Understanding Bullying: A Personal Journey and Call for Change with Kayla Taylor ~ 1103

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

Tim Villegas
Hi, friends. I’m Tim Villegas from the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education and you’re listening to Think Inclusive, our podcast that brings you conversations about inclusive education and what inclusion looks like in the real world. We are already at episode three of season 11. So here’s a quick recap. Episode One was with the one and only Dr. Shelley Moore. We talked about inclusion in secondary schools. Episode Two was with the amazing Andrea Teesha Fitzgerald, and we talked about the connection between anti-racism and UDL.

Today we have a guest that is going to speak on a topic that we have not covered nearly enough. Kayla Taylor is a best-selling writer, researcher, advocate, and parent dedicated to raising awareness and addressing crucial issues affecting families and vulnerable individuals. Her book Canaries Among Us blends poignant storytelling with groundbreaking scientific research, showcasing her passion for empowering families.

For this episode, Kayla discusses her book, which explores the experiences of raising a child with learning differences, bullying, and anxiety. She emphasizes the importance of sharing these stories to create a sense of community and support for families facing similar challenges. Kayla also delves into the complexities of bullying, the power dynamics involved, and the long-term effects on both the targets and the children who exhibit bullying behaviors. She provides insights into effective ways to address bullying and create a more inclusive and caring environment in schools. Kayla encourages educators to value and celebrate the differences of all learners, empowering them to reach their full potential.

Thank you so much to our incredible sponsor for this week’s episode, Changing Perspectives, an international nonprofit that partners with schools and districts to create inclusive and equitable learning communities for all students. They offer customizable teacher trainings, family workshops, and curriculum resources. They’ve already helped over 300,000 students, 12,000 teachers, and 500 schools. Visit their website at changingperspectivesnow.org to learn more and schedule a free meeting.

We’ve got a great conversation for you today. Make sure you hang around till the end of the interview to hear this week’s mystery question. And for free time this week, something completely different. After a short break, my interview with Kayla Taylor.

Tim Villegas
Kayla Taylor, welcome to the Think Inclusive podcast.

Kayla Taylor
Thanks so much for having me. I’m honored to be here.

Tim Villegas
So you have a book called Canaries Among Us. And it’s a fantastic book. And the writing is so well done. The reason I bring that up is because sometimes I think memoirs or that memoir style of writing—you don’t always know what to expect. We’re going to get into the big story behind it and why you wrote the book. But I just want to let our listeners know that if you pick this book up, you’re not going to want to put it down.

Kayla Taylor
Thank you, Tim. Though in a way that’s a little hard to hear because, as you know by now, it’s a really vulnerable story. There were several times I almost pulled the presses on it because it is so personal to me and my family. But I did it ultimately because I felt like if we don’t tell these stories, nothing will ever change. And so often the story or the self-help book or the memoir comes out 20 or 30 years after the fact. But I think you lose some of the emotionality of it. When you look back on things 30 years later, it’s easier to paint yourself in a more beautiful light, as if you understood everything as it was happening. I mean, it’s hard not to use your current understanding to repaint your past experience.

I just knew how alone I felt in my experience, and I wanted other families to feel less alone. So I just decided to go for it and do that vulnerable thing and put it out there with the goal of hoping other people will feel less alone.

Tim Villegas
Yeah. Well, we’re probably getting ahead of ourselves. But I want our listeners to understand the big story that you’re trying to tell with Canaries Among Us.

Kayla Taylor
Right. So simply, Canaries Among Us is a personal view into what it’s like to raise a child struggling with learning differences, bullying, and anxiety. In our case, the learning differences weren’t obvious to me. So it started with bullying. And then, as I was trying to understand why my child was being bullied, I realized it’s because my child’s a bit quirky. So I started down the learning differences journey. Then things got so bad that it led to some pretty bad anxiety. So I needed to learn a lot about that.

It’s just trying to honor the real lived experience of so many families. I think 20% of kids—one out of every five—qualifies for an accommodation in school. So it’s considered to have learning differences. And that’s not just in the segregated classrooms; that’s in the general education classroom. That’s every adult, every kid. And I would actually argue it’s more than that because that 20% statistic includes things like dyslexia, ADHD, some things we’re used to. But it doesn’t consider a lot of anxiety. It doesn’t consider sensory processing issues. As far as I’m concerned, it definitely doesn’t include a lot of the physical disabilities people have. I don’t think it includes speech impediments. It doesn’t include a lot.

