Student trauma

My teaching isn’t perfect, my family was not perfect, and, as far a personal development, I have a long way to go. So why am I supposed to pretend otherwise when I step in front of impressionable teenagers who are looking at me to model what it is to be a human in the world?

I don’t know about you, but on the one day my principal steps into my classroom to evaluate me during during fall semester, it is easy enough to trot out a tried-and-true, dog-and-pony-show. Observation days never reflect the real shit-shows that can go down at any moment when a lesson goes south due to…anything: A sleepy, surly class, a projector not working, the copier not working, the internet down, my brain dulled from a baby up all night and not enough sleep…Anything.

Whomever made up the model for evaluating teachers clearly wasn’t anyone familiar with teaching. A students’ progress cannot be measured by a single test, and a teachers’ efficacy in the classroom cannot be measured by two observations a year. Principals are looking for perfection, and perfectionism doesn’t belong in the classroom. Brene Brown describes perfectionism as: “… the 20 lb. shield. It doesn’t protect us from being hurt, it protects us from being seen.” It also prevents us from being human with one another. It prevents us from connecting.

Perfectionism in the classroom prevents students from being able to connect to each other and to their teacher. Not only are teachers trying to keep up an image, but students are desperately trying to fit into a mold that only exists as a social construct. They want to appear cool, attractive, intelligent, and all of the other status markers that are so important when your identity is being formed in the midst of being judged by your peers. Teenagers don’t know that having all of those characteristics is not only unrealistic, it’s not even human.

We are born into imperfect bodies, imperfect families, and imperfect communities…by design. When teachers can’t be safely vulnerable with their students, they give off the impression that to err in any way (in class, in your past, with friends, etc.) is so shameful that we don’t even talk about it. How then can teens make sense of families that have human dysfunction: Alcoholism, neglect, verbal and physical abuse, mental illness? The list goes on and on. We’ll have to hide those too.

I wrote in my last blog about students who hide their trauma in plain sight. How close can those students feel to a teacher who keeps up a front of perfection or cannot reveal any vulnerable event from the teacher’s own past?

I wish I had learned about the power of vulnerability in the classroom at the continuation schools, but it was at a high-achieving high school when I tried out vulnerability and was shocked at the results. Here was a school with parents who were lawyers, doctors, and engineers. Students at this school lacked for nothing and had every privilege afforded to the ultra wealthy….and these kids were falling apart.

Because my teaching assignment included culture and identity in literature, for the first time in my teaching career, I decided to share my identity and culture with the class. I told them early on about my bipolar dad, my fear of him, and the fact that I wish I had told an adult about it when I was in high school. All of this without details that might trigger students and without a poor-me-look-at-me attitude: Much like I might summarize something for a much younger audience. Combined with specialized ice breakers and prompts designed to bring the class together, I had more students reveal crises and traumas to me than in the last 12 years working with high-trauma populations.

Everyone is looking for connection, Brene Brown tells us. It is as vital as food, water, and shelter. We can’t be connected if we are putting up false images of ourselves. Besides, it’s way more interesting to see how we are similar in our humanity and reach out to each other for help than it is to pretend we are islands of perfection. I referred so many more students for counseling when I gave up the idea that the teacher should be perfect and started modeling for students, in a guided, safe way, that to err is human: Every family, every community, and every person is flawed and we are all working on our humanity–why not do it together?

Contact me at JessieDorinCoaching@gmail.com to have me come to your school to speak about vulnerability and hidden student trauma in the classroom.

If a tree falls in the woods…no, wait. If a student experiences a traumatic event but no adult authority figure acknowledges it, does that event have adverse affects? Always, the research says.

And that has been my experience too.

The ACEs study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) has documented that traumas in childhood predictably alter the quality of a person’s life later on (increased risks for major diseases, cancer, substance abuse, and other self-harming behaviors). Most people have at least a score of 1 on the ACEs scale of 1–10. Divorce, for example, counts as 1. After 6 ACEs, your life expectancy decreases.

Rut -roh.

Unless…

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its’ own way, so Tolstoy tells us in Anna Karenina. For 12 years, I worked in a last-chance high school full of students who wore trauma around their necks in the form of placards of friends and family killed. Some students even etched their trauma into their DNA–tattooed reminders of loved ones gone. These were clues in plain sight. No detective work required. Still, for too many of those years, I lumped traumas together (family member out of the picture, a friend killed, a major illness in the family) and avoided asking about personal specifics.

But unhappiness, as Tolstoy reminds us, is always personal.

I didn’t ask about the tattoos, thinking it better if I didn’t remind students of people gone, sadness in their pasts. Only, RIP tattoos are there because someone wanted to etch a heartache into their DNA, making visible a person who is absent.

