- Hi, this is Lea Woodford with Between The Lines
and I am in beautiful Las Vegas
with new author, Al Johnson.
Hi, Al.
- Hi Lea, how are you?
- I'm great, I've got to tell you, I loved your book.
- Thank you.
- And your timing just, it was so amazing.
Now, let's get right into this.
What was your inspiration for writing the book?
- My inspiration Lea, is that I've been
a special ed teacher for 25 years in the school districts
and my inspiration is that when I went out
to do some research to see exactly what was there
regarding anti bullying safety awareness
and self confidence for children, I didn't find
a lot that I thought was, let's say worthy.
You know, some of it was, but I said it's limited.
And because of my background in education
and my background in general, I said; you know what,
I think I could do a little bit better than that.
Not discounting what was already there,
but building on top of it-- - Enhancing it.
- Enhancing it tremendously, yes.
- Now, first of all, being a special ed teacher is amazing.
I have a daughter that's special ed.
You have to have a lot of heart to do that,
but I understand that you also served in the military.
- I served four years in the US Navy.
Yeah, and that was a wonderful experience
because it got me aware from the environment
that I was being raised in and there was really
not a lot of options after high school.
So the service was perfect for me to help me grow up,
help me expand my mind and become hopefully,
a viable young man that could contribute to the world.
- Well, thank you for your service,
but I think, well first of all,
I'm a military brat, but I think in your book
I could feel that kind of vibe and structure
and appropriate discipline and
just giving these kids self esteem, it's just amazing.
- Well, you know, the kids are lacking the self esteem
because words, I have a couple phrases that I use.
That is words can harm.
They can hurt.
They can deflate.
They can even kill.
But words can also empower, build self-confidence,
inspire, and they can heal.
And so, in my program, we use the latter.
- Well, and I love that
you incorporate rap into this.
I mean, you really have tailored this
for the young person.
- Exactly, so that the music,
because children, you know,
what's missing in our schools a lot today
is that we don't have the music.
We don't have the woodshop.
We don't have a lot of the things
- They're cutting everything now.
- Yeah, everything is cut out,
and basically, kids need that,
and they learn from that.
When I put this book in front of kids,
they look at and they go,
oh, I like this book!
And they'll look at it
and they'll start laughing,
and they'll start reading.
And from the reading process,
they get vocabulary, they get critical thinking,
they get creative skills, and the whole process,
so they're learning at the same time academics
as well as anti-bullying techniques.
- Well, I love that but I also think
it's a must-read for every parent.
- Absolutely.
- You know, we're going to digress a little bit
about your book because there's some scary
things going on in campuses across the country right now
- And, I think if your program,
and if parents would read your book,
and educators would read your book.
I think right now, I don't think
that putting guns in classrooms
and in the hands of teachers is really the solution.
I think, we have to help the kids.
- Yeah we do, and basically,
now what I did, when you, just what you mentioned,
I have along with the book itself,
there is a parent-teacher guide,
and then there is a student workbook.
So it's a three set process,
so I can actually go to the teacher,
or to the administrators,
and says, look through staff development,
I can teach your staff how to teach
this eight week comprehensive course without a doubt.
And when you mention guns,
when I first started teaching the anti-bullying program,
I actually after five years into it,
I actually went to parents,
and I said, you know what?
I think I need to teach your children
what to do if gunfire breaks out.
I did this 25 years ago.
- Wow.
- So part of the program,
cause I called it comprehensive,
I actually have the children practice drills.
I've been doing it for 20 years.
If gunfire does break out anywhere.
At the mall, at school, or wherever.
Now the police will take care of the school situation,
but we actually learn, kids learn
how to roll, how to dive, how to do the military crawl,
how to do all of those things.
It's unfortunate that we have
to teach children that, but we do.
- It was fire drills, when I was a kid.
- Yes, exactly.
- I mean, it's, as a parent, this is horrifying for me.
- Yeah
- You know, but I'm grateful
that people like you that
are so passionate about the kids
and want to keep them safe,
and also want to build their self-esteem.
I mean, these shooters are kids that are broken.
- Uh huh. Absolutely.
And many of those kids, like the young man
who just committed the horrible crimes a few weeks ago.
He showed signs very early.
I know when I'm teaching special education,
and I see certain signs at the very beginning,
some of those students can be reached.
Some of those students can be transformed,
but you have to reach them early,
and you have to find out what's making
them tick the way they're ticking.
You know, let's see if we can do something
about turning it around and get them
all the help that they possibly can get.
- This is just, this is just so polarizing,
and I can't believe that we're having this discussion.
I mean, we've had so many mass shootings
just this year alone.
- Yes, absolutely.
- You know, and then the Sandy Hook.
You know, these were six-year-olds.
- Exactly.
- You know, I don't see it stopping.
- I don't either. I don't see it stopping.
I think that's what Judge Toller
was saying the same thing.
She said until we do something
about changing the way that we approach
our teaching, see, our teaching
has gotten away from discipline,
and they don't teach any social skills in school.
So when I'm talking to administrators
about this book and this program,
I'm also saying, you teach academics, which you should.
Kids, we need math.
We need reading.
We need science.
We need all those things.
But you don't teach anything about social skills,
and the social skills are what is exactly missing
with a lot of these kids,
so they go astray,
and they do something harmful to
these other kids and to themselves.
Exactly.
- Well, and what I've noticed too
is these kids, you know, when I was parent,
and when I was growing up,
it was the boob tube that was the babysitter.
