Shifting to trauma-informed practices

"Being a safe person is the most important thing you can offer a child who has not experienced safety before."         
                                                                       Allison Edwards, LLC

In this information age, the students we serve are constantly bombarded with reminders of how unsafe this world is. In a typical school, it is likely that at least 40% of students have experienced some sort of childhood trauma (National Traumatic Child Stress Network). Prompted by this and the ever-increasing need for schools to provide social-emotional support for students, my district, Maury County Public Schools, began our 2nd semester with a Mental Health Summit for all faculty and staff. One speaker, Allison Edwards LLC, emphasized the importance of providing a safe place for students and gave practical ways to respond to students using trauma-informed practices. As I processed her presentation, I realized three shifts I should make as an educator. 

Instead of reacting to behaviors, be proactive about relationships...
If my first interaction with a student is in reaction to disruptive behavior, then I am going to be ill-equipped to respond in the best way. As an educator, I must be pro-active in relationship building. In the classroom, that might be achieved through morning check-ins, student conferences, and frequent personalized writing prompts. As an administrator, lunch duty can be an excellent time to engage in conversations with students. By being proactive with relationship building, I will have laid a foundation for more effective conversations when addressing disciplinary issues. 

Instead of assuming "defiant", recognize "flooded"...
In her presentation, Edwards explained that when the amygdala (the fear center of our brains) is activated, all of the blood rushes to that area from the parts of the brain that control thinking and learning.  Behaviors that might present as defiance could actually be a student in trauma. Many times, as a teacher, when a student refused to do work, I assumed he or she was just being disrespectful. I would then try to coerce the student into completing the assignment at that moment. I also remember insisting a student look me in the eye when I was talking and immediately explain his/her actions. My focus was in addressing the "what", the behavior that occurred, rather than the "why", what was motivating the behavior.  If I had known how the brain works, I would have perceived that the student's brain was "flooded" at the moment, and my course of action would have been to help the student transition into a more productive state before attempting to address the behavior. 

Instead of seeking a response, seek to reset...
Many times when addressing student behavior, I have pressed for a response from the student. A trauma-informed approach requires me to recognize the student's mind is in a flood state, and provide grace and space for him or her to reset. This could mean providing a quiet corner in the room that would provide sensory calming materials, or giving the student the opportunity to take a short walk. Edwards describes the process of resetting as going from uncooked spaghetti to cooked spaghetti. If a student is given time to reset, often a more transparent, productive conversation will follow.

All to often schools will include the words "safe" in their mission statements. They will establish protocols and procedures to insure that schools are physically safe, but we must be equally mindful of the emotional safety our schools provide. In our quest for effective instructional strategies, we must increase our knowledge of practices that address the social-emotional needs of the students we serve. We must provide them a safe place to grow. 

All tears have a purpose: the power of letting yourself and others feel

• "Why are you crying?" 
• "That's not worth crying over."
• "You're just too sensitive"
• "Why do you have to cry?"
• " Dry it up"!
• "Don't start that crying"

I've been on the receiving end of these phrases many times in my life. I'm a passionate expressive person. It's just how I'm wired. I cry when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm mad. I have tried every tactic you can think of to turn off my waterworks ---to make myself not feel. I've looked away, walked away, faked a smile, covered my face with a tissue pretending to blow my nose, but no matter how hard I try, my tears come and are easily detected.  I have uttered many apologies to people "I'm sorry I'm crying...."I hate that I cry when I am angry"..."Please forgive me for crying".  

One night a few years ago, my youngest son and I were piled up in my bed each reading our own book. Something in the book I was reading moved me and I started to cry. Johnny looked at me curiously, so I hurriedly wiped away the tears and said, "It's ok....it's ok...these aren't sad tears. This book just reminded me of some tough times I've grown through and that made me cry happy tears."  Johnny replied, "Mom, don't worry....all tears have a purpose" and then he went back to reading his Big Nate book.

I've reflected on the truth in his words for the last few weeks. All tears have a purpose...all feelings have a purpose, and if I approach the emotions of others and myself with acceptance and openness to learning, then they can lay the groundwork for serious growth.  

• Helping Children Regain their Emotional Safety after a Tragedy
• Emotional Support in a Crisis
• Creating an Emotionally Healthy Classroom Environment
• 20 Tips to Create a Safe Learning Environment

If you give a student a worksheet

Children's author, Laura Numeroff is famous for her "If you give..." series of children's books. Each one demonstrates the relationship between cause and effect.  Her books fabulously illustrate the practice of strategic thinking. There are obviously many factors to consider before giving a mouse a cookie or a pig a pancake. The same is true for educators ---there are many factors to consider when planning to give an assignment to students. What if a part of my planning was visualizing the outcome of the educational experience I am designing for my students? Would it change what I would do? What are the outcomes when I give a student a worksheet, or when I give my class a lecture....