Trauma overwhelm is real and it prevents teachers from asking about students’ pasts. What I needed to say was, “Tell me about the person whose picture is around your neck. What were they like?” or “Your mom died. That’s so sad. Tell me about her.” Trauma is personal and no two traumas are alike. Addressing trauma is the least a teacher can do, and I should have known that.

The reason I should have known that is because I was that kid. I lived in fear of my bipolar dad. In high school, my dad was arrested at my brother’s ballgame for harassing my stepdad. In front of what felt like half my school. I started leaving school early several times a week. My grades dropped. On the softball field, I went from team MVP shortstop to a player who couldn’t catch any ball in right field. Trauma in plain sight. But no one wanted to embarrass me by saying something.

I saw my counselor when she called me in to ask about my future aspirations. I could tell she didn’t know me at all–we’d only met once before. I got decent grades and wasn’t a behavior issue. She didn’t ask about my home life, and I wouldn’t have told her anything if she had. She did ask what I wanted to be. I said a fireman or astronaut because they were sarcastic cliches. She wrote them down and didn’t ask questions.

After 6 ACEs, your life expectancy decreases. Rut -roh.

Unless…The one factor that can mitigate the devastating effects of childhood trauma includes one caring adult. On a Friday during my sophomore year of high school, I was in Dr. Wendell’s science class, crying behind my hair. He saw me and handed me a tissue. On Monday, he said, “I was thinking about you. I was worried.” And I rejoined humanity.

That was everything, and that is least a teacher can can do. Because teachers are the people students see most often. Teachers are the people students look to as the authority figures when their parents are not there. That’s why teachers are the first responders, the detectives at the scene. When clues are there, ask about them. Someone could have asked me, “Jessie, tell me about your dad getting arrested at the ballgame.” It’s not nosey. It’s caring. I was thinking about it anyway. When you talk about it, you make it not shameful anymore.

I didn’t recognize my trauma overwhelm until a female student, a girl who’d had wild mood swings in class, stayed with me one afternoon finishing an assignment. I’d asked her to describe an important moment in her past. She wrote about when her mom died from cancer, how her dad didn’t know what to do, and how her teachers didn’t talk to her about it. It was then that she started acting out. The next year, her brother was shot and killed. She changed schools and started getting in trouble, and still, no one asked her what was wrong. No one at her new school knew her past. No one was playing detective. No one allowed her to share that her mom had died, giving her a chance to have a caring adult acknowledge that it was so, so sad. And her brother had died. And that was a whole different kind of sad. We talked about it as she wrote out her story, and her behavior in school improved dramatically.

Signs of Trauma: Trauma is there in plain sight in students who act out, students who drastically alter their appearance, students who come to class on mind-altering substances, those who cut, those who cut class, and those who suddenly change demeanor.

I never push students to tell me information when they are unwilling. I think of it as dropping a line without a hook: I’m just seeing if the fish has been waiting there, wanting to bite, and has never been given a chance. I use non-invasive, content appropriate prompts for students to share about themselves, structure the shares so that students can reveal a safe amount to their classmates and more to me if they want to. My workshop on trauma has worksheets and guidelines for safe prompts and teacher-led student sharing.

I always refer students to the school’s counselor, citing my concerns. I also tell the student that I have referred them for counseling, generally with the fear-calming, “I am starting the process of referring all of my students for counseling, just to check in more often with your counselor. Counselors are great people to talk to.”

When a student’s behavior is puzzling or concerning, I will often call home. I call because email isn’t appropriate for real concern. I also call because not all parents respond to email. Oh, and over the years, I’ve also come to understand that the way I was taught to make phone calls is…well…rude. I started out making phone calls by first ascertaining whether I was speaking to the right person. Parent: Hello? Me: Hi, is this ____’s mom?” Parent: “Who is this?”

Let me try this again.

“Hi, my name is Jessie Dorin and I’m ____’s teacher at ____ High School. Are you her mom?” When I get an affirmative, then I express my concern. I say clearly that I’m not a counselor, that I have referred the student to a counselor, but I also wanted to keep the parent in the loop. If it is something that the student denies (bulimia, substance abuse, etc.), I say that I may be wrong, but the student is important to me and I still wanted to let the parent know why I was suspicious in the first place. I’ve never had a parent get upset with that.

Let me be clear: This is not a “poor behavior” call. Parents know the difference between a behavior complaint and real concern for a student’s health and welfare.

So do students. We model care, compassion, and what it looks like to be brave and ask the uncomfortable questions that bring the hurt into the light where it can start to heal. Teachers rock like that.

To have me speak at your school about combating visible and hidden student trauma, email me at: JessieDorinCoaching@gmail.com

Take the ACEs Quiz

The Gifts of Imperfection in the Classroom

In Plain Sight: What We Miss When Talking About Student Trauma