In the past few years, there has been an explosion of schools starting to implement trauma-informed educational practices. Public schools across the country are learning about how trauma impacts kids and their learning, and adjusting their classroom practices and school policy to be responsive.

I keep seeing this image, or versions of it, pop up on Twitter and Facebook, especially in trauma-informed education circles. “Students who are loved come to school to learn, and students who aren’t, come to school to be loved.”

As teachers, we are told not to push our politics on students, and not to use our classrooms to further our own agendas. Be neutral. We are told to be role models, to stay positive. Don’t focus on the negative.

Paul Gorski has a new article out called Avoiding Racial Equity Detours. If you are interested in trauma-informed education or consider yourself a trauma-informed teacher, this is a must-read. Trauma is not the focus of the article as a whole, but he touches on trauma-informed education in his discussion of the “Deficit Ideology Detour.” Shawn Ginwright’s piece on Healing-Centered Engagement is an excellent paired text to Gorski’s work. I highly recommend reading both pieces and considering what they mean for your work, and how we might all work together to ensure a trauma-informed lens isn’t just another deficit-based buzzword.

Last week, Educational Considerations published a new issue of their journal with the theme “Dear Teacher: Children and Trauma.” I have an article in this issue discussing boundaries and role-clarity for teachers in trauma-informed schools. Head over to Educational Considerations to check out my article and the rest of the excellent pieces in this issue.

My colleague Emily recently asked me about how to build more trauma-informed college classrooms. Emily and I both teach at a community college, and trauma-informed classroom environments couldn’t be more essential in this setting. While we certainly don’t ask for or collect any data about our students’ experience of trauma, I can infer that a large percentage of our student population has survived adverse experiences. In a typical semester, my class includes:

I love this question because it gets at the critical intersection between unconditional positive regard and pedagogy. Let’s look at how we can approach this situation with a combination of high expectations and centering humanity:

Trauma-informed teachers need trauma-informed school leaders.

“Hi! I’m a high school student teacher, just starting to build relationships with my kids. Over the weekend, a student’s father passed away. Her best friend is in my class, and was visibly upset yesterday. Tips on not wanting to pry, but show support?”

I’m trying out a new type of blog post! In these posts I’ll briefly answer a question from a reader, friend, or colleague on trauma-informed teaching and challenging student behavior. If you want to submit your own question, email me at Alex@UnconditionalLearning.org or tweet me at @AlexSVenet. I’ll be posting three or four of these over the next week – comment below with any feedback and if you’d like to see more of these!

I was lucky enough to start my career at a school that was trauma-informed from the ground up. Mental health counseling is part of the school’s mission, so every decision was made with that in mind. Because it was my first post-college job, this became normal. I only started to realize how not-normal this orientation was when I started grad school, and soon after, began attending education conferences.

A trauma-informed teacher should encourage non-compliance from her students.

“When school shootings happen, why don’t we talk about it?”

This is the story of why I won’t recommend that you do yoga.