Trauma-informed curriculums promote resilience in classrooms. Childhood trauma may present in different ways, including inherited and vicarious trauma. It may create unmet needs and the requirement for individualized education. The tools to ensure successful learning are backed by trauma-informed teaching practices, leading to the design of trauma-sensitive schools.
Geography: Global; Focus Area: Trauma-informed curriculums and trauma-sensitive schools
Trauma-informed curriculums initiate healing mechanisms in classrooms to restore behavioral responses, nurture learners, and promote resilience. Trauma exposure in students may adversely influence academic performance and lead to aggressive behavior. It may lead to power imbalance and hypervigilance within classrooms, suspension and engagement with the criminal justice system, and may also lower life quality and life expectancy. Chronic stress manifests in several forms including oppositional behavior, separation anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and suicide ideation. (Weinsteiger Guzman, 2023) explains how trauma-informed care leads to trauma-informed curriculum and trauma-sensitive schools.
Key Elements for Trauma-Sensitive Schools: Inherited and Vicarious Trauma, Trauma-Informed Teaching, Trauma-Informed Curriculum, Trauma-Informed Interventions, and Individualized Education Programs
Trauma during childhood is endemic, with the CDC reporting one in seven children experiencing neglect or abuse during the previous year (2022 data).
- Adverse childhood events lead to toxic stress and harm the developing brain of the child, and therefore, the overall health.
- Traumas manifest in many forms such as detachment, rage, people-pleasing attitude, or perfectionism.
- Trauma exposure lowers performance in reading, math, and science and raises the chances of an individualized education program (IEP) three-fold.
- Children may not necessarily experience directly, but may have witnessed trauma or have biological parents exposed to trauma, which may manifest as vicarious or intergenerational trauma in learners.
- The endemic nature of trauma during childhood requires interventions. Trauma-informed interventions are strength-based approaches with compassionate interaction.
- Trauma-informed care practices promote a culture of empowerment, safety, and healing. The same ideology is applied to trauma-informed teaching.
- A trauma-informed teaching environment promotes positive relationships, warmth, respect, and empathy for learners regardless of the response of the learners.
- Inherited trauma is far more complex than the diagnostic criteria covered in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)
- Trauma-informed teaching practices are a paradigm shift, rooted in resilience.
- Trauma-informed curriculums are a response to the unmet needs of students and define new pathways in classrooms.
Guzman’s Creative Writing Curriculum: An Example of Trauma-Sensitive Curriculum
Weinsteiger Guzman (2023) recommends a trauma-sensitive curriculum grounded in creative writing to promote social-emotional development and academic attitudes. The following key aspects were implemented:
- Narrative reflection was a means to address childhood exposure to trauma.
- Creative writing sessions supported the application of trauma-informed concepts including empathy, emotional intelligence, agency, empowerment, and resilience.
- The design and delivery of curriculum as well as data analysis was guided by transformational learning theory (the three dimensions of perspective transformation i.e. behavioral, psychological, and conviction) and narrative theory (an analytical technique to articulate life experiences in the structure of a story).
- Conclusions were based on narratives of students from sixth to twelfth grade from settings that predisposed them to adverse childhood experiences such as community schools and detention facilities. Experts believed that narratives activated memory so that it was possible to imagine a different outcome and achieve the desired change.
- The proposed trauma-informed curriculum was suitable for a variety of settings, at the local level, within classrooms using the inclusive model, and after school.
- The curriculum was revised using iterations before and after a twelve-week period. Survey data helped understand social-emotional development and academic behaviors. Adjustments to the curriculum are enabled through personalized decisions based on learner interests. The overall curriculum cycle was mediated through action research.
- Restorative justice is an important aspect of trauma-informed curriculum as it is contrary to the “zero tolerance” principle for behavioral policies and practices. It consists of relationship-centered approaches to address and avoid harm, a means to respond to human rights and legal violations, and collaborative problem-solving.
Keywords
empowerment, vicarious trauma, individualized education program, trauma-informed, safety, inherited trauma, trauma-informed teaching, trauma-informed curriculum, learning, trauma-sensitive school, resilience
References
Weinsteiger Guzman, N. (2023). Writing as Transformation: An Action Research Study on Trauma-Informed Curriculum. University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations, 167. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/3839/
No comments:
Post a Comment