If I give a student a worksheet:

• he will pick up a pencil and fill in the blanks or circle the best answer or perhaps write a short answer to surface level questions
• he will demonstrate compliance by completing the assignment and demonstrate memorization by answering correctly
• he will turn the worksheet in to me to grade
• once I grade and return the worksheet, he will look at the grade, shrug his shoulders and stuff the worksheet back in his binder
• at the end of the school year, he will take the worksheet and toss it in the recycle bin

But if I give a student a blank page:

• he will demonstrate his learning through drawing, writing, and designing his own explanation of his learning. 
• he will utilize critical thinking and creativity
• he will be able to explain his learning to his classmates and me 
• he will demonstrate not only compliance and memorization, but also application and understanding
• he will experience learning....deep learning.

If I give a student a lecture:

• she will demonstrate compliance by listening quietly as you talk
• she will be a receptacle for knowledge dispensed by me
• she will fill in a graphic organizer with words and thoughts given to her by me
• she will turn in the graphic organizer for me to grade
• once I grade and return the graphic organizer, she will look at the grade, shrug her shoulders, and stuff the organizer in her binder
• she will use the organizer to memorize the facts given to her by me for the test she will take
• at the end of the school year, she will take the graphic organizer and toss it in the recycle bin

But if the student gives me a presentation:

• she will demonstrate her learning verbally and visually; she will talk while I listen and respond
• she will explain her learning to her classmates and me
• she will be a dispenser of knowledge
• she will research and design a visual representation of her knowledge utilizing technology
• she will utilize critical thinking, decision making and creativity
• she will experience learning....deep learning.

Let's be real ----you and I are most likely products of a worksheet-laden, lecture-filled educational experience, and truthfully, you turned out just fine. So did I. After all, we are now rock star educators, but what we experienced does not align with what our students need. In an age when they are bombarded with information constantly ---information that may or may not be reliable--- they need to become experts at discernment, decision-making, and problem-solving. Worksheets and lectures may not be the best way to prepare them for their time (not our time) so we must invite them to be active participants in their education. 

Whenever possible, embrace and implement alternatives to the traditional worksheet or lecture, but if you just can't resist an occasional lapse consider these hacks for student engagement:

•  Infuse it with discussion. Add expectations to the worksheet requiring students to discuss with one another or explain items to the class. Provide opportunities within the lecture to turn and talk with those around you. 
• Allow students to re-design a worksheet. Have them upgrade a basic worksheet to one requiring more from the students. 
• Incorporate movement. With worksheets, cut them into strips and hang them on the wall around the room. It goes from completing ten items at your seat to visiting 5 stations where you complete items collaboratively with other students.  For lectures, allow for brain breaks where students stand and compare notes with students across the room. Give a strolling lecture, where you stage the lecture at different locations across the campus. While walking to the next stop, students review the previous information with one another. 

Read these articles to reflect more about the use of worksheets and lectures in the classroom. 

• Worksheet Curriculum, a blog post from ASCD
• Letting go of homework and worksheets from Mark Barnes
• How to build a dynamic lecture from Edutopia
• Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning Activities

To those who have been pushed off the path

In my quest to read Sixty Books this year, I've been reading Jinx by Sage Blackwood, the story of a young boy who is kidnapped from his home in the Urwald by a wizard. In the Urwald, Jinx had been taught to fear the unknown, never stray from the path and to stay at home. Some point later in his journey, he returns to the Urwald. Below is an encounter between himself and a girl named, Inga, who although she used to bully him as a child, does not recognize him at all:
       "You shouldn't go to a witch's house," said Inga. "You should stay home in your own clearing. It's dangerous to go places."
       "Even if you stick to the path," Jinx said.
        He was being sarcastic. It made him sad that Inga nodded in agreement. He couldn't believe that he'd once let himself be held facedown in a pigsty by a girl who was afraid to leave Gooseberry Clearing.
        Anyway, she wouldn't be able to do it to him now ----she was taller than him, but he bet he was stronger. 
        Except maybe he wouldn't have been strong if he'd been stuck here, subsisting on toad porridge and cabbage soup. And he wouldn't even be able to read! It was unthinkable. If he's stayed here, he wouldn't be himself. 
        Anyway, they hadn't wanted him. They'd made him leave the path. 
        And I never even thanked them, Jinx thought. 
  