So I think if we consider how many people don’t fit in a box, that number would be much higher than 20%. I also cover bullying, which 20 to 30% of kids deal with directly, and all kids deal with it indirectly as bystanders. Pre-COVID, I think probably a third of all adolescents dealt with anxiety. And we can only assume that number has severely skyrocketed.

These are issues that, when you pile them on top of each other, it’s hard to believe that not every family or every other family—if you’re not dealing with it now—is going to be dealing with it at some point in your child’s life and your family career. So I just think it’s really important for us to start having conversations about it and being vulnerable. These issues, yes, they’re highly stigmatized. But if we don’t start talking about them, they’re going to keep weighing us down, and they’re going to hurt kids the most. And of course, kids grow up to be adults. I guess they hurt all of us.

I really appreciate the work you do because you’re really bringing these conversations and ideas to the forefront so that we can start helping kids be their best selves.

Tim Villegas
Appreciate that. Thank you. As far as bullying is concerned, what are some things that you’ve learned about bullying that maybe you need to think differently about?

Kayla Taylor
When my child was bullied, I realized I had strong opinions on bullying—like we all do. But the more I researched, the more I understood that I actually knew very little about it. I think so often we don’t identify bullying because we don’t understand what it is. It’s probably worth saying that most academics, scholars, and researchers who study this define bullying as the act of repeatedly and intentionally causing physical and/or emotional harm to another person with less power.

I didn’t understand that a lot of things that qualify as bullying are so easily dismissed. We all know about physical bullying, but verbal bullying—taunts and threats—and social bullying like exclusion and humiliation can be highly devastating. When we aren’t able to identify them, we aren’t able to respond to them.

Another thing that’s often lost—and was definitely lost on me—is that power dynamic. People are targeted who have less power. So 20 to 30% of kids will experience bullying, but the rates are even higher for racial minorities, people in the LGBTQIA communities, people with disabilities, kids with learning differences—really anyone deemed different. When we don’t manage that power dynamic and create communities that respect and value all people, we’re likely to have bullying. Too often it’s treated like a rite of passage. If a kid talks about it, people suggest they need to stop tattling, be less sensitive, toughen up, act stronger so they won’t get hurt, or learn a good uppercut. But I think we have a hard time advising kids when we don’t understand the dynamics at play.

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

Kayla Taylor
Often, bystanders are known to be huge deterrents. They’re often told to stand up to the bully. But again, when you consider that power dynamic, that might be easier for the kid with a lot of social power on the playground. That makes other kids who have less power very vulnerable to being targeted themselves.

There’s other advice that might be useful. For example, just walk away. Sometimes the kid who is targeting others is doing so for attention, and decreased audiences are less interesting. Maybe you can walk away saying, “That’s mean,” calling things out, but doing it in a way that doesn’t make yourself vulnerable to attack.

Another helpful thing for bystanders is to follow up with the child who was targeted after the fact. So often, that child goes home knowing these kids said or did awful things to them, and they didn’t see anyone else stand up. That child interprets that as everyone else agreeing with what happened—they’re all complicit, they all feel the same way. Often, that’s not the case, but that’s how the child feels.

When another child comes back and says, “You didn’t deserve that. I saw what happened, and you’re a good person. I care about you,” what that does is huge. There’s the initial trauma caused by the attack, but then there’s the shame—the shame of believing everybody else agrees. That can have a larger impact. So when a child comes back later and says, “You didn’t deserve that,” it severely lessens the long-term traumatic impact.

Advice like that isn’t generally understood. I’ve spent years studying the research of bullying experts. I love the firsthand accounts from the children themselves—kids who are living the experience. Often adults tell other kids what to do, but really, if you listen to the kids themselves about what they need and center their needs, you can be more responsive and effective.

Tim Villegas
So why—not every parent whose child has been bullied goes and writes a book or researches the statistics on bullying. Why is this important to you?

Kayla Taylor
Why did I choose this path? I think it’s part of my nature. I tend to solve problems analytically. There are negatives to that. A lot of people respond emotionally. But maybe because of how I was brought up or trained—I’ve historically worked in a male-dominated environment—responding emotionally often wasn’t helpful, but coming with facts was.

