I’ve really struggled this fall. There have been so many behaviors and experiences that I simply have not seen to this magnitude in the past. Practices and approaches that have been my tried-and-true choices, simply didn’t seem to work, and I found myself becoming easily frustrated with students and situations that would not have normally phased me.
I have come to realize a few things in the last month or so of the trimester. First, I let the outliers dictate my general perception of things. For example, the two or three extreme resistors in each of my classes left me with the general sense that everyone was doing poorly, when in fact, that was not the case. In fact, I discovered that based on the data my students did extremely well this trimester. So while I felt like things were going terribly, the data suggests that generally speaking, people were doing better than average.
Still, that was little comfort. I found myself confronted numerous times by unfamiliar situations. I saw an increase in young people who physically could not prevent themselves from putting down their devices. For the first time ever, I had five students across the day who were incapable of any verbal communication for days or even weeks at a time. And I had at least three students who simply could not stay in class. On any given day, they just stand up and walk out.
My first response was to treat these as bad behaviors and to take direct action to call out or confront these choices, in the hopes that with time and discipline, students would come around. But then, as I began communicating more with the families, counselors, and liaisons, I began to realize that these behaviors were merely the tip of a huge iceberg. I felt a bit corrected in the sense that my first response was to believe that the students were just being naughty, and that they needed to make better decisions. (And to be clear, for a few of them, that was truly the case.) But for nearly everyone of my students who demonstrated one of the extreme behaviors, I discovered that they were coming through some pretty awful trauma.
Now I say this with some measured trepidation because it isn’t productive to assume that every bad behavior is the result of traumatic experience. However, it is probably safe to say that we are coming through an unprecedented time when young people have been confined to spaces where things have not always been safe, where they have not had access to mental health or social services or where their families have suffered under the strain of so many intersecting crises all at once.
As I came through this, I struggled with separating out a few conflicting emotions. I wanted to show compassion and understanding without becoming permissive and ineffectual. I wanted to uphold high expectations in addition to acknowledging the realities of what this young person might be facing. And I wanted to show grace and patience without feeling as though everyone was walking all over me.
So I have embarked on a two part solution. The first was to take care of myself. I realize that the emotional and mental demands of teaching today require more than they have in the past. Each day, I have to show up with my best self. I have had to recommit to the basics: getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, reflecting / praying / meditating, and setting boundaries to my work day.
The second part of the solution is developing my trauma informed instruction toolbox. I had to admit that some of these behaviors are simply new to me and that I needed to learn more about approaches that can address the needs of students who have been traumatized. There are a number of good resources, but perhaps the best entry point is ASCD’s Trauma Informed Teaching Strategies article from October 2019. It provides both a structural framework to help you think about trauma, as well as some meaningful practices to bring back to your classroom. Here are a few practices I have started to use.
Scaffolding: Students who have experienced trauma find it really difficult to stay focused. Tasks that we might not normally think of as overly complicated, suddenly feel quite daunting to those who are struggling. Scaffolds are structures we put in place to help students complete tasks. Graphic organizers, sentence starters, even listing things in a series of steps are all helpful scaffolds to getting students to complete challenging tasks even when their attention might be divided.
Redundancy: Another approach is to build in certain redundancies to account for people who -- again-- are easily distracted by things going on in their heads. Building redundancies means that for every task, it will be good to say it orally, to have it written out, and in some cases, to speak with the individual one-on-one. (I have one person in particular who simply doesn’t process information when it is delivered to an entire group. He needs me to stop by his desk to talk it through.)
Consistency: Providing an environment where the student has some sense of routine and regularity is important. Students who have been traumatized also need teachers who can be a steady and consistent presence. More often than not, this translates to staying calm-- even when it feels like the student is spiralling out of control. At the root of all this is establishing a relationship with the student where the student has a sense of trust and feels safe.
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