The Randal Osché Podcast: Season 1 | Episode 16
Join us on The Randall Osché Podcast as I talk with Behavioral Health Therapist
Tea Goodman discusses the growing demand for ABA support services, the challenges of working with children with autism, and the significance of life skills in education. With her hands-on experience and evident passion for her work, Tea offers practical insights into a field that requires patience and a thick skin
What You'll Learn:
Demand for Behavioral Health Therapists:: Understanding the increasing need for behavioral therapy and the shortage of professionals in the field.
Therapy Challenges: Navigating the emotional and physical challenges that come with being a behavioral health therapist.
Celebrating Progress: Heartwarming stories of progress and breakthroughs with children in therapy.
Importance of Life Skills: The role of life skills education in special education and how it benefits students long-term.
Career Commitment: Tea’s dedication to a lifelong career in behavioral therapy and her aspirations to advance in the field.
Don’t miss this episode for a candid look into the world of Behavioral Health Therapy. Whether you’re considering a career in this field or learning from Tea’s experiences and gaining a new perspective.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, Podcast Index, Podcasts Addict, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Highlights
Embrace New Opportunities: Tea took a leap into a field she knew little about, showcasing the importance of being open to new career paths and learning experiences.
Build Strong Bonds: Forming connections with clients, like Tea did with her first client, is crucial in creating a supportive and effective therapeutic environment.
Advocate for Others: She emphasizes the need to stand up for her clients' abilities and potential, highlighting the importance of advocacy in ensuring they receive the right support.
Lifelong Learning and Growth: Her goal to further her education and become a behavioral analyst demonstrates the value of continuous professional development.
Patience and Resilience: Working in behavioral therapy requires patience and a strong personality, traits that are essential for handling challenging situations and promoting client progress.
SHOW NOTES
Questions this conversation has Randall Pondering
"What steps can be taken to integrate “life skills” education more effectively into traditional schooling systems?
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments!
And that's it for today's conversation here on the Randall Osché podcast. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope that you've enjoyed listening as much as we've enjoyed recording it.
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The Randall Osché Podcast - Tea Goodman (Episode 16)
[00:00:00] Tea: When I was younger, I really didn't know much about autism, prior to coming to this company or doing this as a career, so I feel like it's being talked about a lot more now to the point where my company, we havea three year wait.
[00:00:10] Tea: And there's not a lot of people that want to work in this field. So, that's why we have to have a three year wait list. It's unfortunate that some of these kids really need the services, but not a lot of people want to do what I do.
[00:00:22] AI: Hello, and welcome to the Randall Osché podcast, where we create a safe space for meaningful and thought provoking conversations. We have long form interviews with entrepreneurs, thought leaders, artists, and change makers in order to deconstruct their journeys and to pass out valuable life lessons and life changing perspectives for listeners like yourself.
[00:00:46] AI: So that you can, as Randall says, learn their lessons without their scars. So, whether you're tuning in on your daily commute, or during a workout, or cooking dinner, we are happy to have you join us. So, take a seat, relax, grab a cup of tea, and join the conversation. Now, let's dive into this week's episode.
[00:01:11] Song: You made it
[00:01:27] Randall: Tea Goodman, welcome to the show. For those listeners who don't know you yet, won't you go ahead and take a moment and introduce yourself.
[00:01:34] Tea: Hi, my name is Taya Goodman. I am a mom of two. I am a behavioral therapist for kids with autism. I currently work at ABA support services. And I'm excited to tell you guys all about me and my career.
[00:01:47] Randall: How did you get started at ABA Support Services?
[00:01:49] Tea: So, I was in a point in my life where I worked retail customer service call centers. I was a debt collector at once, and those jobs were miserable to me. I was miserable. I woke up not wanting to go to work. I was pretty confused on what I wanted to do with my life.
[00:02:05] Tea: I knew I wanted to work like sitting in a health field. But also I wanted a very hands on job. I did not want to sit at desk and stare at two monitors every single day. So I went on Indeed and I saw this job but the description, I never really knew much about autism myself. So I saw that I going to be working with kids, just pretty much teaching them the basic life functioning skills.
[00:02:29] Tea: And so I applied and when I started the interview process, I had a bunch of questions cause again, this is something new to me. I don't want to jump into this field and think, Oh, I made the wrong decision that I should have just stayed in customer service. So I had a bunch of questions for the interviewer and
[00:02:45] Tea: by the end I was like, yes, this is something that I want to pursue. This is something I can see doing for the rest of my life.
[00:02:51] Randall: What's your title at ABA support services?
[00:02:53] Tea: So I'm a behavioral health therapist.
[00:02:56] Randall: And what is the jobs that you had before that you said you were miserable at? What do you think is the biggest difference between the job function itself that made you miserable versus you not being miserable as a behavioral health therapist.
[00:03:13] Tea: I think when working in customer service, even though you deal with different customers every single day, you pretty much have like this repetition on how tohave a conversation with them.
[00:03:21] Tea: Like, Oh, something's not here in stock or I want to speak to your manager. Yes, ma'am. Or yes, sir. Let me put you on hold real quick. Explain it to the manager, yada, yada, yada. And conversation's over. And that is kind of like groundhog day. It's just kept happening, like repeating, repeating every day.
[00:03:38] Tea: It just got bored to me at a certain point. And the current job that I'm with, my client that I see every week can be a different person every single day. I can see new behaviors come up. I can see their progress working every single day where I'm amazedlike the other progress that they had.
[00:03:54] Tea: So pretty much, having to see this client every single day, it's always something new, never get bored. It still amazes me to this day for clients that I've worked with for a year.
