a video of the angry monster, and they had to predict the ending. And then we talked about, I mean, you got to walk the walk. So, I just want to say, what are the first 10 minutes of class? How do children experience that? How does the end of the day? How are we being intentional about coregulatory practices? Are we, are we being intentional about being aware of our nervous systems? Are we providing predictability and routines that are engaging, and practices that address our sensory systems, whether it's some rhythm, whether it's some movement, whether it's some intentional breathing, whether it's some pressure, whether it's some laughter, whether it's some fun predictability, or something salient or novel. Those are ways that we get our kids to the cortex. When you're in the cortex, then we can reason, we can, you know, emotionally regulate, we can hold good strong working memory and sustained attention. We are, I always share with teachers that I sit beside to offer a child a podcast for a minute, a motivational podcasts while they're coregulating, listen to it together, watch an inspirational, motivational three-minute YouTube video, doing it with them, sharing a bottle of water with a student. And something that I've never said in any of my presentations. This the first time I've ever said that. I want it I'm going to talk this year about snack. Let me think what I'm going to say. So, snack chats, and I, this comes from watching my daughter, Sarah, have milk chats with Miles this week, after Miles has finished nursing, she will literally lay him in her arms. And she looks in his eyes, her face is soft, and her voice is low. And she holds him tightly. And she speaks to him. And he is cooing and gurgling and talking with her. And he is in a state of relaxed alertness. And I thought to myself this week, one of the ways that we can get out ahead of the behavior is, really be intentional about snack chats with our children. Now somebody's going to roll their eyes at me and say, “Are you kidding me? I've got 35 kids, how in the hell am I going to do that?” And I want to share with you, it is a process, we got to get out in front of it. If we know which students are really coming in rough, if we know which students are carrying in fear. And you know that, we all, I mean, we know we can look at our data, we know that we're intentional with these touch points where we sit down, share a cracker, or share a bottle of water, share a spoonful of peanut butter and, and we just, we just are sharing our safe emotionally available presence. So those are some of the things I've written down quite a few. But those in our, this is all the work that we do in our procedures, you know, constantly.

Guy Stephens  58:50  

I know you had some slides that you talked about sharing, did you want to bring any of those up and share them because it'd be great to share some of those. And I just want to kind of prime me and I'm going to go ahead and bring this up on the screen here as well. But I also want to prime the, the audience here that's watching that if you have questions, or comments, please put those in the chat. In a few minutes we'll try to transition here to some questions that we might have from our audience. So, I've got your PowerPoint up on the screen. And right now, it's a circle of culture. So, I don't know where you wanted to start, but we can see your screen.

Dr. Lori Desautels  59:23  

Yeah, so okay, so this is, and I know, so what I'm thinking this year, so many of our black and brown students, so many of our transgender youth, so many of our immigration youth, our special education population, you know, are our children of color there, there is such a misunderstanding of culture and, and our children lose their sense of identity. They lose, and I'm not talking about surface identity. You know, I really want to, I want to talk about looking at the circle of culture. So, I, I did this five minutes before I went on, but if I'm in the center of it, I want to know, what my students value, I want to know their belief systems, I want to know, and I want them to be able to share their community experiences, the traditions in their home, the traditions that are in their families, you know, I want to I want to talk about ancestry, you know, and, and how, you know, our ancestors impact how we feel and experience the world today. And so, these, this is actually this is from an article, and I can send this to everyone, it's from Education Week. And, and so this is something I would like to do this year, you know, I would really like to delve in, and to really look at, you know, what we call these circles of culture, so that we can begin to really deeply understand and embody, you know, where our children, where our adolescents and where our families, you know, are coming from and, Guy, I want to say too, that for many of our parents school was not, you know, school was a traumatizing experience. I mean, school can be terrifying, you know, for many families. And again, that's not, you know, school is the de facto, this--

Guy Stephens  1:01:28  

Yeah, and we bring those experiences with us as our children go to school as well. You know, I shared before, but I mean, I, very young was at a school that practiced corporal punishment. And yeah, I mean, I experienced corporal punishment when I was in kindergarten. You know, so I mean, we bring these experiences with us. And, you know, it's tough.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:01:49  

It is. It's just, it's really hard. So, a goal for me this year, and a couple of my grad students are on fire with this Rob Beltz, who's been on the show with you before, Dustin Springer, we've been doing, we've been talking a lot about nests. And so, this is the last thing I'm going to share tonight. Can we move? Can I move my PowerPoint? Or do you move it?

