From the Chronicle of Evidence-based Mentoring, edited by Jean Rhodes June 14, 2014
Recently, I reported on the damaging effects that prolonged
stress can have on young children who lack adequate protection from adults.
Over the past 15 years, researchers have learned that highly stressful — and potentially traumatic —
childhood experiences are more prevalent than previously understood. Now
scientists are shedding light on the mechanisms by which they change the brain
and body. These insights have
far-reaching implications for schools, where it’s still standard practice to
punish children for misbehavior that they often do
not know how to control.
This is comparable to punishing a child for having a seizure; it adds to the
suffering and makes matters worse.
What good are the best
teachers or schools if the most vulnerable kids feel so unsafe that they are
unavailable to learn?
Thankfully, some places
are getting smarter. “The hot spots in education are Massachusetts
and Washington State,” explains
Jane Stevens, a health and science journalist who edits ACES Too High, an excellent website containing a wealth of information about
“adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs) and the effects of stress and trauma on
children. “Educators understand that the behavior of children who act out is
not willful or defiant, but is in fact a normal response to toxic stress. And
the way to help children is to create an environment in which they feel safe
and can build resilience.”
This is not a small
issue in education. A great many students come to school with emotional and
behavioral difficulties that pose serious barriers to their learning. In a
study (pdf) of 2,100 elementary students in 10 schools
in Spokane, Wash., for example, researchers from Washington State University found
that more than 20 percent had two or more ACEs (experiences that include having
been homeless, witnessing domestic violence or having a parent who uses drugs
or is incarcerated). Compared with children with no known stresses, these kids
are two to four times more likely to have problems with attendance, behavior,
academics and health. As the number of ACEs increase, the students fare
considerably worse on all counts.
“When kids have
undergone a lot of adversity, it changes how they respond to people and
challenges in their environment, including very simple things that we might not
think about — like how many transitions you ask them to do before lunch,”
explains Chris Blodgett, a clinical psychologist who directs the CLEAR Trauma
Center at Washington State University(pdf).
“For traumatized people, changes are encoded largely as danger.”
When a child violates
rules or expectations, the standard response is to try to reason with the child
or use punishment, he added. “What the science tells us about how stressed
brains react to change, loss or threat is that children will often violate
rules because they feel profoundly out of control. It’s a survival reaction and
it may actually be intended to control the situation.”
What good are the best
teachers or schools if the most vulnerable kids feel so unsafe that they are
unavailable to learn? How far can education reforms take us when schools can’t
manage the behavior problems of many early graders or preschoolers — as
indicated by the crisis of schoolsuspensions and preschool
expulsions? (Suspension rates
have risen dramatically since the 1970s, particularly among
minority children.)
Blodgett and his
colleagues have been helping educators in 20 schools across Washington to make
use of the emerging research on trauma. One of their partners is the Whitman
Elementary School, in Spokane. “We serve a high impact population with lots of
needs,” explained Beverly Lund, the school’s principal. “We started dabbling
with the idea of learning about trauma, and the more we got into it, the more
we realized we had to significantly change the way we’re relating to kids.”
To do it well meant
making sure that everyone in the school community — teachers, cafeteria
workers, playground monitors, office staff, even bus drivers — understood the
effects of trauma on children, Lund said. It meant helping teachers move away
from reflexive discipline and toward responses that help kids learn how to calm
themselves.
“This week we had a
little guy in second grade who had a horrible tantrum,” recalled Lund, who has
been a principal for 25 years. “He hit his teacher, took a swing at me and
threw my stuffed animals all around my office. I said: ‘Wow, you look like
you’re really upset. Would you like that stuffed animal?’ ‘No!’ But he pulled
the animals around himself and took a nap.”
Lund was familiar with
the child’s family circumstances and the likely causes of his behavior. “In the
past, I would have called the parent,” she said. “But it can be more
traumatizing for kids to be picked up from school.” And it’s important for kids
to learn that they can pull themselves together and get back to learning.
“These kids best hope is to get a good education, so we want them in the
classroom, and we want them to trust us.”
Blodgett is now
conducting an impact study of the CLEAR Center’s work with schools which will
be made public in the spring. Participating schools report significant
decreases in office referrals and suspensions, and teachers report increases in
both their morale and sense of efficacy dealing with vulnerable kids.
Across the country, in
Brockton, Mass., just south of Boston, the process and experience have been
similar. Six years ago at the Angelo Elementary School, the principal Ryan
Powers and the assistant principal Elizabeth Barry connected with the Trauma and Learning
Policy Initiative (T.L.P.I.), a
collaboration of Massachusetts Advocates for Children and Harvard Law School,
to learn how they could improve their interactions with students. They
encouraged teachers to read T.L.P.I.’s book “Helping
Traumatized Children Learn,”
which has been downloaded 50,000 times. (The follow-up book, “Creating
and Advocating for Trauma-Sensitive Schools,” is being released this week.).