      In the moment, when that person or those people in your life force you off your path, you are devastated. This was the path you chose, you thought you belonged, you even called it home. 
      At first, you fight to return to the path, to somehow work your way back into favor with those who pushed you off, but that's to no avail. There's no room for you on their path. 
      So you start looking for new paths, and although it takes awhile, you gradually find a place where you can be who you are meant to be, where you can grow. You're surprised to find that there are paths that don't lead to dead-ends ---where you are not pushed off the path for being too fast or too loud or too different or given fear-fueled directions to avoid unknown areas. There are places that exist to not only tend to the current path but to support you as you blaze new ones.  
      At that moment, you realize that while being pushed off the path was hurtful and wrong, it was also the best thing to ever happen to you. It made you wiser. It made you stronger. It freed you to be more you than you ever thought you could be with them. At last, you are able to turn to the ones who cast you off and say "Thank you for the push".

What learning should be

To create conditions optimum for learning, educators must understand how students learn. Hand in hand with nurturing a growth mindset is the understanding of the role of learning in our lives. Benjamin Barber, a political theorist, once observed, "I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the the successes and the failures. I divide the world into the learners and the non learners."

As educators, it is imperative to define for ourselves what learning should be. What educational practices are in the best interest of young learners and how can you best  bring those theories into practice? Here a few ideas:

• Learners should be challenged. Through differentiation and a teacher's understanding of her individual learners and grade level standards, each student should have assignments and assessments that are appropriately challenging requiring him to initially struggle, yet develop perseverance as he progresses toward mastery. Students should be asked to think critically, solve problems, and reflect. 
• Learners should be leaders. According to National Training Laboratories, students retain 90% of the material when they are required to present it or teach it to others (http://www.teachinontario.ca/employment/En/3b_strategies.html). In classrooms, opportunities should be given for students to present materials and instruct one another. When students are given the freedoms of choice and voice in the classroom, they learn. 
• Learners should be active. Learning is not a passive verb and learners are not merely spectators. Allow students to interact with one another and move away from the desk. Embrace the practice of small group activities that require students to actively learn through playing on the floor, competing in games, or participating in campus-wide scavenger hunts. 
• Learners should be creative. Give opportunities to create in different ways using technology, scientific experiments, visual and performing arts. Hands-on opportunities regularly enrich the learning experiences of students. 

Establishing what you believe about learning helps you be more intentional in both modeling and implementing these practices. 

That's not how I learned Math!

The following post was written by me for the Nashville Christian Elementary Blog in September, 2014.

"That's not how I learned Math"

Picture this "hypothetical" situation: You are sitting at the kitchen table with your fourth grader, and he is working on Math homework. He struggles with a problem and asks you for help. You read the directions and try to explain to him how you would solve the problem. Your son says, "But that's not how we did it in class". The gauntlet is thrown down, and for the next hour, you argue with him on how to solve the math problem. Finally, you give up, saying the words "Fine, do it that way! I give up!" and both of you end the evening stressed out.

This not-so-hypothetical situation happened to me a few years ago, and I found I was not alone when I posted on my Facebook page about the battle of long division. Mom after mom, and a few dads, echoed my frustrations.

It's painfully obvious to those of us raising children, that our educational experience was different than our children's, and it should be. The world has changed exponentially in the last few decades. From the way we gather, process, and communicate information to the way we complete day-to-day tasks, life is more complex and technical. Our list of basic skills needed to function in society has expanded, so it's no surprise that homework, and Math homework in particular, would be different and deeper.

Why has Math changed?
It hasn't, but in order to better prepare our students to function in a global, high-tech society, our approach to teaching Math has changed.  In the elementary school of my childhood, we developed a basic procedural knowledge of Math. We were given a recipe to follow. "This is how you do long-division. Follow the steps religiously and repeatedly without variation, and you will have the perfect answer each time." At school, we would practice and then for homework we would complete 50 of the same problem.  We understood the "what" and even the "how", but didn't do very much with the "why". Today, we are teaching math conceptually. The concept of "long division" is taught and students are given many methods to use in various situations to solve problems. They are asked to think not only about how to divide, but why the processes work and in which real-life situation they apply. Students are required not only to solve a problem but to be able to explain how they found their answer.

Why is this approach better?
In spite of the difficulty, this approach is in the best interest of our students. Research shows that students who are taught conceptually outperform students who merely learn and practice procedures. Additionally, by requiring more of our students, we are instilling in them qualities like grit, perseverance, and resilience.

How can I support my child as they learn Math?