[00:04:04] Randall: Speaking of their progress, what's one of the most rewarding moments you've had? As a behavioral health therapist.
[00:04:13] Tea: Oh, that's a tough one. I've dealt with many, many kids cause that's nonverbal to verbal kids who I like are very aggressive to kids that's not really aggressive. I would have to say my very first client ever he will always be a special person for me, like a special time.
[00:04:29] Tea: Cause I was new in the field and me and this kid built a bond. I never thought I could build other than with my son, if that makes sense. But he was nonverbal, very aggressive. It was kind of like, you can tell that he was frustrated and he just didn't know how to communicate with us.
[00:04:44] Tea: So working with me and the speech therapist, we were able to teach him ASL, like American Sign Language, and he was able to actually communicate his needs and his wants with us and it took a year and the first three four months were like hard. It was very hard those first three months.
[00:04:59] Tea: I'd contemplated on, maybe this isn't the job for me But then I saw it through I saw the progress andthis job humbles me every single day
[00:05:06] Randall: With that kid and after teaching him asl could you see a difference in his demeanor? I'm envisioning him being frustrated because he can't communicate and then he can communicate and just be like, Oh, this is how it works.
[00:05:21] Randall: Now I can have a better time going through this world. I visualize that, but like, what happened? When he started to pick up on ASL and maybe have different results than what he was having before. Could you see that transition in him?
[00:05:33] Tea: Oh, yes.Again, it was a long process those first few months are hard we're trying to teach him that and it's all new to him.
[00:05:38] Tea: So it's very hard for him. He gets frustrated super easily because we know what he wants. So we're trying, like, if you want to help, we will have to show him how to sign help. And sometimes he'll get it. Sometimes he won't. And it was very hard for him. It was very hard for all of us, but the more we worked on it every single day, this is every morning and afternoon.
[00:05:56] Tea: We work on this every single day. You can tell that he became less aggressive. He became less agitated. He did not have those behaviors that he was having before in the beginning of the school year. He was able to tell me what he want. He was able to tell me that he wants a break. He doesn't want to be around me right now and I would respect his time.
[00:06:12] Tea: I would give him a five minute break versus me trying to figure out what does he want? What is his needs? What does he need from me right now in the moment?
[00:06:18] Tea: Yes, you can see a difference, he wasn't having many aggressive behaviors. He became more of a calmer client for me. And as soon as we were able to teach him ASL, even his work progress, work for VB and for Pete, his score skyrocketed.
[00:06:31] Tea: Like he was able to understand and comprehend the task in front of him.
[00:06:35] Randall: Did that help his family care for him?
[00:06:38] Tea: No, and only becauseEnglish is not their first language.
[00:06:42] Tea: So,when I would go over to the home and, transfer skills and try to, show mom and dad what I'm doing here at school so it could be better, assist him at home. There was always a language barrier. We can never just understand each other. So it was tough, but I was able to communicate with them.
[00:06:56] Tea: He is making this progress. This language barrier is just what's butting heads in the moment.
[00:07:01] Randall: That's tough.
[00:07:02] Tea: Yes.
[00:07:02] Randall: Tough position for the kid to be in with thetwo language barriers I suppose.
[00:07:07] Tea: Correct? Yeah.
[00:07:08] Randall: Well, probably three. Like navigating you, speaking to him in English, navigating his family, speaking to him, and what language did you say Spanish?
[00:07:16] Tea: No, so they are from Morocco. Like Indian descent. I'm not too sure what language it was, but they were from Morocco.
[00:07:24] Tea: Okay. So but yeah, at first we didn't even know if he could understand English. That took a long step for us to jump over because we were just like, He's speaking this one language at home, but he's been in daycares. He's been in schools and he's getting taught English.
[00:07:38] Tea: He's getting spoken to in English. So it was hard for us to see which language he was understanding.
[00:07:43] Randall: And I'm sure the way that I make sense of all that is certainly challenging for him before you, but still challenging for him now, but less challenging, right? You were able to provide a service to a kid in need and help him navigate his world better and with less frustration. So good for you. Yeah. How long you've been a behavioral health therapist?
[00:08:07] Tea: I'm coming up on two and a half years now. Yeah.
[00:08:09] Randall: Do you anticipate doing this till you retire? Yeah.
[00:08:12] Tea: Oh, yes. The next step I want to do is become a behavioral analysis like a BCBA.
[00:08:17] Randall: What my supervisor is, she has probably about like 20 kids on a caseload. They have their IEP meetings for school, treatment plans and all that stuff. I plan on furthering my education to go higher up just in this field in general, not just even with a company. Good for you.
[00:08:31] Randall: So it sounds to me like you found your place, right? You found an industry you like to be in, a company you like to work for and something that you feel compelled to do every day. I would say you've found your spot, right? You gravitate toward this industry, this type of work. You didn't gravitate towards other types of work, working in other industries and working for other types of companies, but what is it about this that you're like, I can do this until I retire and I want to learn and grow and expand myself here so I can have more and better results?
[00:09:07] Tea: Well, that just goes back to me talking about it being like groundhog day every day at the previous jobs that I worked. Here, it's always something new. Like this summer, I'm working with 4 clients for new people that I have never worked before. For new personalities, behaviors that I'm learning. I've always been told, I always work well with kids.
[00:09:24] Tea: I'm pretty good. Even some of my supervisors, like you have a very strong personality for this field. Another thing about the job that I do is I have to advocate for my clients. Some of the staff that I've worked with previously, in schools, they try to, like, downplay how intelligent my clients are, if that makes sense, and so, like, I advocate, like, no, he or she is capable of doing this, don't just judge it off of, maybe, a full day of seeing them, they are capable of doing this the work. So I don't know. I don't think I can get bored from it. It's something new to do every single day. I just, I love my job. I can't complain. Even though I come home and be like, my client bit me six times today.
