This book deconstructs and analyzes the impact of education-based trauma. Drawing on wisdom from the fields of education, psychology, neuroscience, history, political science, social justice, and philosophy, Gray connects the dots across different forms of education trauma that can occur throughout a student’s life: from bullying and anxiety to social inequity and the school-to-prison pipeline. With respect to learning, memory, social group dynamics, democracy, and mental health, this book serves as a call-to-arms, demanding civil rights for all students and for education to fulfill its ultimate duty as a force for the common good.

This timely manual presents a new perspective on teaching and learning focused on countering the impacts of trauma on adults’ ability to learn. Within its detailed and useful approaches, Daniels provides a road map for building a trauma-responsive teaching practice grounded in the principles of Trauma-Informed Care, and emphasizing the need for educators to develop a rigorous practice of self-care. Prison classrooms, in particular, demonstrate the intersectional and overlapping nature of systemic, historical, and individual traumatic experience. People who rediscover themselves as learners while in corrections classrooms have a unique and powerful perspective to bring to the work of ending mass incarceration, and the role of education and learning in that ending. The concepts and framework presented in the text aim to expand how we define "working with trauma." Through this redefinition, we better align teaching and learning as counters to the impacts of trauma. As this alignment transforms educational philosophy and practice, we have an opportunity to repurpose the nature of education itself, and shift toward learning how to learn. Although this book contains content specific to corrections educators, or those aspiring to teach in prisons, its concepts and activities are applicable to any environment or situation in which adults need to learn. Adult educators, front-line personnel in any public service role, librarians, legal professionals, judges, lawyers—all can benefit from the expertise shared in this book.

Educators must both respond to the impact of trauma, and prevent trauma at school. Trauma-informed initiatives tend to focus on the challenging behaviors of students and ascribe them to circumstances that students are facing outside of school. This approach ignores the reality that inequity itself causes trauma, and that schools often heighten inequities when implementing trauma-informed practices that are not based in educational equity. In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development. Using a framework of six principles for equity-centered trauma-informed education, Venet offers practical action steps that teachers and school leaders can take from any starting point, using the resources and influence at their disposal to make shifts in practice, pedagogy, and policy. Overthrowing inequitable systems is a process, not an overnight change. But transformation is possible when educators work together, and teachers can do more than they realize from within their own classrooms.

Trauma in Adult and Higher Education: Conversations and Critical Reflections invites readers to think deeply about the experiences of trauma they witness in and outside of the classroom, because trauma alters adult learners' experience by disrupting identity, and interfering with memory, relationships and creativity. Through essays, narratives, and cultural critiques, the reader is invited to rethink education as more than upskilling and content mastery; education is a space where dialogue has the potential to unlock an individual’s sense of power and self-mastery that enables them to make sense of violence, tragedy and trauma. Trauma in Adult and Higher Education: Conversations and Critical Reflections reveals the lived experiences of educators struggling to integrate those who have experienced trauma into their classrooms - whether this is in prison, a yoga class, or higher education. As discourses and programming to support diversity intensifies, it is central that educators acknowledge and respond to the realities of the students before them. Advocates of traumasensitive curriculum acknowledge that trauma shows up as a result of the disproportionate amount of violence and persistent insecurity that specific groups face. Race, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and immigration are all factors that expose individuals to higher levels of potential trauma. Trauma has changed the conversations about what education is, and how it should happen. These conversations are resulting in new approaches to teaching and learning that address the lived experiences of pain and trauma that our adult learners bring into the classroom, and the workforce. This collection includes a discussion of salient implications and practices for adult and higher education administrators and faculty who desire to create an environment that includes individuals who have experienced trauma, and perhaps prevents the cycle of violence.

Huge numbers of our students are caught in storms of trauma—whether stemming from abuse, homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violent neighborhoods, or fears of school shootings or family deportations. This practical book focuses on actions that teachers can take to facilitate learning for these students. Identifying positive, connected teacher–student relationships as foundational, the authors offer direction for creating an emotionally safe classroom environment in which students find a refuge from trauma and a space in which to process events. The text shows how social and emotional learning can be woven into the school day; how literacies can be used to help students see a path through challenges; how to empower learners through debate, civic action, and service learning; and how to use the vital nature of the school community as an agent of change. This book will serve as a roadmap for creating uniformly consistent and excellent classrooms and schools that better serve children who experience trauma in their lives. Book Features: Makes a clear case for the need and responsibility of schools to equip students with tools to learn despite the trauma in their lives. Shows practical classroom instructional and curricular interactions that address trauma while advancing student academic learning. Uses literacy and civic action as pathways to empowerment. Provides a method and tools for developing a coherent plan for creating a trauma-sensitive school.

Growing evidence supports the important relationship between trauma and academic failure. Along with the failure of “zero tolerance” policies to resolve issues of school safety and a new understanding of children’s disruptive behavior, educators are changing the way they view children’s academic and social problems. In response, the trauma-sensitive schools movement presents a new vision for promoting children’s success. This book introduces this promising approach and provides K–5 education professionals with clear explanations of current research and dozens of practical, creative ideas to help them. Integrating research on children’s neurodevelopment and educational best practices, this important book will build the capacity of teachers and school administrators to successfully manage the behavior of children with symptoms of complex developmental trauma. “Kudos! Susan Craig has done it again. After Reaching and Teaching Children Who Hurt, she has written a book that will help administrators and educators truly make schoolwide trauma sensitivity a regular part of the way their schools are run. A major contribution to education reform.” —Susan Cole, director, Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, Massachusetts Advocates for Children, and Harvard Law School. “Dr. Craig’s message is clear that promoting self-reflection, self-regulation and integration gives traumatized children the chance at learning that they’re not getting in traditional approaches. And she bravely points out that it’s critical for teachers to recognize the toll that this emotional work can take and the need for self-care. Being mindful of both the importance of trauma sensitive systems and the enormity of the task of helping vulnerable children build resilience is so critical for everyone working with and caring for our children.” —Julie Beem, MBA, Executive Director of the Attachment & Trauma Network, Inc.

Teachers in schools where students have experienced trauma face particularly difficult challenges, for how is a teacher to promote academic growth and attainment of educational goals in such a situation? Provides advice, understanding, and proven strategies for meeting the challenges that must be faced after a traumatic experience.