• Learn the Language - With each new chapter, take a moment to learn the vocabulary words that accompany the math lesson. Before starting homework, look through your child's Math Journal or textbook. If that is unavailable,  use online resources likeMath.com to learn the meanings of words or You Tube which has many demonstration videos pertaining to math concepts. 
• Listen first - Before you tell your child how you learned to work a math problem, let him explain to you what he has learned, and believe them. Choose words wisely. Words like "That's not right" or "This makes no sense" tells your child that you don't trust him or the teacher. 
• Let it go - When you reach a stalemate over an assignment, let it go. Let your child do the assignment his way. He will either find out he was right, or have an opportunity to learn from a mistake. Either option is beneficial to his growth.  If you and your child have worked hard but just can't seem to figure out the assignment, communicate with the teacher by writing a note on the assignment or sending an email about the questions you had, and then put the assignment away. The teacher can then address the issue the next day. 
• Witness the struggle - As a parent, it can be tempting to want to protect our children from difficulties, but struggling is a natural and necessary part of life. Our brains are muscles and they need to work out and be challenged to develop. Grow comfortable with watching your child struggle. Encourage them to be persistent and not devastated when something is difficult. Share with them your academic struggles and how you overcame. 
• Proactively address areas of weakness - If your child chronically struggles with math, be open to providing tutoring and other supplemental support to help bridge the gap. If a child in elementary has not mastered math facts by 3rd or 4th grade, math will continue to be a struggle. Math facts are essential tools used in a variety of math concepts. Be aware of your child's strengths and weaknesses and form a plan to aggressively address the gaps. Assessment tools like STAR Math and TCAP scores can give indicators not only for our teachers to use to direct instruction, but also for parents to identify areas of need. Partner with the school to form an educational plan. 

RESOURCES:

• A Distinction between Conceptual Knowledge and Procedural Knowledge 
• Dr. Scoggin's Math Laboratory: What's wrong with the "old way" of teaching Math? It worked for me!
• PBS Parents: What's Singapore Math?

Extreme Homework Make-over for Secondary Students

I often hear from secondary educators that getting students to do homework is challenging. "The students just won't do it, so why bother assigning it." The focus in these conversations is typically on the students ----they are irresponsible, they are unmotivated, but I wonder if the problem could be in the actual assignments given. Perhaps students aren't doing homework because they don't see the relevance.  It doesn't inspire them. Maybe after a day of sitting at desks doing work, when they get home, the last thing they want to do is sit at a table and do more work. That being said, if students are going to succeed in college, they need to develop responsibility and study skills.  Completing independent assignments outside of class can spur that growth. How can we as educators inspire secondary students to extend their learning beyond the school day?

I recently read two blog posts about re-thinking the idea of homework:

• 5 Steps to Re-branding Homework by Tony Sinanis
• The best homework ever by Bethany Hill

I agree with Bethany Hill's suggestions for homework for elementary students, but it caused me to reflect on how these same principles could transfer into meaningful, engaging homework for Middle School and High School students while also preparing them for college. 

Some engaging variations on traditional homework at the secondary level could be:

• Free Writes and Free Reads - give students the choice of completing either a 15 minute time of free writing or free reading relevant to what you are studying and come prepared to share in class the next day. If necessary, provide a list of topics or articles, but give students the freedom to choose. 
• Interviewing a person or leading a family discussion about a reading passage or topic and then writing a blog post about it. 
• Having students plan a mini-lesson to teach students the next day. This can be particularly useful for vocabulary words. Every day a different student leads the class in reviewing concepts and terms relevant to your current topic of study or reviewing past units. 
• Complete a relevant service project.
• Watching videos, movies, or TV shows. 
• Students make a video demonstrating skills or re-enacting historic events. 
• Do research - Assign students a topic or concept you will be studying the next day. Ask them to spend 10 minutes researching and then be prepared to share at least 3 things they learned the next day. (Or make it FREESEARCH - students choose the topic to research and you choose the way they share the information through writing, presenting, etc.)
• Twitter Chat - have students participate with one another in a Twitter chat about the current topic of study. One person leads with questions, the others answer. They turn in the chat transcript to the teacher to review. 

Two wacky ideas I'd love to try:

• Make homework optional - Give assignments regularly, but let students know they can choose whether to complete it outside of class or inside of class. Students who choose to complete the homework spend the first part of class engaging in an interactive, energetic extension activity while those who did not do it, complete the assignment independently at their desks.  I wonder if eventually students would all choose to complete the assignments? 
• Establish a homework council. Meet with a panel of students weekly or monthly to plan homework for the upcoming unit of study. Students determine and even design the assignments. Each homework council member is assigned to a group of students. They provide accountability, encouragement and support to peers about completing assignments ---in essence, a study group or cohort. Rotate council membership every few weeks, so all students can participate. 

There are many who would like to just get rid of homework entirely. The problem is that type of drastic change can only work if it happens across the board (from college down to elementary). The better option is to work on developing homework strategies that are purposeful, engaging, and manageable by all. 

Other articles to consider:

• The Homework Debate: How Homework benefits Students
• The Case Against Homework
• Ending the Homework Debate: Expert Advice that Works
• Is Homework bad?