Early on, I was being told, “That’s not bullying. The child is just being too sensitive, and you’re being a helicopter parent.” I felt that to counter that, I needed to have the facts behind me. So I did a lot of studying. I did a lot of journaling to help me work through my feelings. So many people around me—good close friends—validated me, but they weren’t in that school environment with me. The people around me were much less validating.

I did a lot of journaling and studying. It was interesting to see how those two types of writing—notes from my study and journaling for my emotions—impacted and validated one another. I spent years doing that. After a couple of years, I got my kids on better footing. During the prior years, I felt like I was in a deep dark hole. I probably went through some depression. I felt all alone, completely isolated.

Then when I got my kids to better footing, I looked around and saw so many other families dealing with these exact same issues. They too felt alone. Bullying affects 20 to 30% of all kids. Learning differences affect 20% of all kids. Anxiety—very high number. I now understood that and could see so many other families hurting. It seemed strange that they all felt alone, but they were all right next to each other.

I started to feel a moral obligation to pay it forward. I recalled how many times I craved someone to lend a hand, to be an ally to me and my family when we were going through a hard time. I felt a need to do that myself. Otherwise, I’d be somewhat of a hypocrite—the thing I craved the most, I wasn’t willing to be myself. That’s how I got over my nerves in terms of releasing this book.

Tim Villegas
And then what have you learned about bullying? What have you learned about bullies—the people or the kids who bully? Because there’s got to be, like, their origin story, right?

Kayla Taylor
Yeah. So first of all, one of the things I learned—and I am hesitant to say this because I don’t want to correct you—but we should be very careful about calling a kid a bully or a victim. What that does is solidify that role. Instead, it’s helpful to talk about the behaviors—the bullying behaviors. When you do that, it tells the child that you believe they can change and be a better person. It’s consistent with restorative justice practices.

Same with a child who has been victimized. If we label them as a victim, that can feel very shaming and debilitating. In both cases, we want to talk about behaviors rather than categorize a kid with a label that can affect them their whole life.

I also found it interesting that researchers don’t seem to agree on how to categorize a child who targets others. Some say these are children who were bullied at home, dealt with severe trauma, and are bringing their angst and shame to school and releasing it on other kids. Others say some of them lack social skills and miss cues on how to get attention and esteem from their friends.

Other experts say these kids aren’t always experiencing shame and trauma. Some have an inflated view of themselves and believe they’re morally superior or superior in all ways to others. This often happens in communities that treat some kids as superior to others. For example, say you have a championship football team or lacrosse team, and those kids are treated like they’re better than others. It’s hard for kids not to believe what’s being said to them.

In these cases, the kids often don’t have remorse for how they treat others. They say, “Well, that kid deserved it. That kid’s weird or strange,” and blame their target for mistreating them. It’s twisted. But I guess that’s a long way of saying we need to be careful about too quickly categorizing kids because there’s a lot at play here.

Tim Villegas
Well, thank you for sharing that about the language. I still catch myself—I should know better. That’s something we talk about when we’re talking about kids with challenging behavior. It’s the same thing. I remember we had Dr. Ross Greene on a while ago. His whole thing is “kids do well if they can,” and it makes a lot of sense to me. If you don’t have the tools to interact with peers, then there’s going to be some behaviors that shake out. Some of those are going to negatively affect everybody.

The other thing that came to mind when you were talking is that specifically around bullying, I think there are some really strong, immediate tropes that probably don’t help. I mean, certainly in the last 10 or so years, tropes around disability have gotten better—more representation across media. But I’m just thinking about the things I’ve watched with our family in the last few months, and the bullying tropes that come to mind—it’s certainly not helpful, I would imagine.

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

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

Kayla Taylor
Well, I think a lot of families these days—I mean, we’ve been through a lot the past couple of years. I don’t mean to demean any of the other issues that are affecting families. There are very real issues other than bullying that affect families. I don’t want to take away from that.

But in terms of the seriousness of bullying, as I said, people often dismiss it as a rite of passage. I was flabbergasted when I was doing the research to see that experts consider it a form of victimization with serious social justice implications, especially given that power imbalance we discussed. Kids who are targeted most are the ones who are already being discriminated against.

The impact is real. Threatening behavior makes kids feel unsafe. It activates the limbic system, the amygdala, and causes a stress response—the fight, flight, or freeze. When kids’ brains are in this state, they can’t learn. They can’t reach their academic or social development potentials. They’re not gaining access to what a lot of people would consider a human right. Kids deserve to learn in an environment free of abuse.

