Title:
She Saw the Butterfly Before I Did

Subtitle:
Dr. Rebecca Lytle on adaptive PE, mentorship, accessibility in education, and creating opportunity

Transcript:

Alycia Anderson: Welcome to Pushing Forward with Alycia, a podcast that gives disability a voice. Each week, we will explore topics like confidence, ambition, resilience, and finding success against all odds. We are creating a collective community that believes that all things are possible for all people. Open hearts, clear paths, let’s go.

Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. I’m Alycia. I’m so seriously excited about this conversation because many of you ask through DMs and all kinds of incoming questions, “How did you get to where you are today? Did you have any mentors? Who helped you shape your story?”

And today’s episode is so special to me because this guest is that for me. She is one of my mentors. She and I have been through a lot of seasons together. And she is one that helped shape the trajectory of who I have become, not only as a woman, but as a leader, as an advocate, as a speaker.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle has spent 35 years in adaptive physical activity and education, building programs, publishing research, impacting students across the country and around the globe, literally. But why this conversation matters to me most is because she was also my professor during my undergrad program, where I received my bachelor’s in adaptive physical education.

And during that time, I was really struggling with figuring out who I was as a student, who I was as a woman with a disability. If I’m being honest, I was pretty insecure back then. And there was so many moments where I would find myself in her office crying, not knowing how I was gonna get through the next day of coursework.

She never tried to fix me. She always saw the things that I was going to become. I tell this story all the time, so I know she’s gonna know what I’m gonna say. But she sat me in her office and she said that I was like a butterfly in a cocoon just waiting to fly, and it’s something that I’ve never forgotten.

It’s a moment that has helped me reshape how I look at myself. And that’s what leaders do, is see something in someone else and allow them to fly, and this is what this amazing woman has done for me. So this is a full circle moment to not only have her on the podcast to talk about all this incredible work that she’s done in her career, but also to thank her, and to just share space, and all of the things.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle, welcome to Pushing Forward with Alycia. You’ve made it.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Thank you so much. Hey, if I’m on your show, I have made it.

Alycia Anderson: Do you remember when we first met?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: I do. I do. I remember you coming in my office and talking to me. You were trying to decide between, I think, recreation therapy, therapeutic rec, and I probably convinced you to do adapted PE in my office.

Alycia Anderson: You did. Adaptive PE was not even on my radar, and actually the first time we met was in the hallway before we sat in your office where you were like, “What are you doing here? Come in my office. Let’s talk.” You enlightened me on this program of adaptive PE. And way back then, my experience in physical education, in general, was something that I was a little bit resistant towards.

So the fact that you convinced me to come into the program, and then have this incredible life-changing experience, is pretty remarkable in itself, and it just shows, again, the impact that you can have. So yep, that was the moment.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: That was the moment. I actually have to say that you were gonna make an impact no matter what you majored in.

Alycia Anderson: Oh.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Just because of who you are.

Alycia Anderson: Oh. I love you. So. Before the titles, and the programs, and the publications, and all the things, what drew you to this work that you’re doing today?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: When I was younger, I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t know why I was drawn to adapted PE. But I had one of those, I think, “aha” moments. Because when I was young, Title IX hadn’t passed yet. I was a mover by nature, and I was not allowed to participate. When I was in those elementary school age years, I was living in Texas between kindergarten and fifth grade, and girls were not allowed to play Little League baseball. They were not allowed to play Pop Warner football, and there were no opportunities. So I think I very much felt excluded and oppressed by that situation because I was a natural mover. I was a tomboy. I played football with the kids in the street and rode my bicycle all over the place, and was out playing in the creek, in the mud, and this and that. I wasn’t really able to get involved in any kind of sport until I moved to California, when I was about 10. And my mom signed me up for Bobby Sox, which was softball. I played a lot of softball throughout my life, ’cause that was what was available to me and what I ended up doing. So I think that, without realizing it as a younger person, the notion of making sure people had opportunities and access was important to me. That is one of the favorite things about my job, has always been creating opportunities. That’s why the grant work I’ve done has been about getting funds to help students get through college, so that they can have the opportunities that they want and need to do great things in life. I think that’s where it originated. And of course, back in, sadly to say, the ’60s, when I was a child, women also couldn’t have credit cards, couldn’t have bank accounts. There was just so many things. I think that’s kinda where it came from, is equity and access.

