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Young children are being suspended
and expelled from school

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at alarming rates.

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Preschool children are suspended

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three times more than kindergarten
through 12th grades combined.

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In Illinois, 40% of childcare centers

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reported suspending infants and toddlers.

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(Laughter)

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Yes!

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Those are children who have not yet
turned three years old.

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African American children are only
19 percent of the preschool population,

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but comprise nearly half
of all suspensions.

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You may be wondering

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what can these kids possibly be doing

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to be suspended
and kicked out of school so young?

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Surprisingly, many of them

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are engaging in typical
child-like behaviors.

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I was one of those children.

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From the time I entered school,

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I was suspended
at least seven times a year.

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(Laughter)

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I was suspended for things like
digging a hole in the playground

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to see if China was really
on the other side of the earth.

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(Laughter)

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For that, I was labeled "destructive."

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After a unit on maps,

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I climbed on top of the school auditorium
so I could get a birds-eye view,

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and after the fire department
and police department got me down,

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I was suspended,

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and for that,

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I was labeled "incorrigible."

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There was this one time,

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I took all the baby dolls' heads,
arms, and legs off.

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I just wanted to see
how the body parts fit together.

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But for that, I was labeled a "demon."

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They actually told my parents
I exhibited demon-like behaviors.

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Then, there was this one time
I snuck into the boys bathroom;

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I wanted to see how
they got to pee standing up.

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(Laughter)

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And for that, I was labeled
"sexually perverted."

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Now these are all childlike behaviors,
albeit from a very curious child,

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but childlike nonetheless.

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Let's look at behaviors.

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What is it that children do
when they get upset

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or they're deemed out of control?

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They scream, cry, hit,
cuss, fight, throw things.

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That's because they're kids!

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Kids are going to be kids.

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They don't have the capacity
to handle such intense emotions.

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Let's take a look at what adults do
when they get upset.

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(Laughter)

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Kick, scream, cry,
fight, cuss, throw things.

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The list is exactly the same,

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and while we can expect kids to be kids,

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as adults, what's our excuse?

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My friend Walter Gilliam says,
"Suspensions are adult decisions."

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Suspensions are adult behaviors.

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But what if we changed that behavior?

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What if we shift our thinking,

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focusing on the behavior of adults

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rather than focusing
on the behavior of children?

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What if my teachers
would've seen me as a geologist

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rather than being destructive?

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What if they would've seen me
as a scientist, rather than being a demon?

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Or a future doctor interested in anatomy,

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rather than seeing me
as sexually perverted?

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The key to managing
the difficult behaviors of children

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is to manage our own behavior as adults.

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How many times have you seen an adult
scold a child for screaming

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while also screaming,
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!"

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Right?

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Or how often have you seen them
scold a child for hitting

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while also hitting?

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"Don't you dare hit your sister again!"

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Or sometimes we even exclude children
for excluding children.

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"Oh, you don't want to play together?

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Just go to your rooms!"

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The behavior that we give
the most attention to

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is the behavior that we are promoting.

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This is Tayvon.

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Tayvon's mother was being called
at least three times a week

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to pick him up from school
for misbehavior.

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He was only four years old at the time.

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I went to school to observe

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and I was struck by how eager
Tayvon was to please his teachers.

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At one point, the teacher called all
the children to the rug for circle time.

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"All right everyone, circle time,
come and sit criss-cross-applesauce."

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Tayvon ran over and he sat perfectly
criss-crossed with his hands in his lap,

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and he wanted the teacher to notice.

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He craned his neck, she didn't notice,
and he craned again,

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as if he was saying,
"See me teacher, see me."

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Again, she didn't notice,

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and being only four,
he became frustrated and gave up.

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He stuck his legs straight out in front
of him, leaned back on his hands,

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and it was at that moment
the teacher noticed.

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"Tayvon, you are not sitting
like a learner;

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leave the circle and go sit at the table!"

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Wow.

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Children who are suspended

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are ten times more likely
to enter the juvenile justice system.

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They are more likely to drop out
of school, have low achievement,

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and be suspended again,
and again, and again.

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And this is the beginning

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of the preschool-to-prison pipeline.

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Children rise to the expectations
of the adults in their environment,

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whether it's negative or positive.

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When we pay more attention
to negative behaviors,

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we will get negative behaviors.

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But when we pay attention

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to those behaviors we want to see
in our classrooms or in our homes,

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we will see those behaviors more often,

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and it's because children care
what we think about them.

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They actually want us to like them.

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The key is for us to be self-aware.

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When we're aware of ourselves,

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then we come to know
what our hot buttons are,

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what our behavior is,

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and how we respond
to the behavior of others.

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We come to understand what pushes us,
we understand our body language,

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and we come to understand our tone.

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And these things
are really important to know

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because behavior is defined

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by the person most annoyed by it.

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(Laughter)

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Now, for me, it was my daughter Jasmine
when she was just 15 years old,

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a teenager.

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She had the smartest, sassiest mouth
I've ever seen or heard.

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She was quite clever and witty too,
but that smart mouth, oh my goodness.

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My husband didn't understand
why it bothered me.

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But for him, it was when
she slammed the doors.

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Now slamming the door didn't bother me,

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because that meant that she was
on the other side of it.

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(Laughter)

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He became so frustrated
once that he said,

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"If you slam the door one more time,
I'm going to take it off the hinges!"

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Imagine my surprise
when I came home one day

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and my 15-year-old
didn't have a door to her bedroom.

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(Laughter)

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Now, in addition to being self-aware,

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when we build very strong, positive,
authentic relationships with children,

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we come to know them,
what their hot buttons are,

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and what triggers their behavior.

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We will also understand how our behavior

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impacts their behavior.

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I was observing another classroom
and there was a little guy named Raphael.

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And Raphael was getting
in a lot of trouble in this classroom.

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The teacher called
his name so many times

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I began to keep a tally mark
every time she did.

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"Raphael stop. Raphael don't.
Raphael sit down.

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Raphael, don't make me come over there.

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Raphael, Raphael, Raphael."

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She called Raphael's name

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27 times in seven minutes.

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Raphael was learning that that place

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was not a safe, fair,
or equitable space for him.

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And all the other children
in that classroom,

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they were learning how to treat Raphael.

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It is our responsibility
to find and look for

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what's good, right, and best
in every single child.

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Tom Herner, former president

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for the National Association
of Special Educators says,

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"When children don't know
how to read, we teach.

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When they don't know
how to write, we teach.

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When they don't know
how to ride a bike, we teach.

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But when children don't know
how to behave, do we teach,

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or do we punish?"

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We punish.

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But what if we intentionally
taught children

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how to behave?

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What if we taught them how to share,
rather than saying, "You need to share?"

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What if we taught them
how to make friends,

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how to initiate play, how to take turns,

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and then, what if we gave them
many opportunities to practice?

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Imagine a world where we intentionally
taught children pro-social skills,

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gave them many opportunities to practice,

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and positively reinforced them
every time they used those skills.

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Challenging behaviors
would be greatly reduced.

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Actually, the Pyramid Model for promoting
the social, emotional development

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of infants and young children

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has proven this to be true,
time and time again.

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When we use these strategies,

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we can disrupt and dismantle
the preschool-to-prison pipeline,

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we can eradicate preschool suspensions,

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and we can mitigate the negative impacts

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of school suspensions on the child

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and on our society.

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Children do not suspend themselves;

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it takes an adult to do that.

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But we don't have to.

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When we focus on our own behavior,

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give children the tools they need
to regulate theirs,

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look for what's good, right, and amazing
in every single child,

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we can stop suspensions
and we can keep our babies in school.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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(Cheers)