Theres No Such Thing As A Bad Kid
[Music]
hi
i’m shane maynor and i was one of those
bad teens you know the kind that makes
the teacher
tense up when they walk in i was always
getting into trouble
i got into fights a lot most of them i
started
destroyed public property came to class
with my knuckles bleeding
and almost got expelled for what i
thought was a hilarious prank
involving fake blood and four grossed
out and upset faculty members
often when adults come into contact with
a teen who is out of control
their first thought is a judgmental one
they see them as a nuisance
and think that teen needs some heavy
discipline
a good talking to to be put in their
place
as a teen i got that talk from adults
many times
and i’m here to tell you it definitely
wasn’t what i needed
and it didn’t work it’s taken me a long
time to figure out why
and today i’m going to talk about how
that perception
fuels the cycle of harmful behavior
and how providing safe spaces for
self-discovery
radically alters the outcome of a teen’s
life
before consequences become a
heartbreaking reality
as an adult i teach personal development
through the arts
using painting and poetry for teens that
have extreme
behavioral challenges teens that have
done
heinous acts of violence some of my
students are under 24 hour watch
and are the kind of teens the other
teachers
family members and even therapists have
given up on
but we can’t give up on them and here’s
why
when someone asks me why this
demographic i tell them it’s because
i’ve been in their shoes
i was the bad teen in high school
i was violent to myself and others
part of this came from experiencing
trauma at an early age
i had parents that loved me but my
upbringing
centered around biker gangs in a violent
atmosphere
trying to get a teen who grew up in
violence to
imagine a world where violence doesn’t
exist
is like asking someone to think of a
color
they’ve never seen before but the major
reason i had such a hard time
was because my father died unexpectedly
my mother leaned into alcoholism and we
couldn’t handle each other’s grief
i would go days without sleeping
i had ocd paranoia and at one point
during a five day long stretch without
sleep
i even thought my own mother was trying
to kill me
during all this i wrote poetry and
created art
constantly and as much as i believed
that the arts
saved lives it hadn’t yet saved mine
when i was 16 me and a friend were
house-sitting for her aunt
late that night while music was blaring
from mtv in the living room
you know back when mtv actually played
music
i found myself feeling completely
overwhelmed
so i went into the bathroom locked the
door
and i hung myself with the belt
my friend heard my feet convulsing
against the door
broke it down and cut me loose
after i had already blacked out and
stopped breathing
the years following that suicide attempt
weren’t any easier
now i’m grateful because it put me on
the path to become the person i never
had growing up
as a teen i already knew that if
i survived i wanted to work with other
teens
i wanted to be the person i never had
you see i was already labeled bad
so instead of offers for therapy i got
threats to be sent off locked up
no one ever came to me and asked
what do you need how can i help
and it would have altered everything
i’ve seen how damaging judgments can be
through working with teens and how often
they get
punished for their own trauma
expecting a teen not to lash out in
violence
when their body is in a constant state
of fight or flight
can be futile there’s a wonderful
book called the power of the adolescent
mind
that breaks down the science of this
there’s a wavelength that goes from the
back of the brain to the front
where decision making happens now
in teens this wavelength of processing
moves slow
due to their development but
in a team that has undergone trauma
the wavelength sometimes never makes it
to the front
their bodies are literally captive
to their trauma and i know this to be
true
because i’ve lived it
so how do we help them regain control
over their bodies
well i’ve made a discovery through my
own journey and in working with them
i’ve found that if you provide a safe
space
so they can empower themselves through
their own self-discovery
instead of telling them what they need
it allows them to build new neural
pathways
that redirect the outbursts into
creativity
and start their journey to healing the
results
are incredible and it all centers around
asking what do you need how can i help
you find that out
i got to witness those results four
years ago
when i started offering personal
development through the arts
at a lockdown facility the students
there
were intimidating classrooms were being
destroyed
teachers were being assaulted they were
understaffed and lacking resources
they hadn’t had an art teacher in a
while
the last one quit after being assaulted
by her students
it’s enough to make any facilitator a
nervous wreck
and go in with bias but the situations i
encountered there
were familiar to my own experiences
students who were in violent outbursts
became
separated then punished with no space or
guidance for them to process what was
happening
they were being bound by their trauma
they were giving up
by giving in to the labels tied to their
punishment
the label of a bad teen was being
reinforced
over and over they were starting to
believe it
now i understand that many of you may
not be able to get where these teens are
coming from
but here’s something i think we can all
relate to
how many of you have been given advice
or encouragement and