Our whole society is often predicated on the idea that if you study hard, if you work hard, you can live a decent life. We’re taking that right away from kids when we allow bullying to continue in schools.

Kayla Taylor
You talked about it affecting the targets, which it definitely does. But I’d argue that the implication is much broader than that. Science shows that the kids who are targeted definitely experience social isolation, low self-esteem, academic impairment, substance abuse, delinquency, stress-related ailments like headaches and stomachaches, problems sleeping, mental health issues, anxiety, depression, and unfortunately, what has been called bullycide. It can also lead to long-term health risks because the chronic stress causes inflammation, which is associated with diabetes and heart disease. So the effects on the target can be lifelong.

What I found interesting was that the bystanders experience similar outcomes. They too feel unsafe in environments that don’t enforce community codes. When they see adults looking the other way, it makes them feel unsafe. What does this mean for now? What does this mean for my future? Will I be the one targeted tomorrow?

Children bystanders can also feel a sense of moral failure when they don’t help, especially as we discussed earlier—people tell them they should stand up to the bully, but that’s terrifying. So does that mean they’re weak? Does that mean they’re insufficient? What does that mean? That can have serious effects on the bystander.

But here’s what I found most fascinating. Some of the most detrimental effects are on the youth who bully themselves. They have all the same outcomes as kids who are targeted and the bystanders, but also later in life, studies show they have a higher likelihood of having difficulty maintaining relationships and jobs. There’s a higher rate of spousal and child abuse, and even criminal behavior. I read a statistic that a repeat bully by the age of eight has a 25% chance of having a criminal record by the age of 26.

So the effects on the whole community are significant and lifelong. It’s not just in the classroom, because all these kids go home to their families. As happened in my case—and you’ll read about it in my book or my new book—they often take it out on their other siblings, especially younger siblings. Then the parents can be distraught. As in my case, I thought bullying should be simple to handle. A child targets another, we help the child who is targeted, we help the child who was aggressive learn kinder ways and how to repair, and everything will be fine. This will be easy. None of that happened for us. It was mind-bending, and we were definitely gaslit a bit.

So it affected us as adults in the family. It made us doubt our own position in the community and humanity itself. Then here we are going after our own jobs and doing other things, not being our best selves. The spillover effect just continues from there.

Hopefully, I’ve painted the case that it’s extremely important to acknowledge bullying when it occurs and address it in constructive ways.

Tim Villegas
What are some constructive and effective ways to address bullying, for all the reasons you just painted for us?

Kayla Taylor
Well, I think like in medicine, probably one of the best things we can do is preventative care. I so wish there was one guidebook on how to handle bullying. That hasn’t been created yet. There are a lot of good books out there, but I found I had to pull bits and pieces from everywhere to create a decent summary.

Basically, what I found is one of the best preventative measures is having an authentic culture of caring, mutual respect, and inclusion where differences are valued and not demeaned. That’s role-modeled from the top. So authoritarian leaders who use power plays and mistreat teachers to show who’s strongest—I’m obviously characterizing, maybe using a trope here—but people who don’t demonstrate and role-model kindness, caring, and respect will probably have a harder time getting the best results.

It’s also really important to empower students. We don’t preach to them, but encourage them to define their own culture and norms, and train them in empathy and social skills—especially repair. Just telling kids to say sorry doesn’t repair anything. A flippant sorry can actually do more damage.

It’s important to empower bystanders or upstanders and acknowledge and reward kindness when you see it. A few people who mistreat others often command a lot of attention, so it looks like that’s the norm. But if you point out acts of kindness and goodness, you help kids see there’s a lot of good around them, and that can perpetuate a new vision of what our school should be like.

Kayla Taylor
Along those lines, in terms of preventative measures, a lot of times people make the mistake of slapping a poster on a wall that says “zero tolerance for bullying” and having a one-off assembly. That doesn’t really do anything. Efforts need to be pervasive and affect all the people—not just the kids, but the teachers, the administrators, the parents, the bus drivers, the hallway monitors. Everybody should be on the same page about the kind of culture we’re trying to build.

That means not just in the classrooms, which is important, but also on playgrounds, in hallways, and in the vessels—where most of the aggressive or targeted behavior happens when no one’s looking. We need to encompass all environments, all people, throughout the year—not just at a one-off assembly. Transparent and well-defined expectations and procedures definitely help with that.

I could also get into response. Of course, prevention is great, but assuming bullying will never happen would be naive. There are also important things to do in terms of response.