Alycia Anderson: I love the marriage that you just created with women’s movements and disability, and having that translate into your career in another avenue that needed that type of advocacy, especially back then, too. That just shows how all of these equity conversations really do cross pollinate and support one another.

So I love that’s part of it. Talk about some of the work.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: My career?

Alycia Anderson: Yeah, your career has been really impressive. You were the head of the program at Chico State for adaptive PE. You’re a published author. You’ve been a participant in all kinds of research, the grants, the global work that you’ve done, all the way to the Middle East and back.

This is no small thing that you’ve accomplished, that you’ve been dedicating your life to. Tell us about that a little bit.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: The word opportunity is just so huge in all of this. I wouldn’t be where I am today if there weren’t people that had said to me, “Have you ever thought about going on for a PhD? Have you ever thought about X, Y, or Z?” I think those people before me helped me be where I am. You wanna keep paying it forward, passing it along. Most of the programs and things I’ve started, I didn’t start with this idea, “Oh, I’m gonna do all of these things.” They just evolved with time.

When I started at Chico State, I got a call from someone in the community, “Do you have programs for adults with physical disabilities? I have MS, and I need something. And where I moved from, they had a program.” And I’m like, “No, but give me your name and phone number.” And that’s kinda how our adult program started.

Because my background was with kids and I’d taught in schools, adapted PE, I wanted to start a kids program. That was one of the first programs I had started, but then we were getting more and more kids on the spectrum. So we had an adult program, we had a kid program, and then it was like, “We really aren’t serving these kids on the spectrum as well as we could be.”

So we started our autism clinic. All of these things just came naturally through community needs and community demand. The clinic just grew and grew, and it’s still growing, and changing, and evolving. The adult programs are still flourishing. It’s all been organic. Even a lot of my work internationally was organic. I met a woman, who taught at Chico State, who was from India. She asked me if I wanted to present at this conference called, I think it was Autism and Creativity. And I was like, “I haven’t been to India, I’ve always wanted to,” but she’s like, “It’s in two weeks, and could I talk with you about your clinic? I could put something together.” I’m like, “Sure, that’s great.” So she came, we met, we talked about what we did at the clinic, and she said, “You really should come and present. You should come and do the presentation.” I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know, it’s in two weeks.”

So anyway, I ended up going and presenting. And because of that, I met several people in India and ended up getting invited back. And ended up going to India for about 10 years, almost every year and working with camps, working with an inclusion school, doing a host of different things, working with university students.

So because of that one touch point, it just snowballed into all of these different activities. The same has transpired in the Middle East, in the UAE. There is a woman from the Middle East, who is a graduate of Chico State, and she runs a program called the Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services, which is in the UAE. She came to Chico to visit. She was a graduate from there. She said, “Why don’t you come?” So I did and took a bunch of students there, and that was, again, the beginning of the snowball of events and activities, and have been back several times and have worked with many of their teachers. Several of their teachers have now also come to Chico State and done some work there. Just being open, I think, and receptive to what’s out there in the world.

Alycia Anderson: So I’m connecting dots right now. A few weeks ago, I had a student from the UAE reach out to me on Instagram and say, “My professor shows your TEDx talk every single semester.” And I go, “What? Oh my god! How did I get out there?” I bet you I need to look up the name of the professor. I bet you there’s a connection there.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: There might be, there might not be, too.

Alycia Anderson: Wow.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: You’re just getting to be that famous.

Alycia Anderson: That’s such a incredible story. That’s the beauty of the programming that you do. I came into the program at Chico State, and it took me around the world, too. It took me to places that I only dreamed of, personally, different Paralympic Games, working with the International Paralympic Committee, living in Europe, doing that type of research.