Guy Stephens  1:02:12  

Yeah, you can move your PowerPoint. So, if you just click on the left side there, you should be able to move to a different slide if you'd like to. 

Dr. Lori Desautels 1:02:18

Oh, gotcha. 

Guy Stephens 1:02:20

You have to be on your PowerPoint presentation, though.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:02:22  

Okay, hold on. So, I'm gonna go to, okay, so right. Should I hit your stop sharing and go to mine?

Guy Stephens  1:02:32  

Uh-oh, I think we lost your share there. So, you might have to reshare it. 

Dr. Lori Desautels 1:02:37

Okay, let me share. 

Guy Stephens 1:02:40

Sure. And if you want to get to the screen first, that would even simplify things.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:02:42  

Okay, so I'm going to share, screen share screen, I'm just not good at this part. Okay, then I'm gonna go to the window.

Guy Stephens  1:02:48  

Yep, go to the window, and then choose your PowerPoint. And it just came up on the screen and just change whatever slide you were on. Yep. I see you scrolling. Perfect. Yep.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:02:59  

Okay, perfect. So, I want to go down here, oh, my goodness, there's, okay. So, this is something that we're going to be talking about in class, I just want to share a couple of these really quickly. So not only do people, so coregulation is our ability to, you know, share our safe, emotionally available space and nervous system with a child. And it's, that again, we are social creatures. So, when you think about and I'm going to go back here, so the polyvagal chart, this is a new one that we've created that shows when you like, are in this green area, we're functioning from our cortex, we are feeling focused and connected and safe and grounded. And then we might, you know, someone might give us a look, we might get annoyed, we feel anxious, something's happened in the halls in the lunchroom, at recess, we come in and we are irritated, we move into that survival state of fight flight. And then we, you know, if, if we are not having those coregulatory experiences in that time and space to find some groundedness and some steadiness then we can move even further down regulate into shutdown, which is that immobilized frozen and for many of our children, and adolescents, this is disconnecting from themselves and disconnecting from the world around them, like crawling under your desk, right, you know, not running so much but just retreating. For us, it's just, it could look like failing grades, it could look like you know, hoods over our heads, high absences, so if you see these colors, then I want to take you, also our schools hold places, and Guy you heard me share this at CPI think, that our schools hold places that feel safe, and hold places that feel, where we get ramped up or where we feel anxious. So, the green are areas in a building that feel safe to staff and to students, I'm showing you a student one. And we are just beginning to kind of share this. But we as a school, we can give our adult surveys and we can give students surveys with three or four simple questions. And I'm going to be developing this this year. But you know, what hallways feel safe to you? Where do you feel connected? Are there restrooms that can activate you or trigger you? Are there places that feel terrifying in the building? What about the parking lot? What about the playground? You know, and, and so the reason this is so important for us in our schools, is to really think about the people in those places, the aesthetics in those places. You know, the just the experiences and the felt experiences that our students have. So, this is one way that we can really begin to gather as a staff, the information and then support and resource those spaces.

Guy Stephens  1:06:28  

You know, this is something and I don’t I mean to interrupt you, but this is popping something off in my brain here. And I was thinking about conversations I've had with Dr. Kevin Huckshorn, who did a lot of work around reducing eliminating restraint and seclusion in acute psychiatric care over 20 years ago. And one of the points that you made; I'm just thinking about this idea of safety. As you see people focus on safety, very often, they're focused on the wrong things. And, and don't get me wrong. What I'm trying to say here is that very often in focusing on safety, we end up hardening schools to look like secure facilities to look like prisons, and those don't feel safe to a nervous system. And Dr. Huckshorn made a great point about like, you know, what, if facilities, whether it be schools, or acute psychiatric facilities, took cues from the hospitality industry, right, rather than, rather than trying to harden places, so that they, you know, you're passing through metal detectors, and you have things that look very much in some cases, like a prison, it really can, it really can affect a sense of personal safety.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:07:33  

