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Trauma-Sensitivity for Teachers

Emily Bullard

Dr. Love

EDEC 4010

December 4, 2018
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As educators, it is our responsibility to take into consideration not just the academic

needs of a child, but also their emotional needs as well. When a student walks into the classroom,

they carry a unique set of experiences that unfortunately, may very likely include some form of

trauma. According to the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (n.d), “trauma is not an event

itself, but rather a response to one or more overwhelming stressful events where one’s ability to

cope is drastically undermined. These experiences in childhood can lead to a cascade of social,

emotional, and academic difficulties”. These experiences are not limited to a small portion of the

population, but rather shockingly over 50% of adults surveyed in the Adverse Childhood

Experiences study reported one or more forms of childhood adversity (TLPI, n.d.). With that

said, this issue has become widespread in our country and educators must expect that these

experiences will undoubtedly affect student performance academically, as well as their social

and emotional growth.

The first component of addressing the needs of a student facing any form of trauma is

creating a school environment where they feel safe. This begins with the teacher acting as a role

model for positive, affirming behavior and active listening. Children need trusted adults to

confide in, especially when they may have been trained to have a distrust of many. Educators

modeling this behavior also can help other students in the classroom to learn to be a person that

someone can trust and feel cared for by. Creating this environment in which students feel safe

and respected by not only the teacher, but also by their peers, is the first step to breaking through

the trauma that they have faced.

Another factor to consider is that educators need to take these students’ experiences into

account in regards to academics and discipline as well when considering accomodations.

Students experiencing trauma are largely identified as struggling academically and behaviorally.
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Rather than writing these students off as many teachers unfortunately do, these signs need to be

seen as warning flags. Students are often mislabeled as the “bad eggs” when their acting out may

be a result of outside factors. Rather than writing a student up for an outburst of assuming that

their late work is out of laziness, educators have to dig deeper to discover environmental factors

that may be coming in to play such as poverty, abuse, or mental health issues. While these

factors do not always correlate, academic performance and behavioral issues typically exhibit

due to an underlying cause, which may be trauma.

This attitude of trauma awareness and sensitivity not only needs to be adopted by all

educators however, but by other members of the school community as well. A school district in

San Antonio recently made the news by implementing a program in which not only educators,

but all school personnel were trained in trauma sensitivity. Because of this initiative, a student

having thoughts of self-harm was able to be helped when a bus driver noticed strange behavior

and reported it to the counselor (Torralva 2018). By having eyes and ears in all facets of the

school, we are less likely to miss signs of distress amongst students and more able to better

identify those that need help. Creating a protocol for schools that not only trains members of the

school community to be looking for signs of trauma and distress, but then how to respond

accordingly is a movement that is beginning to spread, as seen in San Antonio, in response to the

needs of students. With a proper course of action communicated to all staff, less students would

be able to fall through the cracks.

As a part of continuing to become more responsive to trauma experienced by students,

educators must take on the role of life-long learners and stay up to date on related research in

order to be able to adapt to the needs of our students. Resources on how to develop responsive

schools and classrooms are becoming more and more available on the internet given the rising
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apparent need of students. This is vital because helping students who have or are experiencing

trauma is an everchanging battle and cannot be done overnight. As expressed by Jim Parry

(2018) of the Stewartville Public Schools’ REACH Program, “being trauma informed is not a

temporary fix. So if we’re working with a student that has had 15 years of chaos in their lives,

we’re not going to be able to take that away in 1 semester. Biggest thing that schools need to be

aware of is that they need to have patience, they have to think long term”. Schools and teachers

have to work together to create plans that adapt to the ongoing needs of students in this climate,

thinking long-term rather than a quick fix. With this in mind, continued gains can be made for

students to succeed more without being held back by the traumas they have experienced.
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Resources

Johnson, A. (2018, November 2). Educators collaborate on trauma-informed education.

Retrieved from https://www.kimt.com/content/news/Educators-collaborate-on-trauma-

informed-education-499461321.html

Torralva, K. (2018, September 03). A school district's response to student trauma now is model

for S.A. Retrieved from https://www.expressnews.com/news/education/article/A-school-

district-s-response-to-student-trauma-13194107.php

Trauma-Sensitive Schools: A Whole-School Approach. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://traumasensitiveschools.org/