People in the field

Steve Van Bockern

Location: Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Biography
I grew up in a small South Dakota town on Elm Street in a neighborhood that was known as incubator alley. WW II was over, the economy was improving and the baby boom was in full swing. Kids were everywhere in my neighborhood. There were always enough kids to put together a football or baseball game in our backyard – a field that we shared with a horse, chickens, and sheep. Adults were never around to referee our games. We had to figure out how to manage our disputes.

I shared a bed with one or more of my five brothers until I was in high school. The boys’ bedroom was a converted, single stall garage. The gas heater only worked if you kicked it in the right spot in order to get the flame from the pilot light to “jump” to the rushing gas. If it didn’t take, we were smart enough to turn off the gas and try again a little later. I remember one spring we kept a lamb in the bedroom because it was so unseasonably cold and wet outside. Although ours was a three-bedroom (counting the garage) one-bathroom house, it was a wonderful home that gave me everything I needed simply because we had a dad and mom that loved us (me).

I attended college where I now teach as a professor of education – Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I received my masters and doctorate degrees at The University of South Dakota. I have been a public school teacher and principal. Today, in addition to my work at Augustana College, I act as President of Reclaiming Youth International. RYI is a non-profit organization that does youth advocacy work, research and trainings. We conduct seminars around the world but our annual conferences in Victoria, BC and the Black Hills of South Dakota are two of our best.

You know that my life, like yours, is much more complicated than can be explained in a few paragraphs. My adult development has been profoundly influenced by personal trauma, conflict and blessings. My blessings are many and I’ll end this short biography sharing some. I love my life with my wife, Sarah and our grown children Matt, Maggie, Daniel and Anna. Mom lives down the street. Nieces and nephews keep appearing. I love my work and the colleagues and friends that are part of me.

How I came to be in this field

I attended a small liberal arts college in South Dakota and majored for a time in music, biology and international studies. I loved them all but settled on teaching because I figured I would have a job to pay off my college bills. I was reading lots of anti institutional literature back in the 70’s some suggesting, in effect, that schools needed complete reform. One such book was Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Neil Postman and Charles Weingarter.

Postman and Weingartner had all sorts of wonderful ideas:

• if students decided not to return to class at the end of the month, their teachers wouldn’t get paid;

• teachers should be banned from asking any questions to which they already knew the answer;

• declare a five year moratorium on textbooks;

• give a teacher a raise if he or she can get someone to testify that he or she is loved. The authors added that spouses need not be excluded from testifying.

All of this lead to my tendency to see schools, teaching, learning and children through a different lens, which caught Larry Brendtro’s attention. Larry was a family friend who decided to return to Augustana College as Department Chair and brought me on board the teaching staff. He channeled my interest in troubled and troubling youth with projects, writing assignments and training that introduced me to the literature.
In many ways, my work has been by default. By that, I mean, others were asked first. They declined and I said, “Sure, I can do that”.

A favorite poem

He is in my classroom, but he didn’t chose to be there.
He didn’t choose this school, and he didn’t choose me as his teacher.
He didn’t select his father’s income, his mother’s absence, or his crowded house.
He didn’t choose to value different things than I, or to speak in a different albeit more colorful, idiom.
He just didn’t choose.
He can’t smile nicely when his world tells him to feel anger. His mask is not like mine.
He could never separate the gap that separates his mercuric moods from my pale, practiced rightness.
He didn’t decide one day to shape his nose, his brow, or his mouth into forms that trigger my discomfort and disdain.
He didn’t know that he wouldn’t learn if I don’t think he can, or that my eyes and voice limit his circle of friends.
He doesn’t know how much his future depends on me.
He just doesn’t know.

Anonymous

A few thoughts about child and youth care
The longer I’m in this work, the more I’m convinced that it is less about the strategies and techniques we pull out of our discipline and management tool box and more about our own understanding, growth and development. We are the best gifts that we can give our youth.
I’m convinced that learning to work in respectful alliance with children demands that adults undertake the sometimes painful journey of self-examination.

In time, most of us placed in charge of children begin to understand that the ability to control and “make the little buggers behave” is quite illusive. Our strategies and techniques seem to work for short periods of time but eventually they lose their staying power. What power we think we have is quite captivating so we keep doing the same old, same old. Ultimately we discover, however, that using power to control is much like nailing Jell-O to a tree. It is difficult but it can be done. I’ve tried it. You only need to freeze Jell-O into a block of sugar and water (something it isn’t meant to be), drill a hole through it and nail it to a tree. Eventually the Jell-O melts and all comes tumbling down. You are left with a mess. The same holds true with trying to control kids. You can turn kids and yourself into something they and you aren’t meant to be and use a hammer and nail for control, but you will have created a mess.

Last thing I heard, read or watched that I would recommend to others
I just finished the book Neither Wolf nor Dog written by Kent Nerburn

Some of my own writings
Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Our Hope for the Future 2002, Solution Tree, Bloomington Indiana with Larry Brendtro and Martin Brokenleg.

Searching for Truth (Mark D. Freado and Steve Van Bockern), Reclaiming Children and Youth, Volume 18, Number 4 Winter 2009 "The Resilience Revolution", 18.

Families and the Circle of Courage (Thom Garfat and Steve Van Bockern), Reclaiming Children and Youth, Volume 18, Number 4 Winter 2009 "The Resilience Revolution", 37.

Favorite child and youth care experience
I remember, as a principal, one of my first problem children. A senior teacher walked into my office. Her hand engulfed the hand of a second grade student: David.

“This boy needs to be disciplined”, she said. “He is using vulgar language in the classroom!”

“So what needs to done?” I asked the teacher. I really didn’t know what was expected of me.

“Well, school policy is that the boy should be spanked. It’s your job,” she replied. Later, I learned that the school really didn’t have a discipline plan. However, it was an unwritten tradition that the principal’s duty was to spank a disobedient student if requested by a teacher.

New to the job, I didn’t want to disappoint the teacher and loose credibility in the first week of school. I had never spanked a student before and although this boy had messed with the school's and my value system, I also knew that I wasn’t going to hit this kid. I had to stall for time. “So, where is the punishment carried out?” I asked the teacher.

David said, “The boiler room”.

I took David by the hand but he lead the way. I had never been to the boiler room, which is often the most interesting place in a school building. Once there, I was still uncertain how to get out of the situation. I asked David, “Now what do I do?”

“Well, normally they have something to hit me with.” He was already scanning the room to be helpful. “How about this board?” He had picked up a board from a disassembled desk chair.

“Tell you what, David. Why don’t you lean over and when you’ve had enough let me know right away”. I was still lost in my thoughts about what to do. Maybe just a few light taps would satisfy everyone?

As I brought the board back, David cried out, “That’s enough!” I agreed. It was enough for both of us. I kept my job after announcing I wasn’t going to spank kids.

On the way back to the room, David asked me if I wanted to know what words made the teacher mad. I said no but he said, “shit, piss and the f word. You know, fart.”

A recommended child and youth care reading link
www.reclaiming.com . Of course, I am biased since this is our link to Reclaiming Youth International. The monthly e-newsletter has golden nuggets.

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