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, you know, we want to, you know, like, our, you know, and this also empowers our kids, you know, and it gives them, you know, some voice and some choice. And, and, and they feel like they are, they are a part of that, they've got some purpose, maybe some mastery, you know, that that circle of belonging is activated. And, also for our staff, you know, this is true, too. So, the last, just the last couple of things I wanted to share, this is discipline. You know, we don't think of this. When kids walk into a classroom, this is Emily Ross, she's a sixth-grade teacher that I've worked closely with over the last few years. And, you know, when kids come in, they're opening up Chromebooks, they're opening up their tabs, they're having, you know, breakfast. They have these, Emily shares as magnetic brains, you know, and so they, they move them all day long, you know, like, where are you in your nervous system? And not only do we gather fabulous perceptual data, you know, like, as a teacher, this is invaluable for me to know. But, you know, we can, we can also, we give the kids an opportunity to name, and you know, what Dan Siegel has said for so long, you know, when you when you can name that, you know, it dampens down the stress response.

Guy Stephens  1:08:55  

You’ll have to have Emily get in touch with us. I'd love to have her write something about that. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:09:01  

Yeah, she's amazing. Okay, and then the last thing that I wanted to share, this is really super cool. This is from, and this is Emily's too, Emily Ross. And she is on fire with this work with her middle school, sixth grade students. And she is taking neuroplasticity into her content area. And that's why, you know, she says “Lori, I just don't have the behaviors that I used to have,” because she's weaving it into everything. So, they were doing a unit on fractions and what she did was she asked the kids to draw pathways, you know, is your understanding of fractions, you know, specific you can see like decimals, converting to improper fractions, you understand numerator and denominators. Are you on a dirt road, a paved road or do you have a superhighway for this? And so, you know, this, thinking about, you know, social and emotional learning is not like, it's not from 10 to 1030, if we are really going to shift the way that we like really emphasize the social and emotional growth of our students, this, we've got to integrate this all day long. And I love this example of how she is using this way of engagement, not only, you know, integrating it into content area, but she is, the kids love this. I mean, they're learning about neuroplasticity in so many different ways. So, I'll stop sharing now, I just wanted to share those few slides with you.

Guy Stephens  1:10:44  

Yeah, and that’s fantastic. And you know, your work has demonstrated the power of, kind of, some awareness about your brain, whether you're, you know, whether you're four years old, or you're 40 years old, understanding your, your brain and your nervous system. And there's, you know, I love teaching this and normalizing and, you know, it sounds like Emily's doing some amazing work. And, you know, you talk about how she said, she just doesn't have the behaviors anymore. And what always resonates with me is like, what's the biggest change? The biggest change was Emily, right? It's not that those, you know, 30, some children are different. In fact, they could still be going to other classrooms and having some difficulty, but the changes that we make in ourselves, and how much impact that has, then over supporting kids. And I think, you know, we probably have a lot of, a lot of the families and parents that are part of our community, that have seen that, that have seen a kid move to a different environment with somebody with a different mindset. And suddenly they have a different child, right?

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:11:46  

It's I'm so glad that we you said that guy that you ended with that today, because, you know, it's, it's, the kids didn't make the shift, Emily made the shift. And, and that's just so critical. And it's a process, you know.

Guy Stephens 1:12:04  

Right. Absolutely. So, so I know we've gone not long, but we're at about time that we would normally end. But we have a couple of well, actually, Courtney has been busy putting blue stars on things that she thought we might want to ask questions of, do you have time for a few questions? 

Dr. Lori Desautels 1:12:15

Sure. 