[00:10:01] Tea: And my seven colors, like, why do you do this? I'm like, honestly, I don't know. I love my job though. Like, I, I love my job.
[00:10:07] Randall: Yeah, I can see how you would love the job, it doesn't have to be easy in order for somebody to love what they're doing, right? Mm hmm. Rewarding perhaps, yes. I think I'm a little bit familiar with the industry.
[00:10:20] Randall: A long time ago, I was a TSS, a Therapeutic Support Staff. So I have some similar therapies for children, but how do clients come to ABA? Tell a little bit about that process.
[00:10:34] Tea: Sorry. Okay. Can we pause real quick? My daughter's crying. Do I need to do anything or? No, no, no, no, no. All right.
[00:10:41] Tea: I'll be right back. Harper, I'm coming.
[00:10:46] Tea:
[00:10:49] Tea: How do clients come to ABA?
[00:10:52] Tea: So in order for them to receive services and, ABAs in general, so you have to have a diagnosis from a doctor and the doctor will refer you to an ABA support company, and so then, it all depends if the company wants to accept the client or not, and then BCBA will get on the case, meet with the client, client's family, have like a I guess like an interview to see what services we can provide and if our services are going to be helpful to that client.
[00:11:22] Randall: Do our insurance companies involved in any of this?
[00:11:25] Tea: Yes. So I get paid through insurance. Soat the end of every day that I see a client, I have to write a note to insurance. Telling them what progress my client made, what regression my client made, what, sorry, like what not treatment for what, like, ow, sorry,
[00:11:40] Tea: Please work with me, Harper. There we go.
[00:11:42] Randall: Harper's doing just fine. This is the first podcast where I've had three people on.
[00:11:46] Randall: I'm so sorry. You don't need to apologize. You don't need to you don't need to apologize one bit for being a fantastic mother.
[00:11:53] Tea: Thank you.
[00:11:54] Tea: Um,
[00:11:54] Tea: No, but I have to write the insurance. So, tell them what treatments we use, what regression, what progress the client has made and stuff like that. So, once that gets sent out to insurance, that's insurance paid by company.
[00:12:04] Randall: Is that regular medical insurance? I have an employer, I have medical insurance.
[00:12:09] Randall: I'm a single dude. So I don't need to support anybody, but say I had a child that had autism and their medical needs were covered underneath my insurance. Does my medical insurance cover the services for an autistic child?
[00:12:22] Tea: Yes. Yes.
[00:12:23] Randall: You just have to justify it with diagnosis and following certain steps.
[00:12:27] Tea: You can't just go, to insurance and be like, Hey, I found this company that can work with my son with autism. That's not how it works. You have to be diagnosed by a doctor. The doctor will then refer you. To a company, and then BCBA has an interview, they will talk to this insurance company.
[00:12:42] Tea: That's probably one of thebiggest downfalls of being a BCBA is because you have to fight insurance on a lot of things. But your insurance will pay for your child's needs if they have it.
[00:12:50] Randall: For the families out there that have autistic children, do you think that they are mostly aware that if they have medical insurance, they can get coverage and benefits for their child? Do you think that there's a lot of folks out there who don't realize that?
[00:13:05] Tea: I would say that there is a lot of folks out there that do know that there is some type of services that will help your kid.
[00:13:12] Tea: But autism, when I was younger, I really didn't know much about autism, prior to coming to this company or doing this as a career, I didn't know much about autism, so I feel like it's being talked about a lot more now to the point where my company, we havea three year wait. Like we won't be accepting new clients for three years.
[00:13:29] Tea: Not a lot of people want to work in this field either. Like, I have a family at home. Sometimes I bring my work stuff home. I get stressed out from my client or I get agitated and I come home and I bring that out on my kids.
[00:13:41] Tea: Unfortunately, and I feel horrible. I feel horrible. And there's not a lot of people that want to work in this field. So, that's why we have to have a three year wait list for my company. It's unfortunate that some of these kids really need the services, but not a lot of people want to do what I do.
[00:13:56] Randall: What do you think would make people more inclined to pursue a position as a behavioral health therapist? More money?
[00:14:04] Tea: I would have to say yes. Like, yes.
[00:14:07] Tea: I feel like money does play a big part in it because Here you are going to work. You're dealing with a lot of kids that have these behaviors. You're getting beat up by a six year old kid all day. And you're trying to teach them basically functioning skills. So it's going to be stressful.
[00:14:21] Tea: I've seen people work for my company or even work for the school as a paraprofessional and they quit the next day because they're just like, I can't. This is not something for me, but I would say payis important to it because a lot of the paraprofessionals working at the school, they're only making 13, 14 dollars an hour. Not saying that I just do my job because I like it.
[00:14:41] Tea: It's fun. It does pay well as well, but you have to really balance that out. Is it worth getting beat up and having to get your hair pulled out and have all these behaviors? One of the kids trying to not have them running the street for $13, $14 an hour. You have to weigh that option out. Is this worth it?
[00:14:59] Randall: Yeah, I had weighed that out myself and I stopped being a TSS. It is a challenging role. And I had an experience where I was a male in a female dominated, position. Mm hmm. And so they paired me with the more aggressive, larger, male, non verbal autistic kid. But he was like 16. He was a big boy.