It was life-changing for me, literally life-changing. I think that’s what is so important about the work that you’re doing. And really what every adaptive PE teacher did for me, it’s more than just the curriculum, right? It’s the lessons of independence, and confidence, and shaping your abilities with your equipment and your disability, whatever that might be.

I remember, when I was a little girl, my adaptive PE teacher was named Mrs. C, and she was the one teacher that taught me to speak up for myself. Just like you’re saying, when there were so many no’s, “you cannot try out for the tennis team, that doesn’t work for the other students.” She taught me how to stretch my body and maintain the tightness in my legs, and to loosen them, and just all the things.

It’s just such an important field for students as you’re navigating school, and then offers so much opportunity as you go into your career, too, that translates. It’s such an important bigger movement than I think the people outside of the industry might even realize from afar. It’s a extremely big deal. It’s incredible.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: When you talk about PE, people just think of sport, game, bad elementary PE experiences. And it really is so much more than that. Adaptive PE is about confidence, about learning to move. It’s about play, it’s about engagement. It’s all these other things that are related to sport, but that’s not just what it’s all about.

Alycia Anderson: I think it’s literally foundational. I probably didn’t know or realize that until much later through the programs. Because even when I was, coming of age at Chico State, the adaptive PE curriculum was my sweet spot. But the general physical education curriculum for that program, which was the majority of it, was freaking hard for me. I still felt at times the girl that was on the sidelines, like, “How do I figure this out?” I remember calling in sick to volleyball one day, ’cause I just didn’t know how to make it work for me. It’s hard to face those things sometimes, as a disabled student, trying to be integrated.

What is the advice? What is the one advice that you could give any educators, that are listening to this right now, to help with that? Because we know, it’s uncomfortable for them. It can be. It’s uncomfortable for the child. If we’re creating environments that are depicting natural integration, that’s gonna translate to all the students to take off into the world.

What’s the advice to get over that?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: I think a couple things. One is, it would be helpful if general educators had a broader knowledge of disability sport and just general differentiated instruction, and I think we’re getting a little bit better at that.

Even in a volleyball unit, why not have a sitting volleyball section, and a standup volleyball section, and a recreation volleyball game, so all these different games can be going on at once. So people can naturally fit in wherever it’s a good match for them. And the same with a softball unit. You could do a softball unit. When they’re actually doing game time, you could have one being beep baseball, or one being on the blacktop and one on the grass. There’s lots of ways to create variations, even within a general physical education class. The neurotypical average student in a class should be learning all kinds of games, and activities, and experiences. They should learn how to play beep baseball, or they should learn how to play wheelchair softball, or wheelchair basketball, or sitting volleyball, or whatever. I think the way we help break down some of the barriers is exposure all the way across and access for everyone to all the different venues and activities.

Alycia Anderson: 100%. I love that. I actually love that idea. Why wasn’t there a seated volleyball?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Why don’t we teach sitting volleyball as well as stand-up volleyball? It’s not that hard.

Alycia Anderson: That’s a really good idea.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Yeah.

Alycia Anderson: As it should be coming from you, obviously.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: It’s not rocket science.

Alycia Anderson: Can you think of a moment where you saw a major breakthrough with a student that might not have understood and then got it?

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Alycia Anderson: Can you think of something that made you catch your breath?

That’s really putting you on the spot, but…

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: It is, ’cause it’s hard to think of a moment. There’s constant micro moments. In our autism clinic, I think often seeing a child who came in really struggling with environmental overload or whatever, or sensory challenges, seeing them come to a place of joy and be able to play always warmed my heart and made me feel good. Whenever you have somebody who is struggling who’s autism, or for whatever reason they’re struggling. Maybe it’s a student in a wheelchair and they’re frustrated and struggling with something, doesn’t matter what it is. Finding a way to change the environment, change the situation, change the setting to turn it into a joyful experience because movement should be a joyful experience. We were meant to move as human beings. We were meant to engage with our environment and others. So, for me, that’s what makes me happy. That’s what brings me joy is creating spaces for people to have a wonderful experience with movement.

