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Student Profiles

Meet Matt

Working with students with emotional behavioral disorders takes a very special person. Matt Brastrup, SCSU senior, thinks he’s the man for the job.

“When you have a disability, you are often pushed aside in school,” Brastrup who has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair said. “I know what that is like and can help students deal with the situation and hopefully be a role model so that the situation doesn’t arise in the future.”

Brastrup credits a summer job dealing with kids with his desire to seek a degree in education instead of law.

He transferred to St. Cloud State University from Central Lakes Community College to pursue his dream. “I thought about being a regular education teacher, but thought I should use what I know and my first-hand knowledge of living with a disability. I can relate to students like no one else can.”

Teaching students with emotional and behavioral disorders involves teaching social skills, responding to individual needs, nurturing and also working on academic need areas.

“I see my role here as being a positive influence,” Brastrup said. “I help those who are struggling and encourage those who are doing well to keep it up. I also have to do a lot of problem solving and talking to students about their feelings.”

“Matt Brastrup models living life with a positive attitude,” SCSU Special Education instructor Patty Waletzko said. “He is passionately determined to focus on the positive in himself and in others.”

Brastrup recently completed the first part of his internship at Little Falls High School. Kathy Novakoske Brastrup’s supervisor said, “I had absolutely no reservations about someone in a wheelchair teaching in the EBD classroom. The students were very accepting of Matt and looked beyond the wheelchair. The rapport between Matt and the students was based on mutual respect and acceptance. Matt was confindent when working with the students and was always well prepared. He was flexible, self-motivated, cheerful and genuinely interested in the students.”

Growing up with a disability was no small feat. “I got good grades in high school, but junior high was more difficult because I was very depressed,” Brastrup said. “I earned mostly C’s and D’s.”

“Every student with a physical disability also has an Individual Education Plan,” Brastrup said. “My IEP allowed me to have an adapted physical education course in high school. The teacher, Bill Heightkamp, had a big influence on my life by helping me rebuild my self-esteem through weight-lifting.”

Another influential person in Brastrup’s life was Rich Hirshenberger, a psychologist he saw in high school, who was also in a wheelchair and always encouraged him to not let his wheels slow him down.

Brastrup’s family has always been supportive of his education and encouraged him to pursue his dreams, regardless of the fact that he has a disability.

Although Brastrup lived on his own for two years while attending SCSU, he moved home when he started student teaching. “It’s time consuming to do household chores for myself and with the demands of student teaching I wanted the other parts of my life to run smoothly,” Brastrup said. “I can do everything myself, including cooking meals, doing laundry and ironing, but there are only 24 hours in a day and those things take me longer than they take most people. My family always taught me to ask for help.”

The second part of Brastrup’s internship is at Dr. R.S. Knight Elementary in Randall, Minn. Cindy Steffen-Fenske is Brastrup’s supervising teacher at the elementary school, “He is used to working with high school students. But he’s adjusting well to working with elementary students and he’s hardworking.”

When asked if he thought that Brastrup’s being in a wheelchair made a difference in his ability to be a teacher, Ryan, a fourth-grade student at R.S. Knight Elementary replied that it was “no big deal.”

“He’s just really cool,” Ryan said.

Meet Brenda Jo

“I told my daughters I wanted to graduate by the time I was 45,” Brenda Jo Peterson, a 44-year-old Native American graduate student said, “I will graduate in May with a masters in school counseling from St. Cloud State University and my 45th birthday is in June.”

Her daughters, Josie 12 and Sammy 7, told Peterson she was “crazy” for going back to school. However, Brooke 23, is very supportive of her mother’s educational goals.

Peterson said. “My mother was the only one who understood what I was doing by leaving my husband and coming back to school. She said it was about time. I always wanted to finish and I had this incomplete feeling. I told myself this is my goal and I need to get this done.”

Peterson earned a scholarship through the multicultural consortium, she worked as a graduate assistant and took out loans to be able to go back to school.

In her second and final year of the graduate program, Peterson is interning at Tech High School and South Junior High. Being a guidance counselor at Tech and South has been a kind of culture shock for Peterson, who has made it her business to find out about the social and domestic problems faced by today’s students.

“There are only 95 students in the Indian High School where I worked on the reservation in Bemidji,” Peterson said. “And if there is something I needed to know, I just went and spoke with the elder women. They could tell me a lot about the students because they knew everyone on the reservation. At Tech and South, I have to figure those kinds of things out for myself.”

“I would rather work with Indian kids because I know their struggle walking between two worlds,” Peterson said. “I feel like a chameleon always changing to fit in.”

“Things are changing on the reservation,” Peterson said. “There are still the same problems of poverty, alcohol, violence, but now kids visit the cities and adopt aspects of that culture. The Indian young people are developmentally unable to understand the culture of their white peers because of being isolated on the
reservation. We are now dealing with the ‘new crime’ of gang activity on the reservations. The social welfare programs in place in white society don’t exist on the reservation. There are just not many people to help them. That’s why I want to work in Indian schools. That’s where I’m needed.”

Through a divorce in her 20s, raising three daughters, leaving her common law husband and going back to school in her 40s and a recent gall bladder attack, Brenda Jo Peterson has shown a strength of spirit and determination to reach her goals that is virtually unparalleled.

Peterson is originally from the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. She is the youngest of seven children and the only one who went to college and does not live back home.

Adjustments have been many: moving from a house to an apartment, not being connected to an Indian community, having to put her spirituality aside to pursue her education and get her licensure.

“When we came here, I didn’t know anybody.” Peterson said. “My support has come from the American Indian Center on campus and the other students in my masters program. They don’t replace my family, so my phone bill is still sky high.”

Peterson’s eyes light up when she talks about her daughters. “They didn’t want to move here, but they have adapted really well. Talahi is a a great school; they made us feel welcome.”

Josie plays basketball for South Junior High and has a paper route one night a week. The girls also participate in Kids Stop and the Boys and Girls Club. Without these organizations, Peterson doesn’t know if she could have managed to go back to school.

Peterson is planning to move back to Lac du Flambeau, Wisc. when she finishes her degree. “My mother is 83 and I want to spend time with her and I am getting older and my responsibilities with tribal ceremonies are increasing,” Peterson said. “I want to work with Indian kids in an Indian school and I really miss home.”

As for obstacles in her path, Peterson doesn’t really see any. “I was so determined to finish my degree that anything that comes my way, I either try to work with or leave it, if it is not part of where I am going,” Peterson said. “I don’t know what it would be like to be a college student without children so that isn’t really an obstacle, it’s just part of my life.”

“When I get discouraged or start feeling burned out, I just try to be proud of what I’ve accomplished at the end of the day,” Peterson said. “I don’t think there is anything that will stop me. I’m a role model for my children. If they see me giving up, they’re going to see what I ran away from growing up – that hopeless feeling.”

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