[00:15:22] Randall: Mm hmm. And I actually had to sort of threw myself out of a moving car because we were both sitting in the back seat together and he had an episode, I guess. Yeah. And he went to lunge for me and I was wearing a fleece, it was winter time and he grabbed my collar on my fleece and maybe my sleeve or something.
[00:15:43] Randall: And his dad knew what was happening. And so the car wasn't moving fast, but it was moving nonetheless. And his dad's pulling into the gas station. His kid is grabbing my fleece. And then like, I somehow unzip it as I also exit the car. So he just like pulls my fleece off of me instead of pulling me and then we gave him some medicine to calm down. I never saw him again after that. I want the best for him and his family and I understand they're in a tough position but I'm not going to do a role that puts me in jeopardy, right?
[00:16:21] Randall: And it was certainly not a high paying job and I don't necessarily knowif you paid me all the money in the world, I'm not necessarily sure. I'm pretty greedy. So I, I take that back. If you paid me all the money in the world, I would certainly put myself in that position.
[00:16:34] Randall: Or I would have the resources to make that a better environment. But, for the money and it wasn't aligned with my career aspirations, but it was, it was a challenging moment for me and for the family. But they have to live with it their entire lives. So I certainly have compassion for them.
[00:16:52] Randall: Yeah. But I feel as though on the podcast, I talked to people that have had different experiences and I learn from those conversations and their perspectives. And I've had a lot of different jobs and positions in my life from part time jobs from when I was a teenager through different career tracks I've taken as a professional, but those have all helped inform my world view, if you will, and I'm grateful for that opportunity because.
[00:17:21] Randall: I now, know how that industry works a little bit. I now know how the challenges that families face when they have an autistic child, especially there's different degrees of that. I believe it's hard. Yeah.
[00:17:34] Tea: I could totally see why you left. I tell everyone when they were like, Oh, how did you get in that?
[00:17:39] Tea: How do you like your job? I tell them all the time. First thing is it's not for the weak. You have to have a lot of patience. You have to have a strong personality. It's not for the weak at all. Like I've had clients literally rip braids out of my head. This one client when I was pregnant with Harper, one of his clients, it's not even my client, his classmate, he, As soon as he would hear the words, no, he would just go belligerent.
[00:18:02] Tea: I'm talking like throwing chairs across the room. Mind you, me and the teacher are the only ones in the classroom that are SEM trained. And we're both a month apart in a third trimester of our pregnancy. And we have this kid trying to kick us and scratch us. And he went for a skin. It was to a point where we'll wear high socks. We were the armed guards. He wanted to inflict pain and it was to a point where his mom was afraid of him and she would tell us like I'm afraid when he's upset It's just like we totally understand you like we see it at school so I can just only imagine it at home.
[00:18:34] Randall: Yeah. And like, people don't think that Oh you know, it's a child and child's being aggressive, but you have, you know, I don't know, like a hundred and something pound kid a flesh and muscle still coming at you with total disregard for themselves and you, that's all like at whatever age, that's a lot to deal with.
[00:18:54] Randall: I smile because you saying this isn't for the weak certainly suits you. Like I can see, I can see how, your personality aligns to that job.
[00:19:04] Randall: I don't know much about this, so maybe this question is going to be well informed, but tell me about the autism spectrum.
[00:19:10] Tea: Like I said to you before it's very confusing because you can have a kid that's very low functioning to the point where he can't hold a pencil or just even hold a spoon or fork to feed himself. And then you have a kid that's very high functioning who just has poor social skills. You also have kids that this I, this one client I was working with, I was like, tell me what day, July 13th, 1982 was, and he, to the second, it's a Tuesday, and I would look on the calendar and indeed in fact was a Tuesday.
[00:19:38] Tea: So as far as the autism spectrum disorder, you never really have the same kid. Some kids will have the same behaviors, but each case is so different.
[00:19:47] Randall: Do you know what percent of the population is autistic?
[00:19:51] Tea: I honestly do not, but I think everyone has autism. Everyone has some sort of autism.
[00:19:58] Randall: That's why I asked the question because I think you could be high functioning and still be able to put your shoes on, go to work every day, but have some of that social, I don't want to say awkwardness because like everybody has different levels of how they socialize.
[00:20:11] Randall: And it's only awkward to those who don't socialize in that way. Yeah. But yeah, I think that I would agree with you. I think that everybody, to some degree or another, in their certain behaviors could land on that. Yeah.One of the things that I think about is I diversity, equity, and inclusion.
[00:20:29] Randall: I think that a lot of people think about this in lazy terms and they take it at, visual reference points. And what I mean by that is, maybe like race, religion, or creed, but not behavioral based, not like different learning styles. So I get a kick out of schools and I get a kick out of you know, organizations that say, like, we have a diversity, equity and inclusion policy, or we have a head of diversity, equity inclusion, but then they have a hiring process that is one process and that process applies to everybody that are going through the interview process.
[00:21:10] Randall: It's like, well if you actually comprehended what diversity equity and inclusion was in my opinion? Maybe your opinion is different then your hiring process would look different for different individuals. Do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:21:25] Tea: I can agree with with everything you just said. My client was an E. S. Y.
[00:21:30] Tea: Extended school year, which I think every child who receives autism or who is in a life skills or AS classroom, they should do that. It's a one month summer school just so these kids won't lose all the progress that they made and that entire school year because I feel like they can lose skills very fast and quickly.
[00:21:48] Tea: So back to our saying in ESY, there was these two paras, two paraprofessionals who, like it was the first time working with them and I spoke with them like, well, what do you want to do? This one girl, she wants to do special education. Great. Perfect. The other one is a business major who wants to do communication.