Tim Villegas
Yeah, please go ahead.

Kayla Taylor
Okay. So I think one of the key things is to take each report seriously. So often kids are told not to tattle, or like I said earlier, just to be less sensitive or to toughen up. But stopbullying.gov, the national government site on bullying, says a child should hear, “No one deserves to be bullied. We will do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” And the child who targets others should be told, “That is not okay. We cannot let that happen again.”

I hadn’t seen this in much of the research, but I like the idea of integrating social justice—really creating the tools to help that child learn how to be more prosocial and hopefully give them the opportunity to be included in the culture and community in a constructive way.

One-strike and you’re-out policies apparently don’t work. That said, if one child is being so disruptive and making so many kids feel unsafe that they can’t learn, and it’s so disruptive to the environment, after some time, serious consequences might need to be taken. But I think it’s a kinder and more humane approach from the outset to believe that all children have the opportunity and hope to be good—and to help them all make that happen.

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

Kayla Taylor
Right. So there are a lot of things that can be done in response. But I think the most important is just acknowledging what happens and working with everybody involved—and actually being vocal about “this is not okay.” So often, this happened in our case, the poor behavior was managed behind closed doors. My child never saw anything happening. So my children believed the school thought what happened was okay. We never saw anything happening. The priority seemed to be the privacy of the child who was the aggressor.

While I do think it’s important to respect everybody, I think it’s very important for a school to take a stand and validate what their values are and what their mission statement is. When that’s been called into question, I think it’s a great opportunity to really call out what their values are.

It’s also really important when something wrong has happened to think, “Okay, why did this happen?” Like we said, it’s often a power imbalance. What happened to make some kids feel they were superior to others and that it was okay to demean others? What do we need to do in our communities to correct this power imbalance?

There are many other things. I’ve listed them—actually, on my website kaylataylorwrites.com, I have a resources page. At the very top of that page, because I care so much about this topic, I’ve included for free the chapter on bullying and bullying prevention and everything I learned, in hopes that it might help others. So there’s more information there. I could probably go on for another hour and take all your time.

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

Kayla Taylor
Right. I think this is probably something you talk about every week, and I’m sure a million ideas have come up. I think the first part is just being patient with yourself. Being a teacher and educator is one of the hardest things anybody could ever do. Just acknowledge that and your frustration—especially since teachers are not resourced well. They’re not paid well. They’re not given the materials they need in the classroom. They’re not given the knowledge they need to support children.

There’s a great report called Forward Together, produced by Understood and NCLD, and the Gates Foundation helped produce it. I would encourage reading that because it helps us acknowledge that teachers are under-resourced and not given the information they need to understand kids or to identify kids who learn differently. So if you have a hard time doing that, it’s understandable. Don’t blame yourself. You haven’t been given the information that would be so helpful.

Then I think anything you can do to step back and, before reacting, really try and value kids who learn differently. Often people tell the kid who is bullied or marginalized to act more like the average kid or the standard kid—which is essentially victim shaming. Like, “Oh, this victimization wouldn’t have happened to you if you weren’t different, if you behaved differently.” Really, the people who judge or discriminate against others are the ones whose behavior needs to change.

So instead, how about highlighting that kid’s strength? Giving that kid the opportunity to show what amazing gifts they have. For parents who are listening, it can help to involve kids in other communities where they’re respected—involve them in afterschool activities that help them lean into their strengths and passions so they know they are deserving of their inherent dignity, that they are capable.

Anything you can do to appreciate kids’ differences is amazing. But that’s hard, because we have a system based on averages and standards. Everything’s standardized and timed. I just want to acknowledge that it’s difficult for teachers, given the systems at play. But we’re all capable. Teachers come into this profession because they are good, kind people who care about children. They’re not doing it for the money.

I understand it can be frustrating. After a while, you maybe want to throw up your hands. You’re dealing with your own trauma from being mistreated in the environment. But if you can reclaim that joy for the quirky kid, for the difference, all the science shows your ability to have an impact is huge.

Teachers go into this profession because they want to be that person who creates an inflection point for a kid. You’re less likely to create that inflection point for the kid who already fits in a box and society already says is fine. You’re more likely to have a huge lifelong impact if you look out for the kids who are struggling, who go against the grain, who are quirky and different—and help legitimize them and show just how capable they are.