Alycia Anderson: And how easy or hard can that be?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: I don’t think it’s that hard. It’s not that hard. It’s really not that hard. It’s all those things about adaptation.

Do you need to tweak the setting? Do you need to tweak something about the environment, the instruction, the space, the number of people engaged, the brightness of a room, or the surface you’re working on, or whatever it is? Or even how you’re engaging. Whenever you work with people, building trust is the number one thing.

If you trust somebody, you’re willing to take a risk. You’re willing to take chances with them. If you don’t, trust them, don’t ask me to do something if I don’t feel safe.

Alycia Anderson: I think that’s one of the biggest blockers is that people don’t feel safe, even trying to get to adaption. It’s an uncomfortable place for them to be in. But it is pretty simple, just to the point of, “Hey, how do you think this will work for you?” Talk about the autism clinic for a minute.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Let me go back for a second. ‘Cause you said, “Yeah, just ask.” But I remember talking to you once, if you’re okay with this.

Alycia Anderson: Oh, please do.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Because, one of the things we often say is, “Just ask someone what supports them best. How can we adapt this best for them?” I remember you sharing with me one time, and this was an “aha” moment for me because I always thought, “Yeah you should respect people. You should ask them what serves them best, how do they learn best, what adaptations do they need.”

But I remember you telling me that because you didn’t have a lot of adaptive PE as a kid, you often went to the library. You had some good teachers and some not. I remember you saying that sometimes at the university, teachers would ask you, “How can I adapt this for you?” I remember you came into my office and you said, “I don’t know. I don’t know how they need to adapt this for me, because I never had this experience before.”

I think that’s a really important thing to talk about. You wanna be respectful of an individual. It needs to be a dialogue.

The person needs to be able to say, “Yeah, this is what I need,” or, “I don’t know what I need in this situation.” What are your thoughts on that?

Alycia Anderson: I agree. There’s seasons of advocacy and where you’re comfortable using your voice and not. Back then, I was in survival mode. It was like flag football day, running on the grass, and I would just have to figure out how.

I was in survival mode a lot when it was the general ed part. Those asks at that point were probably just stressful because, number one, I’d never played flag football, and number two, I’m in a lumpy grass. It’s exhausting being the one that has to teach all the time.

And to your point, from the beginning, there needs to be more education on this from a general ed standpoint, so the professionals are better educated in leading and the disabled students are more comfortable in guiding. To your point, again, that it’s safe. On the flip side of that, though, I think back on my favorite student teaching experience ever at Chico State was we went out to the junior high, and we were giving football curriculum.

The task that I was given to teach the junior high students was how to punt a football. I was literally given the task to punt. And I was, again, on a very lumpy grass, lots of holes. And I’m like, “I have 10 students around me, and I have to teach them how to punt a football.”

No other classmates with me. I’m like, “Okay, how am I gonna do this?” The way I did it was using my words, grabbing other students to be the example, and working together. We successfully learned how to punt a football when I can’t kick my legs, nor navigate the grass.

I think that coming together, like you said, no matter what season in life you’re in, if we can find that communal space, we can solve anything together.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: You’re so right. It really is. It’s a dialogue. It’s always a dialogue, and if there’s no dialogue, that’s where the breakdown always is.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah, for sure. So, how do you think things are going? Where do you think we need to be? I feel like that’s a deep question.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Oh yeah, are you talking at my house? In the world?

Alycia Anderson: The world is probably too much to go into today. I just mean in the movement. From the ’60s to where we are today. Tony Coelho was on this podcast, and he’s the one that wrote the ADA. It’s a powerful position when you’re in a position like you, or me, where you know a life before the women’s movement, disability movement, laws being put into place, to where we are now, versus the younger generations now that, I don’t wanna say take it for granted, but they don’t understand a life without versus a life with.