[00:22:03] Tea: So I'm just like, what got you here? And essentially they were just saying for extra money. But I feel like what stuck out to me in that conversation is I asked them like, what training did you do for this? I have to do a lot of training for what I do. All that they did was a weight test. All they have to do is see if they can lift 70 pounds and that was it.
[00:22:21] Tea: And when they told me that, I was so surprised. Yeah. I was very surprised because I'm just like, that not only puts you at risk, that puts all these other kids at risk. The kids itself, everyone in that classroom. I feel like the schools, they're just blindly throwing these people into this field expecting them to stay, but they're also not really giving them the adequate training for it, if that makes sense.
[00:22:43] Randall: Yeah. They're not setting their people up for success, which is superbly frustrating for me because I see it all the time.
[00:22:51] AI: Let's take a quick break from today's episode. If you're enjoying the conversation, please take a moment to look us up. You can find Randall on Instagram at Randall Osché, that's spelled at R A N D A L L O S C H E.
[00:23:10] AI: And you can catch the show notes and other resources at randallosche.com and now back to the episode.
[00:23:16] Randall:
[00:23:16] Tea: I want to use this as a jumping off point. So life skills, tell me about what life skills are. So the classroom life skills is self explanatory. Life skills is not just for kids with autism, like the AES classroom, that's autism support. Life skills deal with everyone, kids who are wheelchair bound, kids who have down syndrome, kids who have autism, or kids who have autism and down syndrome.
[00:23:38] Randall: That classroom pretty much just teaches them life skills. Putting on a jacket, holding a fork, writing a pencil. It's pretty much self explanatory. I don't think it's self explanatory. I sort of knew what that was andI probably mentioned it before on a podcast, but I have a beef with I will call it like the traditional education system here in America.
[00:23:59] Randall: And I say traditional because I want to encompass public school, private school. Charter schools and the four year degree programs. You know, I went to public school. I graduated, I went to college and have a four year degree. throughout that time, so for instance, I took trigonometry when I was a senior in high school. I have not used trigonometry a day since that class. I took chemistry when I was a sophomore in high school and I did very poorly at it. I have not used chemistry a day in my life. Since the day I left 10th grade to go to 11th, right?
[00:24:36] Randall: And I look at people in my life. Majority of my career has been in banking, finance, wealth management. I've spoken with a lot of clients who don't know how to do a budget, who don't know how simple financial concepts work. I've spoken to a lot of like adults that.
[00:24:54] Randall: Don't know how loans work. When I've met with them, I had to explain I mean, simple terms for me. Like, I appreciate everybody's background that I mean, no shade by this, but I've had to explain to them what collateral is as an asset. If you're talking about taking out a loan, howhaving a piece of collateral used for the loan gives you like a lower interest rate.
[00:25:15] Randall: Right. I've learned these things through my career, but the majority of folks, I'm gonna promise to tie this back to life skills, the majority of folks that graduate high school, they're not gonna use advanced math. They're not going to use advanced chemistry. The majority of people are going to need to know personal finance, right?
[00:25:35] Randall: At some point in time, probably try to buy a house, probably take out a student loan, probably try to buy a car with a loan. So maybe to our public educators out there, we should focus more on things that actually fucking matter, and not trigonometry and not chemistry. And if somebody is really juiced up and wants to take chemistry, by all means have a chemistry program and let them go down that track.
[00:26:02] Randall: But this is where the life skills comes in is budgeting, finance, to me, is a life skill. I remember in my high school, we had the life skills classes for the kids with, like, disability and autism and whatnot. And I had a home ec class, and we wouldI guess it actually was a life skill.
[00:26:21] Randall: cook food and we would plan our recipes and we would have a shopping list and the shopping list would be shopped by the life skills kids because they had. You know, probably people like you that would help support them, take them to the grocery store and try to teach them how to buy groceries, right?
[00:26:40] Randall: Yes. It's a life skill. I remember, and maybe this is throwing a little bit of shade, I have had girlfriends where they didn't know how to buy groceries. I would go grocery shopping with them. And they would just be like, there was no system. They didn't look at prices and then God forbid they ever went grocery shopping by themselves.
[00:26:58] Randall: It would be like a box of, this is being dramatic, but like a box of honey buns and a bag of coffee. And that was the rations for the week. I was like, that's not gonna work. Right. So just baffled at how that happens. But getting back to a school system, that's a life skill.
[00:27:17] Randall: That helps you be a better adult that helps you save money. That helps you eat healthier. That teaches you how the world works. I don't think that it should just be reserved for, you know, kids that have special needs in a separate curriculum. And that's a whole, whole thing for me, as you can probably tell.
[00:27:36] Tea: I agree. Pretty much just piggybacking off what you said, personal finance. I think that's important. On my senior year of high school, I had like three study hall classes and my parents didn't want me to have that. And I took personal finance and it was crazy how I learned a lot in personal finance.
[00:27:53] Tea: And it was even more crazy or that it was an elective. It's not like a required credit that you need to have to. And I think that's crazy because I learned a lot in personal finance and that was one of my favorite classes.
[00:28:04] Randall: I've had clients not necessarily that this would be covered in a personal finance class, but I think the personal finance class, the example I'm about to talk about would have given this individual some basic framework and knowledge to set himself up better for success. But I have at one point in time in my career, I would help clients invest money for their retirement. And one individual came to me and he said, here's my 401k.
[00:28:31] Randall: I'm retiring. I want you to do something with this money to support me for the rest of my living days through retirement. Said, okay, cool. He contributed from his paycheck, like every two weeks to his 401k for his entire career. So he had like a decent chunk of money. Yeah. But the thing was, he never invested the money in the 401k.