weren’t in a place to receive it
i know i have you think they’re just
being nice
they don’t get what i’m going through
and your friend
who offered the advice gets upset after
the 20th time of trying to save you
and says okay you want to be miserable
be miserable i think we’ve all been on
both sides of that right
the person who couldn’t receive and the
annoying friend with good intentions
well i was the annoying friend to one of
my
students when i first started teaching
this student never had anything good to
say about herself
and was always getting into trouble for
fights
she was an incredibly talented artist
but refused to receive any compliments
about her
art every time i would offer her praise
it made her want to throw away what she
created even more
one day we were working on an art piece
with the prompt express who you are
she drew herself sitting in a corner
with horrible things written about
herself on the walls
the words were vulgar dehumanizing
and shocking they were so brutal
i was at a loss for words
i mean here we have this beautiful
talented young lady
who thinks of herself in this way
and then i remembered
how i thought of myself that same way
when i was her age
so instead of asking her to redo the
drawing
to say positive things about herself i
asked her
where do you think these words are
coming from
her first response i don’t know i just
feel that way
i said okay and let her be
when everyone left she came up and said
i’ve thought about it
where the words come from my father is
imprisoned for sexual assault
my family doesn’t want anything to do
with me
i said i’m so sorry
then she asks is it okay if i take some
of the art supplies with me
i said sure and i gave her one sheet
a few sharpies and a watercolor palette
a few weeks later i’m setting up the
space before the students come in
and she walks into the room with that
same watercolor paper
in her hands and gives it to me
it was the same prompt express who you
are
except this time she had traced her hand
and wrote all these beautiful things
about herself
and then i see where she’s written the
words
my past does not define
who i am
i look at her and she smiles
for the first time that year she smiles
she detached herself from what’s been
done to her
she did that not me all i did was allow
her the space to discover what she
needed for herself
she freed herself
and that discovery and self-empowerment
had a ripple effect she stayed out of
trouble
and sought opportunities for her future
i realized in that moment that once
teens are given the space to detach
themselves
from the narrative of their trauma they
gain
ownership over their actions the power
to
change their outcome what’s even more
amazing
is not only did i realize it the rest of
the class
started realizing it too once they saw
through each other it was possible
to a teen an adult who’s already healed
from most of their trauma
is not as inspiring but to see each
other doing it
that’s a hope that spreads like wildfire
they become their own heroes
even in situations where it feels like
there’s no way out
i’ve had students in gangs who had
charges for robbery
and when you’re living in extreme
poverty it can
feel like you don’t have an option
one of my students last year robbed
houses
because his mom needed medication and
they couldn’t afford it
that same year our class got an
opportunity
to write and perform a play on
incarceration
at a theater in salisbury north carolina
when the class started to write the play
he wanted to use his story for the play
he wanted the ending to be harsh the
young man was to be sentenced
life ruined by one mistake
so that’s the ending we wrote
two months in were rehearsing the ending
he stops in the middle of running his
lines
turns to the class and says
i have to do something i don’t want to
end up like this character
i won’t
the day before the play we did a run
through of the show at the theater
he came limping in with broken ribs
his face swollen with a black eye
he got jumped for missing a gang meeting
because he chose to do the play
instead and the next night
he did the play proudly in front of a
full house
with the mayor of salisbury in
attendance but
there was an even more important person
in the crowd that night
a teen in the same gang
after backstage that team came up to the
manager
asked how to get involved that he’d do
whatever
it takes he saw the transformation
happen before his
eyes and because it was someone who was
living the same life as him
he believed it was possible he made the
choice
to change his outcome no one
can do that for them but themselves
no advice job opportunities
letters of recommendations are going to
make a difference
if they don’t believe they are worthy of
going for it in the first place
do they need resources yes
but they have to be able to accept those
resources
before they can utilize them
what would have happened to those teens
if they would have continued
living by the narrative of their past
if there was no space given for them to
figure it out for themselves
the idea of that outcome
is exactly what’s happening in
classrooms across this country
so i’m asking you what if
we shifted our narrative from what did
you do
to what happened to you if
you treat a teen who is in the process
of giving up on their life like they are
bad
they will act accordingly when a teen
comes to me i don’t ask what they did to
be sent here
i ask who do you want to be
and every time i see a bad behavior
i look for the need the potential
instead of the punishment
i’m shane maynor and i was not a bad
teen neither are my students
you