Guy Stephens 1:12:18

Okay, so I'm just kind of rolling my way through here, because they, they go way back here. But, but let me, let me just start with a few of them. I've got a question here. That seems like a good question to send your way. What makes a good teacher? So, given your experience in education, given the work that you do now, and of course, you know, realizing that people are on a journey, so we don't want to say that somebody's a bad teacher, that, that really, it’s a journey to be a better teacher. But, what do you think makes a good teacher?

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:12:48  

Oh, I, well, there are so many, I mean, so many facets to this question, but in my gut, the first thing that just came to me is a teacher that is so willing, and so excited to keep learning. I just, I feel like, I just feel like, you know, that is just critical in this time, the students that, you know, some of our educators had even five years ago, or they're not the students of today, they have a different biology based on external, internal, and relational environments that they've been exposed to. And we're, we are still crisis teaching, we are still pandemic teaching, and we will be this year. So, I feel like what makes a good teacher is just somebody who continually is willing and excited to learn about themselves, first and foremost, and about what is underneath that behavior and what they can do to, to align with where the student is in their nervous system. 

Guy Stephens  1:13:53  

Yeah, that's great. And, you know, I would say that even much of it is like somebody that’s shown up for kids, right? Somebody that's showing up for kids, somebody that wants to always do better, you know, there's so much. Katie said, “Do you have any tips?” And this is a great question. “Do you have any tips on how to bridge the gap between behavior specialists in the school coming from a behaviorist perspective and other practitioners who are trying to focus more on regulation?” So, you know, this is something that we see, and of course, it varies from school to school and district to district. But you know, as you know, Lori, very often, the ideas around discipline are based on you know, they're probably the opposite of your book title. They're often based on compliance; they're often based on reward and consequence. So, what are your tips for you know, bringing people on board that may be coming from a different perspective or background?

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:14:48  

So, my two answers or two response, not two answers, two responses to this. The first one is to build relationships with each other. You know, when we have, you know some adults that are really focused on the behavioral piece, and we have some adults that are focused on what is underneath that behavior, and really looking at the sensory system, there can be a significant collision, and we dig our heels in more, and we become more resistant when we feel a need to defend ourselves. So, I think that strengthening relationships in your building between the adults is so critical. And then I would also, this is something that, you know, I'm always thinking about, too is, is there a classroom in a building? Is there a space where the work is, where there are educators that are really showing a different discipline protocol, because they are reaching for sustainable change, rather than just compliance or obedience. And so, I would encourage Katie, you know, to really those, there are many educators who intuitively get this work. And, and so I think it's really helpful in a building to maybe create a pilot classroom, you know, where we can show data, you know, where we can, you know, really, when, when there is an educator, that is using the applied Educational Neuroscience, you know, the, the framework and being trauma responsive in a way that they're tying that into their discipline protocols, because, you know, a trauma response. You can bring in me, you can bring in other speakers, but the work comes from within the building, and it's all about discipline in the end, a trauma responsive school is a school that has shifted their discipline.

Guy Stephens  1:16:40  

Great, great response. Cassie says, “Would you say it is unsafe for students to be in shutdown?”

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:16:48  

So, if a student is in a dissociated, immobilized shutdown state, I mean, I don't want to generalize that because, you know, our nervous systems are unique, and so are our responses. So, I mean, I think that if a student has moved into that, we need to know that that is a state of feeling terrified. And so that is a, a state, that state dependent functioning where that student needs an adult to sit beside them. So, and again, if you can't run from your stressor, and you can't fight off your stressor, then our nervous systems move into that shutdown dissociative, and that, that can be, I mean, that's a much, for me, that's a much more challenging autonomic nervous system state, I'd rather see a kid running, fighting than shutting down, because that disconnect is serious.

Guy Stephens 1:17:49  

You know, what's interesting, from a slightly different angle is that, you know, kids that are running, kids that are pushing desk over, kids that are having big behaviors. There is often focus put on kids. And, you know, let's look in both directions and say, sometimes that's not a good thing. Sometimes these are kids that are being over, over restrained, secluded, suspended, expelled. But, but also, these are kids that draw attention and may, in fact, depending on where they are, be getting positive help. The concern, you know, around shutdown is that there are kids that are shut down, that are in the back of that class with a hoodie over their head and, and may not be eliciting any response, because the thought is they're not, they're not causing disruption. And some of these kids are really suffering, I think in silence. So, you know, sometimes I think it can be, you know, quite unfortunate for a kid that that goes into that shutdown, because they may fall through the cracks, right?

