The Teacher As Connector: Trauma
This was the tree I
often looked at while writing this blog. The birds and squirrels in this tree kept my cats very entertained.
As I examined the tree that I thought was healthy and thriving, I saw that it was hollow in places.
A hidden weakness.
Is this why the wind had such power over it?
How did I miss the signs? I never knew…
On Thursday night, a tree fell, and it has been on my mind ever since. I guess I never really looked at it closely. Why did I assume it was a healthy tree simply because it was keeping up appearances with it’s growing of leaves in May? Were there signs that this tree was dying?
The trunk was hollow and I saw evidence of decomposition.
I looked back at my pictures from May. This time I really looked. The tree was leaning and the bottom of it seemed to be rising out of the ground. The bark was coming away from the tree in this area. So, the signs were there. I missed them because I am not an arborist and because I was only focused on certain parts of the tree.
My husband’s birthday was on Friday. We drove down to my in-laws to visit with them in the driveway, six feet apart, of course. As we drove, we noticed other trees that were leaning and looked like they may fall soon. I saw their vulnerability for the first time. While visiting, I looked at the front yard of my in-laws’ house and noticed that there were no trees. My husband explained later that the town owned a part of that front yard that is right along a major road near a lake. The trees there grew too tall and were vulnerable. There weren’t other trees nearby to protect them from the wind. The town cut them down to avoid them falling into the road. These trees, as my husband said, were alone.
There are many different connections I could make between the above anecdotes and education. They are all swirling around in my head: broken systems in education, the importance of friendship, violence that can come from not belonging, etc. I shared with my husband that the wind could be any challenge and the hollowness could lead to emotional withdrawal, suicide, school shootings, and so on. I may revisit this tree topic to explore the other metaphors in my head later. I am choosing the first metaphor that hit me the moment I saw that the tree was hollow inside. It’s about connecting and seeing the signs. This post is about trauma.
“Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When it is ignored or invalidated the silent screams continue internally heard only by the one held captive. When someone enters the pain and hears the screams healing can begin.”
What is Trauma?
Trauma can be from a single incident or it can be repeated and prolonged like domestic violence and abuse. Some children experience different, multiple traumatic events. Trauma includes many events such as medical injury or illness, death of a loved one, natural disasters, abuse, etc.
“Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and that can have lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and physical, social, emotional well-being.”
Fight of Flight
If a child’s amygdala is always on guard, learning is impossible. As they say, Maslow before Bloom’s. We must focus on the whole child and know that certain needs overpower and hinder learning. Students experiencing trauma have a heightened fight or flight response and hold all of that energy in their bodies until they completely withdraw (for example, selective mutism), lash out at others, or hurt themselves. I assume that this may be a reason for trauma survivors’ cutting behaviors and eating disorders to regain the control they don’t feel they have.
“...when we prepare to fight or to flee, muscles throughout our entire body are tensed in specific patterns of high energy readiness. When we are unable to complete the appropriate actions, we fail to discharge the tremendous energy generated by our survival preparations. This energy becomes fixed in specific patterns of neuromuscular readiness. The person then stays in a state of acute and then chronic arousal and dysfunction in the central nervous system. Traumatized people are not suffering from a disease in the normal sense of the word- they have become stuck in an aroused state. It is difficult if not impossible to function normally under these circumstances.”
The quote above reminds me of the power of mindfulness and the breathing meditations that calm the body and mind. This work can prevent the fight or flight responses, as well as help alleviate the energy from such biological responses to perceived danger. Next week’s post is more about social emotional learning and the power of mindfulness to regulate emotions.
What Does Trauma Look Like in the Classroom?
This is a huge topic and I have listed some books, articles, and websites that will go into greater detail than I do here. One resource from Jody McVittie, MD, posted on schoolsonwheels.org, is especially comprehensive and I highly recommend printing it out to refer to as needed.
The big message is that we do not always know the reason for a student’s behavior. Assume trauma. This is being trauma sensitive. We don’t have to know everything that happened to a child in order to help him/her. Would we wait for an official diagnosis of ADHD, anxiety, etc. before giving a child the tools they need to succeed in learning. Best practices are for all students whether or not we have that child’s history or an official diagnosis.
Trauma Sensitive Schools
Our district supports staff by providing opportunities for training on being trauma sensitive. The best resource I can share is the website for Trauma Sensitive Schools (see link in resources). There are free downloads on this site that are amazingly helpful, but I highly recommend the trainings as well. This is their work in simplified form:
The Problem
Many students have had traumatic experiences.
Trauma can impact learning, behavior and relationships at school.
The Solution
Trauma-sensitive schools help children feel safe to learn
How We Get There
Trauma sensitivity requires a whole school effort.
Helping traumatized children learn should be a major focus of education reform.
Connecting and Belonging
I am sure that I would not have been able to help the tree in our yard even if I had noticed the signs of it dying. However, as educators, it is in our power to notice the signs of trauma, connect with all students, and support their journey. Bessel A. van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma shares four truths about trauma. I end this post with these powerful truths and know that I will be focusing on them more than ever during these difficult times.
Our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being.
Language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning.
We have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching.
We can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive.
Resources
Trauma Sensitive Schools Website https://traumasensitiveschools.org/
Working With Students Exposed to Trauma: What Trauma Can Look Like in the Classroom (and school) https://www.schoolonwheels.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Jody-mcVittie-Handouts.pdf
How Trauma Affects Kids in School: https://childmind.org/article/how-trauma-affects-kids-school/
Responding to Trauma in Your Classroom https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/spring-2016/responding-to-trauma-in-your-classroom
What is Trauma? https://dmh.mo.gov/healthykids/providers/trauma
Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