Powers began by
organizing a Saturday workshop so the school staff could learn about childhood
trauma. One of the presenters was Edward G. Jacoubs, from the Plymouth County
district attorney’s office. “There was a jaw dropping moment when Ed overlayed
the map of the Brockton School District with maps of gun violence and drug
offenses,” recalled Powers. “Everyone realized, ‘Wow, this is what our kids are
seeing,’ and the staff asked, ‘What can we do?’”
They formed a team,
dove into the research, assessed their current responses, and began
implementing changes in line with the recommendations. “We created choices in
the classroom for kids if they felt their emotions were starting to get the
best of them,” Powers said. “They could put on headphones, listen to some
classical music, sit on a bean bag chair, take a break, go for a walk.”
Teachers started paying more attention to the way they spoke to children. They
began the day by greeting every child — by name or a handshake or a touch on
the shoulder. They made the first morning session to be about about community
building. They made efforts to reduce the number of transitions and communicate
clearly, so changes would be predictable.
“This is about
changing the whole school environment,” explained Susan Cole, a former special
education teacher who directs the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative. “You
can have a great trauma-sensitive classroom, but if the child goes into the
hall or cafeteria and gets yelled at, he can get retriggered. It’s about
creating a common context that keeps kids feeling safe.”
It’s also about helping
teachers to understand the learning obstacles faced by children who have
experienced severe stress. “When you come from a home that is very
disorganized, sequence and cause and effect can be thrown off,” explained Cole.
“This affects language development, memory and concentration. When teachers
recognize this, it comes as a relief. Finally the scientists are explaining
what they’ve seen firsthand! But it’s also a tender moment. The question is:
‘What do I do?’”
One big thing is to
help children become aware of their bodies, said Emily Cooley, a
special-education teacher who works with Powers at his new position as
principal of the Mary E. Baker Elementary School in Brockton. “One of my
students has three pictures on his desk: a mail box, a snack and a bean bag
chair. If this boy is not feeling in his body that he can be in class, he knows
he can pick up one of the pictures and go get my mail in the office, get a
crunchy snack, or take a break in the bean bag chair.” (Bean bag chairs and
bubbles seem to be particularly helpful to young kids.)
“It’s not to avoid
tasks,” she added. “It’s so he can calm himself and be here physically and
mentally — so we can work on the academics. Little things like this can really
have a big impact on children.”
Elizabeth Barry, who
is now the executive director of K-8 learning and teaching for the Brockton
school district, says the changes have significantly improved learning time and
school climate. At the Baker school, after two years, office referrals are down
75 percent from the baseline. “That’s the number that I find most meaningful,”
she said. “When teachers are less inclined to send a child to the
office, it speaks to their capacity and commitment to support all children
socially, emotionally, behaviorally and academically.”
These ideas are
beginning to take hold, but practice still lags well behind knowledge. The
Massachusetts state legislature is now reviewing a bill that would require all schools in the
state to create “safe and supportive” environments (pdf) drawing on trauma research. In other parts
of the country, there are notable bright spots. The Crittenton Children’s
Center, based in Kansas City, Mo., has shown impressive
results with its Head
Start — Trauma Smart program, which
is expanding in Missouri and Kansas. In Philadelphia, the Institute for Safe
Families has launched a citywide task force to focus on responses
to trauma in pediatric settings. Jane Stevens has tracked interesting developments in San
Diego and Tarpon
Springs, Fla., and other
places. I’ll be be revisiting this story (and reporting on the Head Start
example above, which is particularly compelling) – so please send in any
recommendations you have for follow up.
Making sure that
schools and other social services are sensitized in these ways is not just
about assisting those children who have endured extreme stress. It’s not just
about helping them get through school, either. It’s about taking care of
everyone. Just as we send a powerful message about our values when we make
accommodations for people with disabilities, schools send powerful messages by
the way they treat children whose behavior falls outside the normal bounds.
They can mete out punishment in ways that reinforce judgments and hierarchies
and perpetuate crises – or respond by deepening the understanding about others
and building supportive communities.
This isn’t soft-headed
thinking; it’s the only approach that makes any sense.
David Bornstein is the author of “How
to Change the World,”
which has been published in 20 languages, and “The
Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is co-author of “Social
Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.” He is a co-founder of the Solutions Journalism
Network, which supports
rigorous reporting about responses to social problems.
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