[00:28:54] Randall: He moved the money systematically, right? The company did it for him, from his paycheck to the 401k, and the money just sat in the cash account and was never invested in any investments. Yeah. So his money for 20, 30 years wasn't growing with the stock market at 10%, 15%, whatever it was that year. It wasn't going up and down, but it wasn't growing at all.
[00:29:16] Randall: At best for 20, 30 years, it was just growing at 1%. And perhaps having a required personal finance class, would have set that individual up for more success. To be more comfortable with money, more comfortable with finances, more comfortable with coming to a financial advisor sooner to ask questions, more comfortable asking his employer how it works, or more comfortable just knowing just because like like for a 401k is not investment.
[00:29:44] Randall: Maybe he thought it was investment. 401k is just an account type. Doesn't mean it's going to go anywhere. But everybody in the United States, there's no pension programs anymore. Hardly anybody has a pension program. Because it's the philosophy has been replaced that we don't have pension programs.
[00:29:59] Randall: And that's how the 401k was born. Yeah. So majority of companies participate in 401k programs, they have some sort of match, you invest 4 percent of your pay, we'll invest 4 percent of your pay, right? But if you're not teaching people how it works, then it's not doing a whole lot of good folks.
[00:30:16] Tea: No, yeah,I feel like pretty much what you said, we don't really need trigonometry unless if you're trying to be like an engineer or something, yes. I feel like we need basic math, algebra, geometry, all that stuff. I don't think we need, again, I don't think we need to learn trigonometry.
[00:30:32] Tea: I feel like instead of trigonometry, we should have a personal finance class that's mandatory for the kids to take before they graduate just to set them up for later on in life.
[00:30:41] Randall: Yeah. And like, that to me, that's life skills, right? That is a skill you need to have now, I'm certainly not advocating to teach nonverbal autistic kids how personal budgets should be built. But you know, there's probably some people that are on the spectrum somewhere where they would really dig that. Right.
[00:31:00] Tea: Yeah. I currently have a client who loves math. That's all he wants to do when he's with me is math.
[00:31:06] Tea: Yeah. He doesn't want to do anything else but math. And that's great for him. That's great. But I feel like the whole entire education system, they need to re evaluate requirements, the things that they set as requirements, if that makes sense, the requirements for the kids to take.
[00:31:21] Randall: Agreed, so you were mentioning before I took us down that rabbit hole that I think you were talking about this extended school year and the school district hired these individuals and didn't give them much training to run this extended school year classroom. How many people per hired person would you say was the ratio?
[00:31:44] Tea: Well, so I believe there were seven kids in that classroom. I really only had to deal with my one client. I'm only there to support him, but it got to a point where they were understaffed.
[00:31:54] Tea: Right, right, right. In the school setting, I'm there to help my client and also there to help assist the teachers as in, like, if my client is not listening to him are he's having these behaviors? That's when I come in and redirect him and give him all these demands and prompts to reset and have him start working.
[00:32:11] Tea: It's not my job in the school setting to do VD. Or run programs with them. That's not my job. That is their job. But they were so understaffed that my client will just sit there and he will have these behaviors. He'll just get up and start. He'll go walk in the classroom and eat crayons because he was, he was just so bored.
[00:32:28] Tea: So it got to a point where I text his mom. I was like, the stuff that I'm working on with him at home, put in his backpack. Cause it's also boring to me. Like we're just sitting there waiting for someone to come and work with him.
[00:32:38] Randall: Yeah. It's really a disservice to the kid.
[00:32:41] Randall: The school district should do better as far as the curriculum. I don't understand how that's still an issue in 2024.
[00:32:47] Randall: I am a pretty avid reader. I I maybe read, like, one book a month,that's 12 books a year, but the average adult doesn't read more than one book every five years or something like that is a crazy low statistic, but
[00:33:01] Tea: I'm part of that statistic.
[00:33:02] Tea: I have the same book that I've been reading for the past three years, so
[00:33:05] Randall: I hope it's a good book.
[00:33:06] Tea: Oh, it's a great book.
[00:33:07] Randall: See, there you go. you only need one, but like, I don't even read things about education. I was just like stumbled across things. Right. So I read this book called, Hidden Talent by written by Adam Grant famous author works at prestigious university. I don't remember which one, but he's well respected in his field. And then this book that I was reading because it had a catchy title, hidden potential. He talked about studies done.
[00:33:32] Randall: In Finland, where Finland, you know, in the 60s 60s, maybe like 70s, 80s, they took a worldwide, exam, and on this standardized test, they had, the shittiest education system, they scored the lowest, and Finland said, well, that's not great for us, that's not great for our economy, we're gonna do better, and you wanna know what they did?
[00:33:50] Randall: They actually did do better. Over a period of years they went from being the lowest to the highest. And they did things that, say like in the U. S., to the best of my knowledge, we don't implement. One of those things is, I believe they call it looping.
[00:34:04] Randall: Second podcast I mentioned is on, so forgive me if I'm saying that wrong, or if you're getting bored of hearing it. But they recognize that students make more progress when they are with the same teacher for a longer period of time, when you go from new teacher, new teacher from year to year, or from new teacher to new teacher, period to period, they make less progress. A couple other things here I'll mention, but as far as looping goes, they found out that students make more progress when they're paired with the same teacher for a longer period of time.
[00:34:36] Randall: So instead of having the teacher be for like one year, like in an elementary school setting, they had that teacher be their teacher for a period of two ormore years together. And, I don't exactly know why, but they realize that, like, it creates a better bond between, the student and the kid that the teacher knows how the kid likes to learn better because they've been exposed and figured it out, and the teacher and the kid, also adapts to, the teacher, and then, say, year one is basically figuring that out, year two it's optimized, everybody knows how to do this now, and, that's where, the real learning happens.