Now it's phones and computers,
and these kids are exposed to
video games, violent video games,
and they're becoming desensitized.
What's your thought on that?
- Well, you know, I teach part of the program,
at the very beginning, I teach awareness.
And we go through some actual scenarios
in the street about awareness.
And one of the first things I do teach
is you guys are glued to your cellphones
when you're walking down the street,
when you're crossing the street in the crosswalk.
Wherever you are, you're glued.
But not only children and teens, but adults are.
So the awareness skills are not there
the way they should be,
so I said, I'm not going to try
to take your phone away from you
because I know that's impossible,
but what I'm going to try and tell you to do
is that you need to be aware of your environment,
and so we practice those drills.
What are the blind spots?
What are the possible situations
of someone walking towards you?
Do they look uncomfortable?
Where are their hands?
Do you know what they're doing with their hands?
And, parents, they hear me teach this class,
and they go, wow, I never thought of that.
And I had a parent one time tell me,
you know, and I teach body language.
I had a parent says, a lady, I was teaching her daughter,
and she said, I travel all the time
to various different cities,
and I never thought about the body language
that I was displaying to the universe
until you mentioned it,
and when I mentioned it,
she said, you know what?
I'm going to start practicing
a little differently when I walk.
And when we talk about anti-bullying,
the bully looks at another kid,
and decides that's the kid I'm going to approach
because they have poor body language.
Maybe the shoulders are drooping.
Maybe their head is down.
Maybe they just don't look happy.
- I'm seeing a lot of that now.
- Yes, so we need to,
so this kid says I'm going to go and approach them.
And so, I'm going to approach them
where I do surprise.
I do intimidation.
I do confusion, and what I do
in my program, is I teach those three things,
surprise, intimidation, and confusion,
and I teach the children how
to surprise and confuse the bully
who is trying to do the same thing to them.
By doing the unusual.
- You know, Al, your passion for this project
is so apparent in the book,
and I love that,
and this is a major, major problem.
It's not going away,
but according to your book,
and my personal beliefs,
I really think it's going to be reaching the kids
that solves the problem,
and I don't believe that our main teachers,
and having guns on campuses is going to fix it.
- Well, you know, you hit a fine point there.
A very important point because
I tell parents, and I tell everyone,
basically, I did a lot of studying
of other programs, anti-bullying programs,
that are out there, and I commend anyone
who's trying to help these youngsters,
and I would never discount another program,
but in many cases, in most cases,
what the programs do,
they say, for instance,
they have one program that is a program
that says, if the kid that's being bullied
is in the middle, let's say sitting here.
They had a kid at this table,
and they had two other kids at another table,
and two other kids across from them.
The kid that's in the middle was
the one that was being bullied.
The two kids on one side were her two friends.
The two kids on the other side were acting as the bully.
So they were bullying this kid,
and the whole premise was
what does those two kids,
what do those two kids, what do they do to help the kid
that's being bullied?
Well, my approach is,
if they get help from their friends, that's fine,
but their friends are not going to always be with them.
I need to self-empower this kid
to solve his or her bullying problem
with or without anyone else helping them.
Peer or adult.
And that's what we do, I do the self-empowerment.
- I think that's such a key piece.
We talked about this earlier.
You know, these kids that are bullying
or are sometimes going into the mass-shootings,
it's all because they're broken,
and their self-esteem is low.
I mean, this Florida guy.
I mean, he just lost his mom.
There were guns everywhere.
There were police reports.
How did we miss this?
- Parents, I think in many cases,
I have a couple, some friends
that work with children also,
and work with problem kids.
And in many cases, the parents
are not being the parents,
the kids have a little bit too much freedom
in some places, in some cases.
Because when I heard,
I think the husband and wife,
who took this young man in,
said that they knew he had guns,
and they locked the guns up,
and they had the key to the guns,
and they wouldn't let him have access to it.
Well, he had access to it some sort of way.
Well, why does a 16, 17, 18, 19 year old kid
need an AR-15? Why?
- Right? Why does anybody need one?
- Yeah, and if I'm the parent in the home,
and I'm saying you're not going to have that, period.
You're not going to live in my house
with these guns, period
- Al, will you write another book?
- I've written another book.
It's a actual racial harmonies.
It's called coming together in harmony.
It should be out in about six months.
It's racial harmony, understanding, and tolerance,
which I teach in this course.
- They kind of go hand in hand, don't they?
- They go hand in hand.
They go hand in hand.
Because I came from a background, unfortunately,
or fortunately, of overt racial segregation.
I was raised as a child that way.
Which was confusing, which was demeaning,
which was demoralizing.
And I had to learn to move from hate to love,
and that's what we try and do.
- Such a great message.
Such an important message.
Now, can you show our viewing audience your book, Al?
- Sure, be more than happy to.
- This is an amazing book,
and so timely right now with everything that's going on.
It's a poetry book and it actually has rap,
but is something that parents, teachers,
and, of course, children can really embrace.
Now, Al, how can our viewing audience
get a copy of your book?
- They can get a copy of the book a number of ways.
They can go to the website.
The website is www.antibullyingexpert.com,
or they can go to Amazon or also Barnes and Noble,
and they can get it that way.
- Wow, such great information and so timely.
Thank you, not only for appearing,
but for all that you do.
- Lea, thank you for having me.
I appreciate it so much.
Thank you.
- This has been Lea Woodford with Between the Lines.
Thanks for watching.