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:18:49  

Absolutely. And we call those our invisible kids right now. Because a school pays more attention, Guy, like you said, so well, I mean, we look at externalizing behaviors, you know, we don't look at those internalizing ones.

Guy Stephens  1:19:01  

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, I'm just gonna share a couple of comments here, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up and unfortunately, I won’t get to everything. But I'm gonna share a couple more comments here, and then give you an opportunity for any final words that you have. And this was just comments as you were talking through, I think of how this would have helped me as a student to be heard, it would have settled me and kind of jumped on and said, you know, same thing, lifelong learner. Rachella mentioned kind of starting with the adult, which we talked about being so important. Seems like a lot of, a lot of love and support for what you're doing. I had a great comment here from Gail, who said, “Dr. Lori, you inspire me every time I hear you. What keeps going around in my head is how can I get this work to teachers in school? The task is huge particularly when their hearts and minds are not open.” And I know we addressed that a few minutes ago and, you know, I think one thing I would, you know, add is like, you know, always have conversations even with people that don't agree with you and one of the things that I found And then doing this work is that there are times that, you know, I might mentally think, “oh, no, no, no, no, we were in very different places, we're not going to come to the same thing.” But sometimes when you have conversations you realize, and you can align, and you can make connection. And even if you go in with very different views, sometimes just giving it the opportunity, you find out about the opportunity to work with people that you might not have expected to. So, you know, there's always hope. 

Dr. Lori Desautels 1:20:28

I think so. 

Guy Stephens 1:20:30

Yeah, go ahead, Lori, I'm sorry.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:20:31  

No, no, I just think, you know, this was, you know, we were, I think, we were very candid today. And, and I think that, you know, the nervous system has a negative bias. So, all of us will, you know, really pay attention to the negative, it gets our attention, because we are wired for survival. But, you know, in saying that there is such a power in human spirit and in the plasticity of the nervous system. And just, yeah, I just feel like when we understand that, anytime we are elevated, and our kids are elevated, we are functioning, you know, in this survival, protective defensive state. We, we just, we just have to realize that we have to step back, we may not be able to stop it in the moment, but just thinking about where I was, where this child was, and knowing that survival is what the nervous system is about. And yeah, yeah.

Guy Stephens  1:21:51  

Yeah. Absolutely. You’re just getting thanked here you for your, your wisdom, and candor. And all this applies to so many different disciplines. Lori, I want to give you an opportunity for any last word that, you had was although, that, that was a great last word too, anything final that you want to share with us as we wrap up today.

Dr. Lori Desautels  1:22:11  

Well, just that thank you, Guy, I just want to share that the stories, you know, our trauma stories, our stories of private logic are held in our autonomic pathways. And, and that's where we've got to focus, you know, just understand that our experiences have created, you know, how we perceive the world around us. So, thank you, Guy, so much. Thank you.

Guy Stephens  1:22:39  

And thank you. And you know, always appreciative and, you know, really appreciate the work that you're doing and, you know, appreciate who you are and what you're doing, and all the good that you're bringing into the world. You know, when I encourage people that if you find this really as interesting and fascinating as I do, the Applied Educational Neuroscience Program at Butler University is an amazing program. And people that want to dive in deeper, and I know, we actually have probably quite a few people that had been in the program on our event today. So that's great to see. So, Lori, thank you so much. If you want to hang around for a second, I'll give you a final goodbye. And we'll say goodbye to our audience here today. Appreciate all of you. Appreciate all of you that are coming, you know, every, every two weeks or every week when we do these events. You know, this community that we have here is really empowering. And I think, you know, we're working to spread good things. So, it always makes my heart happy to know how many people join us from all over the world and the work that you're doing. So, thank you all and we will see you again next week. We have another live event coming and Lori you can hang on and we'll say goodbye to everybody here. Bye-bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai