The Call of a Different Drummer: A Conversation With Lyndal Bullock

How did you get into the field of educating children with EBD?

Well, I told a friend some time ago when I pondered this question, it is almost impossible for me to recall exactly what influenced me most to take this career focus, except that I had always been concerned about young people with special emotional and social development. My early background was in religious education, and I had a couple of degrees in religion. Actually, I was serving as a youth minister when I resigned to go back to school and work on a doctorate in theology. At the time, my spouse was finishing a degree and teaching certificate. When I resigned my role at the church, I was a bit uncertain as to how I was going to proceed with my plan when a principal in the church told me, “I’ve got an opening. Why don’t you come work for me and that’ll take care of this year while your spouse does her thing.” I accepted this invitation, and evidently I found my real calling.

Now, it was 2 weeks into the semester when I accepted this teaching position in a junior high school—so you can only imagine the composition of the classes which had been reformulated! In the world of the church and church camps, I had always been drawn to the young people who walked “to the beat of a different drummer.” The composition of my classes was indeed challenging—in fact, the kids were phenomenal! The students and I grooved and grew together all year. Within the first few weeks of teaching, I realized I needed to go back to school to learn how to do this new job. I did and eventually completed a master’s degree in special education and counseling, which would significantly change my life forever.

Eventually, I moved to Wichita, Kansas, where I became associated with Roger Kroth who served as the director of counseling. After a couple years, Roger left to pursue his doctorate at the University of Kansas. During Roger’s first year there, he began to encourage me to do the same thing. So that’s kind of how I got to where I am right now.

Describe your career from that point forward.

Well, it’s a long story. After becoming committed to the field of special education, everything fell into place for me. When I finished the doctorate, I assumed a position at Central State University (now University of Central Oklahoma). I was there a year, and I knew that was not the place I wanted to be, so I assumed a position at the University of Florida, Gainesville. I was at Florida for 7 years, made associate professor and earned tenure, and did not give much thought to moving until the University of Oklahoma offered me a full professorship and I took it. However, I soon realized that it wasn’t a good match for us.

For several years, we had desired to live in the Dallas, Texas, area, and I was offered a professorship at North Texas State University (now UNT), but I did not want to be hired by an interim dean; thus, when offered a Chair’s position at the University of Louisville, I decided to move to Kentucky. Soon after moving to Kentucky, UNT acquired a new dean, which once again ignited our interest in moving to Texas. Once I learned the previous position had not been filled, I called the dean and told him that I had been offered a job the previous year and wondered if that position was still open? He said, “Yes, why don’t you come on down?” and I’ve been there for 37 years. It was a good match.

What events, policies, innovations, and people have had the most impact on your professional career?

You know when you’ve been in this business as long as I have, I could name many people and things that impacted my career. I think the biggest thing is that I have tried to take advantage of opportunities presented and stay abreast of what’s going on. Further, I had always valued colleagues who were diligent about making a difference and tried to learn from them. My desire has always been to do the best job possible and be willing to go beyond expectations; as a result, I have found that when you do that, everything else falls into place. While at KU, I attended my first CEC convention and became immediately interested in helping promote the activities of CEC and specifically CCBD.

What do you think has had the most positive impact on the field in the last few years?

You know when the field is in such a current state of flux, it’s sometimes rather difficult to come up with things that are really positive. Fortunately, we have an incredible group of professionals in the field who are dedicated to supporting and making a difference in the lives of children and youth with special needs and particularly with those individuals who “walk to the beat of a different drummer.” The focus on positive behavioral supports and evidence-based practices are positive directions that can impact our field in significant ways. Also, I am encouraged by what seems to be a gradual awakening to the need for greater attention to student mental health needs. Hopefully, this greater focus on positive mental health will accelerate and receive greater local and national support.

What do you think has had the biggest negative impact on the field?

Although the concept of inclusion is a positive one, it has been seriously misinterpreted by thinking that a “general education setting” is the least restrictive setting for everybody when in fact, for students with EBD it may be the most restrictive. We’ve gone from a time when kids were dumped into special education—particularly minority students in behavior disorder classes—all the way to including everybody and providing all services in regular classrooms. A lot of times for students with EBD, that’s just a tutor sitting by them in the back of the room. Such practice, in my opinion, falls short of a student being fully included. This has to have a negative impact.