[00:35:09] Randall: I don't know where in the United States anybody has, like, said, Hey, look at Finland. Those motherfuckers have figured it out. We should adopt what they're doing. Like, the roadmap has already been written. We just need to implement it here. But, for whatever reason, we don't do that.
[00:35:28] Randall: The other thing that Finland does, is they recognize like how important education is and I can understand this isn't as easy to implement because this is money is they pay their teachers really well and they require a lot of them and they can require a lot of them because they pay them well.
[00:35:45] Randall: They require, I think, advanced degrees, but for that advanced degree, they're going to pay you really well. So they take care of their teachers, they pay their teachers very well, they realize what works well, what doesn't work well, and they implement the things that work well. I'm not in the education system, but I went to school for, 18 years
[00:36:02] Randall: And that was a long time ago because I'm old. But I bet you it works the same way. Yeah. I haven't read any books that says the, wealthiest nations in the world realized that their public education absolutely blows and have started to evolve it.
[00:36:16] Randall: The frustrating thing for me is it's not like you have to invent a new thing. The new thing has already been invented. The proof is in the studies that have been done, implement it. And I don't understand how Superintendents of school districts aren't doing this. I don't understand how school districts can get by with hiring people that aren't trained, trained well enough to handlespecial needs individuals.
[00:36:38] Tea: Yeah, no,I think it's crazy. Not to say America's education is a joke, but it's not the greatest. And as far as Finland like having the same teacher teach them for a longer period of time than 1 year or 2 years. That's what happens in the AS classrooms. That's why I prefer the AS classrooms because that kid's going to be with that teacher from half day kindergarten all the way up until 5th grade up until he moves to middle school.
[00:37:04] Tea: That's what I prefer those classrooms because the teacher knows the client better than I would know the kid that I'm working with. So she knows, like, known triggers, preferred items, what reinforcements work. What de escalation tactics work, and quite frankly, I feel like the bond that they have, working with those kids, it also, it's a better environment.
[00:37:24] Tea: It makes it a better environment for everyone, and it allows the student to grow a lot more versus him starting over every single year with new people around him, a new teacher, new faces.
[00:37:35] Randall: And I'm going to tie two pieces of this conversation together with previously you said that everybody's probably on the spectrum and what you just said.
[00:37:44] Randall: So we acknowledge, I would acknowledge too, everybody's probably on some sort of spectrum, right? Not everybody learns the same way. Not everybody has the same perspective. Maybe technically not everybody's on the autism spectrum, right? But I think there's an argument that could be made that they could be.
[00:38:00] Randall: But we tried to educate everybody the same way, but over here, we acknowledge that it's not going to work for these people, but it should work for everybody else, which is also another baffling point to me. I'm switching gears here a little bit before we wrap up. I have some questions for you. Okay. Since Miss Harper joined us, I figured it would be most appropriate. What does motherhood mean to you?
[00:38:24] Tea: Motherhood? That's a tough question. Not really tough, but I never really had the mother figure until I was adopted by my parents.
[00:38:32] Tea: I never really had that mother growing up like from the beginning when I was born, I never really went through the whole puberty stage with my mother. So I had a lot of these things my body was changing. I didn't know what was going on and I didn't have my mom to explain, Oh, you're going to start growing hair on your legs here.
[00:38:46] Tea: So you need to go and shave it. I never knew any of those things, but as far as motherhood, I want to be the exact opposite of that. I want my kids to not be afraid to tell me stuff. I want my kids to always not just be honest with me, but just, feel that they can be honest with me and not be upset to always come to me with any issues at any time of day.
[00:39:07] Tea: Cause that's what my parents do for me now. My parents house is open doors for me. If I'm having an issue and I need to meet them at two o'clock in the morning, I can call my mom and she'll be here at two 15. So pretty much just being their protector, their guider. their best friend at times also, but also being the tough mom saying, no, you cannot do that just to protect them as well.
[00:39:28] Tea: Right. That's a great answer. What kind of future do you want to create for your kids? Again, going back to the previous conversation, I had all these dreams and all these things that I wanted to do, and my mom pretty much shot those down every single time.
[00:39:42] Tea: So, if my kid said he wants to be a YouTuber. That's what my oldest son wants to do. He wants to be a YouTuber. Okay, I know of this really great camp Code Ninjas, they have a week YouTube camp and I don't care how much money it is. I'm going to do it just so he can at least experience it if that makes sense.
[00:39:59] Randall: Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I had a conversation with somebody a few months ago and I was talking to them about something and I said, maybe that's a little bit idealist of me but I think there's a place for idealism, right?
[00:40:12] Randall: And I mean, when people start talking about their dreams and some people are like, Oh, that's not practical. You can't do that. Or maybe in the perfect world is like, no, the world that I live in now is that anybody can accomplish anything they want to as long as they pursue it. I mean, depending on what the dream is, it might be lofty, which is fine.
[00:40:31] Randall: Pursue it. And you know, maybe you'll find out on that journey that You don't want that thing anyways, but by virtue of going on that trip, the figurative trip, you've landed somewhere that is not where you wanted to go, but is somewhere where you're more than glad to have landed.
[00:40:49] Randall: Yes. So I think that that's beautiful, the way you position that. What's the book that you're reading for the last three years?
[00:40:55] Tea: Eat, pray, fuck my life. Yeah.
[00:41:01] Randall: I was like, I heard of this one before. And then you got me with that last part. what is that about?