You’re in that space of, “Wow, you’ve seen all this, didn’t have these things to the progression that we’re at.” Feels like we’re being pulled back a little bit, probably, right now. Where are we going? Where do we need to be?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: We have a long way to go, for sure. It’s a big question. When I think back to the ’60s to where we are now, yes, we’ve come a long way. We have come a long way, and the disability movement has come a long way. And the women’s movement has come a long way. We still have a long way to go.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Equity in this country is still an afterthought. I don’t wanna get into too much politics, but the political climate right now is certainly not supporting DEI initiatives and has focused on other things. So I do think we have a long way to go. And with most things, at least in education, things come in cycles and we swing one way, and then we swing back another way, and then we swing back the other way, and then we swing back and forth. I try to be optimistic that we will swing back. Although, I have to say, there was a really good article about the topic of inclusion. I wish I could remember the dates and whatever. But it was about the fact that we even have to use the term. The fact that we have to use the term means that we’re not there yet. The fact that we even have to talk about inclusion means that we’re not there yet. There’s a lot to be said for that.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. I had another woman on this podcast, who is a quadriplegic makeup artist. She’s an influencer. She’s pretty famous. I think it was Sephora, or somebody, for the first Sephora model that would put on makeup. She said the same thing. She was like, “I don’t want to go viral for these things. Why are we still having to go viral for being a quadriplegic putting on makeup?” Or whatever the thing might be. I think that’s really it.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: We have a long way to go, and I don’t know what the answer is. I really don’t. All I can do is live my life each day and try to be kind to the people I interact with, try to help create opportunities for people where I can, in whatever role I’m in, if that’s part of my role.

Alycia Anderson: What are you doing right now?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Sitting here talking to you.

Alycia Anderson: But what are we doing? What are you doing?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: With life?

Alycia Anderson: Yes, with your life.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: I was working with the UAE on some projects. We had some teachers come in February for our state conference. They presented and we hosted them for 10 days or whatever, how long they were here. And then, of course, a war broke out in the Middle East, and they were stuck.

They were able to fly back, eventually, to Egypt and get home safely. But that weighs heavy on me because I have dear friends that are in the UAE, that are in the midst of a war right now. We were planning on, and still are, I just haven’t started that project yet, but trying to host a conference over there.

We did a conference over there on adaptive PE about, I think it’s been two or three years now, and that was the first adaptive PE conference in the region. The IFAPA conference is supposed to be in the Middle East, which is the International Adaptive Physical Activity Conference. Next year, hopefully that will still happen. So we were looking to do a PE, adaptive PE conference in the UAE the following year.

So 2027, I think. We were gonna start talking about that. My good colleague from Sharjah was willing to help make that happen. I talked to her after the war started and I’m like, “We were talking about this, but I don’t know whether this is such a good idea right now.” And she said, “Just keep planning it.” That was really nice to hear her say that, and hopefully we will start working on that.

Alycia Anderson: That just felt good when you said that. That felt really hopeful. Just keep planning.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Just keep planning it. Yeah. Life is gonna go on. We’re gonna keep doing what we do. We’re gonna keep working on things and keep trying to make the world a better place.

Alycia Anderson: What’s it like over there? I know I went over there for a conference to Qatar in, gosh, it was like 2009 or something like that. What’s it like for the movement there today?

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: The disability movement?

Alycia Anderson: Yeah.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: They’re doing amazing things. I wasn’t in Qatar. My reference point is the UAE, but they have some of the best programs I’ve seen.

Top-notch facilities, top-notch programs. They send people to the US and all over the world to look at the most effective evidence-based practices. They bring people there all the time to help train their teachers. They are using state-of-the-art for everything. I think inclusion is still a challenge in most places, just like it’s still somewhat of a challenge here. The issues around the globe are similar.

The thing that I noticed there was that because it’s a relatively wealthy country, the spaces and facilities were just amazing. Schools were incredible. The equipment they had, the supplies they had, the support the teachers had, just really great programs.

Alycia Anderson: That’s how it was when I was in Qatar, too. I was really blown away. Very high-end.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Yep. I think we have a lot to learn from going there, and visiting their programs, and seeing what they’re doing.