Because everybody—I don’t care what sort of thing you have going on—we all have impairments, we all have differences. I don’t care what your impairment is, everybody has something valuable to offer. And how fun would your classroom be if you could create a place of joy, of celebrating that?

What gets fun, I think, versus stuffing kids in boxes—that just takes the joy out of my heart so quick.

Tim Villegas
Yeah, don’t stuff kids in boxes. Okay?

Kayla Taylor
Yeah. Literally or figuratively.

Tim Villegas
Thank you. Right around the corner, Kayla Taylor and I answer the mystery question.

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

Kayla Taylor
Very little, which is why I did so much research and studying. I’m always very timid to speak up. We were all raised in this society where you don’t want to be caught making a mistake because nothing could be worse, right? We’re now teaching kids the growth mindset, and we actually learn through mistakes.

Unfortunately, I came along too late and have many decades of believing you don’t want to make mistakes. So I often go into things assuming—and it’s pretty much 100% the case—that there’s someone in the world who knows more than I do on a topic. I’m hesitant to call myself an expert on anything.

That said, I have studied a lot about bullying prevention, compassion for kids, appreciating kids’ differences, learning differences—all of that. So I care deeply about those things.

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

Kayla Taylor
Don’t we all? Isn’t that the whole point? If you think you know it all now, then we’re just stuck. We’re done, right? There are still so many beautiful things to consider and so many kids to support. That would be so sad if we were just done. It’s a journey, right? Learning is a journey. Life is a journey.

Tim Villegas
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we’ll leave it at that. And see, that was fun. You’re fun.

Kayla Taylor
Oh, thank you.

Tim Villegas
Kayla Taylor, thank you so much for being on the Think Inclusive podcast. We appreciate your time.

Kayla Taylor
Hi, Tim. Thanks so much for having me and talking about my book Canaries Among Us. If people want more information, I encourage them to visit my website, kaylataylorwrites.com. As I mentioned before, there are some resources I’ve put there to help people who are interested in any of these topics.

Tim Villegas
That time, it means free time. And this week, I’m veering off a bit to share something that I just think is pretty cool. When I was a classroom teacher, I kept a record player in my room and had a number of singles, LPs, and 78s that I would play for the kids. While I was planning for this episode, I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to play a 78 for y’all?

Now, things like playing music in a podcast get a little tricky. But this one is nearly 100 years old and it’s from the Library of Congress, so I think we are good. A 78 record is a disc that was typically made of shellac and played on a phonograph in the early 1900s. It’s called the 78 because you have to play it at the speed of 78 revolutions per minute, or rpm. They’re actually pretty heavy and super fragile—meaning you don’t want to drop one because they’re likely to shatter into a million pieces.

Records are a special interest for me, and I thought, what better use of our free time today than to share a little bit of nerdiness? The tune we’re about to listen to is called “12th Street Rag,” a classic ragtime composition by Euday L. Bowman, an American pianist and composer. It’s from 1914 and named after 12th Street in Kansas City, Missouri, which was known for its vibrant entertainment scene during the ragtime era.

The song became popular in the early 20th century and has been recorded and performed by a number of artists in various musical styles. It’s actually a pretty well-known piece—I think you’re going to recognize it. And if you have visions of SpongeBob SquarePants while listening to this, it’s probably because another version of this song was used as background music in the show in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Okay, here we go. Let’s listen to “12th Street Rag,” and when it’s over, we’ll roll the credits.

Tim Villegas
For more information about inclusive education or to learn how you can partner with MCIE on school transformation or professional learning opportunities, visit MCIE.org.

Thanks again to our incredible sponsor, Changing Perspectives. And do you love Think Inclusive? Here are a few ways to let us know: rate us on Spotify or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Become a patron for extra stuff. This week, we get a little bit more personal with Kayla Taylor about the creative process of writing Canaries Among Us. And y’all, this book is so good—you are not going to want to put it down. If that interests you, it’s all included if you are a patron. But if you’re not, why don’t you join these fine people?

Thank you to Carol Q., Aaron P., Jarrett T., Joiner A., Kathy B., Mark C., Gabby M., Kathleen T., and Paulette W. We appreciate your continued support of Think Inclusive.

Think Inclusive is written, edited, designed, mixed, and mastered by me, Tim Villegas. Original music by Miles Credit. Additional music from Melody. Thanks for your time and attention. And remember, inclusion always works.

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

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

Tim Villegas
From MCIE.