As dedicated as many of our service providers are, there remains a serious shortage of qualified personnel to serve students with challenging behaviors. Further, there is a serious lack of understanding among school leadership about the unique needs of these students. Combined, these conditions present serious barriers to quality programming for students with EBD.

In thinking about the positives and negatives, I believe one of the greatest challenges for the future is for us to devise ways we can maintain momentum and ensure that positive things continue to happen in spite of changes in policies and fiscal constraints. A lot of times, I see people come into the field who have little understanding of how to be effective with students with challenging behaviors and mental health needs.

What kinds of leadership are necessary?

It is essential we have administrators and other school leadership who have an understanding of behavior and who are willing to ensure appropriate campus-based supports. Of course, there’s the federal government piece, which certainly plays a role. Particularly for us in higher education, we march to the drum of OSEP (Office of Special Education Programs) because we need the federal dollars to maintain programs. Unfortunately, from my perspective, OSEP has not been terribly responsive to the ongoing needs of the field.

One of the things that causes me concern is the treatment of juvenile offenders. Over the years, I have worked quite a bit with juvenile justice facilities. I see so many of our young people there with unique mental health needs, yet no efforts on the part of the federal government’s OJJDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) and OSEP to work together in a unified fashion to initiate and support personnel preparation programs and those sorts of things. I feel strongly this is a serious ongoing oversight from our federal leadership.

What do you see in the future for education of children with EBD?

That’s a difficult question. I’d like to say, overall, that it’s wide open. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface in terms of what we really can do for these kids. So, I think from that perspective, the future is really bright; if we can do a better job enlisting support services, both at the school and community levels, the needs of young people with challenging behaviors will more likely be met in positive ways. As noted earlier, hopefully, in the near future we will see new initiatives regarding the mental health of all children and youth, which will become a giant step forward.

What would you like to see to prepare for that future?

I would like the training programs to become a little more rigid and make certain that general education teachers have a better understanding of behavior and how they can be effective working with individuals with special needs. At my place of employment, all too often, when I work with undergraduate and graduate students from general education, they seem to have had little, if any, instruction on how to address the needs of kids that walk to the beat of a different drummer—not just the kids with disabilities but all kids who are different.

What else would you suggest for the future?

In terms of the future, I believe it is important that we develop support systems to assist people who are new to the field. I firmly believe we need to find ways to help newcomers to the field learn about the value of becoming involved in professional associations such as CEC and its specialty divisions. Over the years, it’s been important for me to be involved with other professionals in a meaningful way. I can’t say enough positive things about what the CEC and CCBD have meant to me. I’ve been a member of CEC and CCBD since 1967. I’ve often said that the greatest sustaining factor in my professional career has been my involvement with various professional organizations. I think we’re missing a sustained emphasis in our personnel preparation programs on the value of these professional affiliations. Certainly, faculty in personnel preparation roles need to set an example by their involvement, who then can encourage their students to likewise become involved.

Do you think there’s a link between how training programs are often organized—for example, “high incidence” and “low incidence” or “mild/moderate” and “severe”—and the difficulty identifying with categorical professional organizations or other categorical subgroups?

I am not certain, but it seems to me that the organization of many personnel preparation programs is artificial in several ways. There are likely significant differences between high and low incidence populations, but we must not lose sight of the fact that there is also much commonality among the different categorical groups. Unfortunately, based on my observations in teacher preparation programs, the area of behavior is an often overlooked emphasis when in reality, behavior is one of the greatest challenges new teachers face regardless of the disability group to which they may be assigned.

What other advice do you have for practitioners entering the field of special education?

Stay up to date. Make sure you never lose sight of the kids and their importance. Keep in mind, there is no such thing as a bad kid. There are kids with bad behaviors, but that can be effectively dealt with. Plus, bad behaviors aren’t necessarily bad outside of the environment that they are in at the moment. Some of our kids with EBD are tremendous leaders, it’s just a matter of challenging them to walk in a little different path. We don’t need to control them. We need to help release their energy in positive ways.