Alycia Anderson: Just by that part, prioritizing it on the highest level of investment. Because it was extremely high when I was there as well. It’s on my bucket list to go there with you one of these days.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: You’re gonna come to that conference and present.

Alycia Anderson: I’m plugging.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: I’m gonna have you come be one of the keynotes.

I would love to do that.You’re already committed.

Alycia Anderson: I would love to do that with you.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: They’re already committed. Plan for 2027, I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re looking at.

Alycia Anderson: It would be an absolute bucket list for me to do something like that with you, to be honest with you. Okay, so, before we wrap up,I just wanna personally thank you for everything that you’ve done for me in my life. And I know I put this on you a lot, and I gush over you a lot. I’m so happy that our friendship has grown since.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Me too.

Alycia Anderson: School has ended so long ago, like 20 years or something. Your mentorship, your sisterhood, your friendship, the love that you’ve given me and supported me throughout my journey to becoming who I am today really has been life-changing. Especially for a little girl that didn’t grow up with a mom, and I didn’t have a whole lot of women to follow.

It’s so important how you see something in other people, you say it, and then you give opportunities to grow, and that’s just what you did for me with the butterfly statement. It’s just what you did for me when you got back from Europe, from Belgium, and we sat and had coffee, and you said, “You need to be telling your story.”

You gave me that opportunity to go speak at Sac State at a conference. I can’t even remember what conference it was anymore, and I was sitting there with papers in front of me. It was terrible. I’m sure it was horrible.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: It was not horrible. You were great because you had a story to tell. You said, “I kinda wanna be a speaker.” I remember you saying that. I’m like, “Then do it. You have a story to tell.” I didn’t put this in you. I didn’t make you that butterfly. You were already that person. You just needed somebody to say, “Yeah, go do it.”

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Alycia Anderson: Yeah. That’s what really good leadership is.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Yeah.

Alycia Anderson: And that’s what I try to gift back, from you to me, to others on stage. If you’re a leader, say it when you see something in somebody because they’ll start to believe it, and it’ll change their life. I love you dearly. I love you with all of my heart, honestly, and I’m just so grateful for you.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: I love you, too, and I’m just so thankful. I am just blown away every time I see you. The best thing that any educator can do is have students they worked with just blow them away. I mean, surpass them in so many ways. And you have just surpassed me in so many ways.

I look at Josie Blagrave, who worked at the clinic with me and helped me start that clinic. She now runs that clinic, and she’s doing amazing things. Success is when your students just surpass you.

Alycia Anderson: I don’t know that we’ve surpassed you, but I do think you gave us our wings to fly. During the Neurodiversity Conference this year, when I saw Josie, her and I hugged each other arm in arm. And we said to each other, quietly in our ear, “Congratulations. You and I are both bosses in this space, and we did it right out of this program.”

We were really proud of each other for doing that work together in different ways, but together, just leading as women in the space. But that comes directly from you. Anyway, we’re both grateful. I love both of you.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: I just have to add to that. It’s that you all become mentors for me, too.

Alycia Anderson: Ohh.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: We become mentors for each other. When we’ve all reached our peak, you’re no longer a student. You’re my peer, you’re my colleague. I can learn from you now.

Same with Josie. I learn from her now. She does so much great work. And we all do different things, so it’s wonderful.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. Okay, pushing forward moment. What is a pushing forward moment for leaving this episode? Some little mantra or motivation we can give away to our listeners.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Be open to opportunities. Take them and create them.

Alycia Anderson: Oooh, be open to opportunities, take them and create them. I love that.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Yeah.

Alycia Anderson: Thank you so much for coming on the show. This is gonna be one that I listen to over and over, and save in my diary until the day that I die. I love you so much.

Dr. Rebecca Lytle: Back at you, my dear. Back at you.

Alycia Anderson: And thank you to our community. I actually know this episode inspired our community to go out there, and find their butterfly wings and fly away, too.

This has been Pushing Forward with Alycia and Dr. Rebecca Lytle, and that is how we roll on this podcast. We will see you next week.