[00:41:05] Tea: So it's pretty much how this lady, she thinks her life is starting to begin.
[00:41:09] Tea: She pretty much gets cheated on. And she's trying to find her inner self, but also trying to find love and trying to find a partner that can grow with her. Mm hmm. And so it's based off of a true story. I actually found it on TikTok, but the lady's name is blank in my mind. But you can find it on Amazon.
[00:41:25] Tea: Yeah. It's a great book. It's also on on the Audible, I believe. So it's a really good book.
[00:41:30] Randall: What's the one piece of advice you'd give to your younger self?
[00:41:33] Tea: Make mistakes and just make those mistakes and just learn from them no matter how hard it makes you feel in that moment or no matter how hard the repercussions are from it, just make those mistakes.
[00:41:44] Randall: So go for it, whatever it is, even if you think you might fail or might be end poorly, go for it.
[00:41:50] Tea: Don't hold yourself back, yes.
[00:41:51] Randall: I love it. When you think about success, what does success look like to you?
[00:41:57] Tea: As far as me, success me personally?
[00:42:01] Randall: As you think in any area of your life, holistically or one facet of your life,what does success mean to you?
[00:42:08] Tea: Buying our family home. Just like being a family, being around my family my house being the hangout spot for my kids, for them to feel comfortable to come and hang out at my house.
[00:42:18] Tea: Have a job that I'm, well, pretty much the job I am for me and my kids to live comfortable, like a very comfortable life. I don't ever want my kids to struggle the way that I've struggled. So just for them to live comfortable and not have to worry about not getting something.
[00:42:33] Randall: What does that home look like?
[00:42:35] Tea: A very loving home. I want my kids to still come and lay and cuddle in bed with me when they're like 13, 14 years old. I still want them to come and be like, Oh, please come check me in bed. Even though it's not realistic, they probably won't be doing that at 13, 14. But I don't ever want them to detest themselves from me or just ever have the feeling where they question me or my love or my judgment for them.
[00:42:56] Randall: How many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, how big of a yard?
[00:42:59] Tea: Ranch style home. I don't want any two story ranch style home for me. Big backyard. I want to live out in the middle of nowhere. I don't want no neighbors. I want to live on like three acres. I also want a pet ostrich in the backyard.
[00:43:12] Tea: That's just me personally. The kids have a dog. They could be a cat. I personally want an ostrich. I don't know why. Don't ask me. I just always wanted an ostrich.
[00:43:21] Randall: Nice.
[00:43:21] Randall: What's your favorite failure of your life?
[00:43:25] Tea: I would probably have to say when I, came home from college, I went through the biggest depression episode of my life. I got into it with my adoptive parents. I questioned them, I questioned their judgment, and I needed that time alone. For those two, three years, I was alone to show that the world doesn't revolve around me.
[00:43:43] Tea: That other people's feelings are involved in me and their feelings are also hurt. And it took a long time for us to get back to where we are at. But I won't change it for a world because now we fully understand each other. We don't have to walk on eggshells or sugarcoat anything to each other now.
[00:43:58] Randall: Do you feel like that two or three years you spent living on your own helped shape you into the person that you are today. Like I'm starting to pick out patterns like interviewing people Mm hmm, and that's one of the things I've recognized I've known that about myself there was a period of time in my life where I had the opportunity to have my own apartment, have my own place, and I could live life on my own terms.
[00:44:23] Randall: But it also gave me a moment of peace every day to reflect. And it gave me space to be like, who am I? How do I want to move through this world? And if I wanted to study something, if I wanted to read a book, if I just wanted to sit in peace and whatever. But I had that moment in time in my life and that moment in time shaped the person that I am today significantly.
[00:44:44] Randall: So I think if anybody's listening to this, if you haven't had that yet, find it and take advantage of it. Because I think everybody needs a moment in time where you're on your own, maybe figuratively or, or literally, and, you know, you don't need to have a boyfriend and girlfriend necessarily, but you're figuring it out, and, you're finding yourself pretty much.
[00:45:06] Randall: Yeah, you're reading books, like, eat, pray, Fuck my life? Fuck my life. Reading books. You pray. Fuck my life. Yeah. Is that when you started reading it?
[00:45:15] Tea: Yes. Yes. Actually, well, not at that time. We were finally moving towards a new chapter in our relationship with my parents. And. I heard it on TikTok, ordered it on Amazon the next day, and I was hooked on it for a very long time.
[00:45:28] Tea: But obviously I'm a mom now, I have two now, I work, don't have much alone time for myself at these days.
[00:45:35] Randall: Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's different seasons of your life for different things, right? You're obviously in the mom season now for the next 18 years.
[00:45:43] Tea: 18 plus years, yep. Don't get distracted by the eye roll.
[00:45:48] Tea: It's just, yep, 18 plus years.
[00:45:50] Randall: It's a big, big job and comes with a lot of responsibility. Yes.
[00:45:53] Randall: Tea, before we wrap up any final thoughts, concerns, considerations for me or the listeners?
[00:46:00] Tea: If any of you think that you would like to work in ABA. I currently work for ABA support services. They are on Indeed or there's multiple other agencies out there to work for.
[00:46:10] Tea: If you think it's something that you would want to do or you want to try something out differently and have the adequate training for it, please go out and apply or just even think about it. But other than that, just enjoy life and live life to the fullest.
[00:46:24] Randall: Appreciate it. Thank you for joining me on today's episode.
[00:46:27] Randall: And I wish you and Ms. Harper nothing but the best of evenings.
[00:46:32] Tea: Thank you so much, Randall. I appreciate it.
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