Danah Billen

My success is totally to my upbringing and how my parents are. They have always pushed me to do bigger and better, to be able to support myself if I needed to. Definitely family, parental support. My dad was in radiology, and he retired as a radiology department head, and so just seeing them being successful, and being married for 56 years now, just overall, the strength from them has been what drives me.

The best career advice I've ever received is to keep learning. So many people get to the point where they feel like they can't grow anymore, but you can always learn. I work with a few BCBAs that really helped me with this, and they have told me I have a great attitude and I'm willing to learn. They said just keep that, the knowledge will come. I've only been a behavior coach for 3 years, but I'm using my teacher's side more than the knowledge of how these kids function. The biggest advice I've gotten recently, just yesterday from one of my BCBAs, was that I'm so willing to learn, and just keep learning, the knowledge comes. That's what I want to do - I want to learn as much as I can to be able to help the best I can.

To stay strong, don't be afraid to speak up. A lot of people tell me that I'm intimidating, but I go in with a confidence, not to be intimidating, but to be confident in what I'm doing, what I can do. Don't shrink just because so many people shrink down to whatever you're dealing with. Just stay confident, know your craft, whatever craft it is, and go in there headstrong with the will and power of making a change.

An opportunity has come up recently, and I'm waiting to see if it happens - really branching out in my field to assist the county and special education teachers, getting out of the behavior side and going into mentoring the new teachers out there that are in special education. I'm hoping that's going to be a great opportunity that might come up after this school year. Being in education, you're kind of stagnant, and there's not a lot of moving up unless you go higher in education. I don't want to go for my master's and be stuck in an office - I like to be out and helping as much as I can. I don't want to get into that placement of administration in education. I want to be able to be useful in the classroom, in the district, to be able to mentor these new teachers as they're coming into the field. New teachers that come into special education have a different mindset, and then when they get into the classroom, they're like, oh, this is not what I signed up for. I want to go in there and mentor the new teachers and give them advice and help them along the way - that's what my next journey's gonna be.

I just want to be the best on all levels - as an educator, as an employee, and then personally as a wife and mom. I have a daughter that's 23 in nursing school that will be graduating in May, and I feel like those are huge things that I want to just be the best I can and support on all levels. My personal and professional sides are huge for me.