Interview With Author Joseph McQueen
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am the director of alternative education for the Regional Office of Education #33. I have over twenty years’ experience in the field of mental health. I was a LBS1 teacher, special education coordinator, and a residential treatment specialist. I am an author and have been working as a dynamic trainer and speaker for the past five years, presenting at national conferences and working with various schools in west central Illinois.
Author of the Book: Calming Young Minds Mental Health, De-Escalation, Trauma, and Restorative Practices in Teens
I am a U.S military veteran (GO NAVY), a husband of over 20 years and a father to 3 amazing daughters. I have happily dedicated the last 25 years working and teaching in the field of special education with an emphasis on students with mental and emotional disabilities. I started working in a residential treatment center (RTC) in 1999 after honorably discharging from the Navy. I worked with kids ages 6-14 with severe mental and emotional disabilities. Many had been victims of horrific abuse. During this time, I completed my undergraduate degree as a learning behavioral specialist (LBS1) at Illinois State University (home of the Red Birds). After graduation I taught a 4th-6th grade self-contained behavior disorder class (now called emotional disabilities), throughout this time I also became certified to do drug and alcohol counseling while working at an RTC on a Gang unit, outside of Chicago for 16-19-year-old inmates’ wanting to get a sentence reduction or early parole. So I did teacher by day councilor by night for 5 years before I had to let go of the night job.
I eventually moved into the high school setting and had helped develop behavioral programs for our co-op elementary schools.
I was offered a job in sunny Phoenix Arizona so my wife and 3 daughters set out on a new adventure. I worked at a day school for 6 years where I was an IEP coordinator, transitions coordinator and teacher. I learned a lot and had a great time. After weathering the heat a few years, the prospect to move north away from the inferno summers of Phoenix arose I saw opportunity knocking. I got to return to my first love RTC work. I loved the work and the opportunity to work with emotional and behavioral kids again. I spent 5 years as the Director of education at an all-girl RTC located in the secluded mountains of Prescott Valley Arizona. We are one of the top facilities in the nation for sexually exploited teens.
I have been blessed that the majority of my career has been spent working with teens in the gang, substance abuse and sexually exploited population.
I am currently the director of alternative programming for the Regional office of education in Galesburg Illinois. I over see two campuses with over 100 students all in alternative programs for various reasons, from expulsion, sever acting out behavior and anxiety or truancy.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
CALMING YOUNG MINDS: UNDERSTANDING MENTAL HEALTH, DEESCALATION, TRAUMA, AND RESTORATIVE PRACTICES IN TEEN is my first book
I went through a phase where I was attending everything I could on mental health, trauma, and brain development. I was a sponge absorbing all the research and new ideas on behavior management. I was dying to learn how to better work with difficult kids. Teacher collage taught me a lot but it didn’t cover how to deal with a twelve-year-old girl wo was being sexually abused and starving at home due to neglect full parents. It never showed me the ropes on helping an aggressive student who had trauma and was taught that fight was the only option and flight was for cowards. I felt like it was all based on ideas that had never really been implemented by real educators in real classrooms dealing with real kids in real time. I felt disconnected like the people didn’t know what it was like to be in the trenches. I learned a lot of things along the way and some were really effective. I began to develop approaches and ideas that combined the ideas with the real life needs. I knew we could do better. I also knew that this was learned from experience where a thousand fails produced ten solid skills.
Teaching is not about us teaching kids, it is about us teaching each other and learning as we develop into experts in chaos and varying skills, some skills prove to have great value and use, others we count on for party favors and very little use. I didn’t want to be disenchanted by the lecturer who was sharing a great wealth of information and data. I admired their efforts, evidence and comprehension. I just wanted somebody to share the “real” with me. How do you really feel? Give me an example where you did this and it worked. Have you ever been so overwhelmed you were going to lose your shit? What did you do in your classroom to address this? I wanted to talk to teachers from a perspective they could relate to. I wanted to share with them what I learned and practiced every day while being in their world. I wanted to offer perspectives from the trenches and real life experience working with our kids. I knew after over twenty years working with some of the toughest kids our world has to offer it was time to share. If teachers are nothing, we are blatant thieves of knowledge and skill. We have no shame in taking the good stuff and using it for the foundation we build our teacher tool chest on. I beg you to take all you have learned in this book and apply it in any way it will work. Or let me know what you need more of. If I don’t have an idea or answer we can ponder it together and C-word (collaborate) the hell out of it until he finds a solution.
I wanted to write this book as a reflection of what I have learned over the years. This book is for all of the people who work with struggling people. It is written to help understand how we are a million different people to a million different people. It is devised to offer up a real authentic approach to working with the kids that others may have given up on, written off or even thrown away. I wanted to give a voice to those of us who are dedicated to their craft and will never leave the trenches. Who will continue to work with live cargo and know that every day they are in charge of somebody’s somebody. It may not be now but there will be a time when our difference is seen in the actions and outcomes of others. I hope you are able to relate to my words and even laugh at my stories and antidotal scenarios. I promise I am much more fun in person than on paper. I offer training where we let loose a bit with our feelings and words and become honest with our emotions.
I am still working as a principal as of. I still spend hours in classrooms daily. I still work and train teachers by example. I do some conferences and breakout sessions, or train schools and districts. However, my passion will always be the kids. I am not beyond exhaustion and I have felt the sting of burn out. I just spent the entire day substituting in a junior high school class full of amazing alternative kids. I sit and ponder, am I getting too old? The kids seem more difficult. Then I think back and am reminded, they really didn’t do anything unique or outside of what I have experienced. It is a good reminder that a few hours are not enough for me but more than a few hours may put me to bed before the sun.
If you are a new teacher, hang in there. I will get better but it will never get easy. You will become sharper but you will never be an expert. I was once told by a very wise middle school teacher that we spend our first ten years in education learning how to teach, and then the next ten years getting good at it, and once we feel like we have it all figured out it is time to retire and walk away to make room for the new generation of learners to teach a new generation of children.
Keep in mind that being a solid object and knowing your kid will be a game changer for you. Never stop providing an endless supply of respect and dignity. Take care of yourself and know that every year is a new start. We are remarkably lucky as educators to get a fresh start and redo every year. As long as you didn’t cause trauma or any physical harm you did okay. Kids are resilient, they will be fine. If you’re pining away for a sweet “best teacher ever” letter, or to be mentioned on a talk show by an old student, you may be waiting a long time. We don’t do this for the accolades we do for the good of our world and the growth of our hearts and minds. Keep on keeping on my fellow teachers. Feel free to reach out and say Hi any time.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I like to write on a whim. If it pops in my head I put it on paper.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
What are you working on now?
I want to add additional information to my book. I am holding off to see of people read it and to get feedback on what they want more of.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Don’t be afraid to get out there and promote in any way you can.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Your story matters. Don’t let other tell you it dose not.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Pick yourself up when you get knocked down because the ground is no pace for a champion.
What are you reading now?
Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
By: Mary Pipher
What’s next for you as a writer?
Continue to speak and train on a national level.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Touching Spirit Bear:
by Ben Mikaelsen
Nightmares & Dreamscapes:
by Stephen King
How to Survive on a Desert Island: Operation Robinson!
by Denis Tribaudeau and Karine Maincent
Author Websites and Profiles
Joseph McQueen’s Social Media Links