Lesson Three: Strategies to Create a Trauma Sensitive Classroom

Introduction

In this final lesson, you will learn about strategies to create a trauma sensntive classroom. This lesson is the largest and is broken up into three sections: You, Relationships, and Safe Space. Each section can be thought of a sub-lesson and the strategies are sorted into these three main groups.

You: Teachers first need to help themselves before they can help students. In this section, you will learn strategies that help prevent teacher burn out. At the end of this section, you will take a reslience test which will determine if you need to build resilience.

Relationships: Creating and maintaining positive relationships is crucial in developing a trauma sensitive classroom.

Safe Space: Students who have experience trauma need to feel safe and comfortable in the classroom. Often, it is beneficial to have a safe space within a classroom.

Learning Objectives of Lesson Three

Find and evalute resilience score
Choose strategies that will help you create a trauma sensitive classroom
Apply strategies that will help you create a trauma sensitive classroom
Create a plan to make a safe space within your classroom

Materials

Computer with internet access, Google Docs Responses and Reflection (This will be called: Response and Reflection Journal in the lesson)

Learning Task

You
Susan Craig and Jim Porleder(2017) cite Ingersoll and Smith (2003) and write, "Nationwide, more than 46% of teachers leave the classroom within 5 years" (p.99). A large cause of stress for teachers is often student behavior and motivation (Craig and Sporleder, 2017, p.99). This stress can cause teachers to develop compassion fatigue and expereicne secondary trauma (Craig and Sporleder, 2017, p.100). Compassion fatigue is a feeling that teachers are helpless in helping students no matter what they do. This can lead to an increase in a teacher's alchool and drug use, overeating, or participating in "escape activities" (Craig and Sporleder, 2017, p.101). Before a teacher can help students who have expereinced trauma, teachers need to help themselves first.

The first strategy in developing a trauma sensitive classroom, is knowing yourself. Kristin Souers and Pete Hall (2018) suggests teachers answering these questions and re-reading them when teachers face a tough time in the classroom. The questions are below, but answer them in your Response and Reflection Journal

Do you know what your life's mission is?
Why did you choose education?
With all it entails, why do you stay in the field?
What do you want to accomplish in your career and life?

Susan Craig and Jim Sporleder give a list of strategies that teachers can use. This chart is found in their book, Trauma Sensitive Schools for the Adolescent Years (2017), p. 108:

Use self-awareness to monitor physical reactions to stressful situations and build the cpacity for thoughtful reactions to students.
Keep and "efficacy journal." Get in the habit of taking 5-10 minutes to write down three examples of how your influence benefitted one or more students in your classroom that day.
Particiapate in online professtional learning communities addressing teacher stress and resilency.
Avoid personalizing students' behavior. Use meditation and deep breathing to maintain needed objectivity and emotional regulation.
Be on the lookout for increased use of escape behaviors to manage stress.
Commit to viewing students' challenging behaviors through a trauma-sensitive lens that allows you to support them in an empathic manner

After reading these strategies, go to your Response and Reflection Journal to reflect. Once you are done with the responses, download this form to take a resilience test. (Idea from: Jennings, 2019, p. 117). After taking the test, respond in your Response and Reflection journal.

Relationship
Creating positive relationships with students is essential in order to create a trauma sensitive classroom. This can be challenging to do, but there are many strategies that can work. Kristen Souers and Pete Hall (2018) have teachers ask 8 questions for each student:

What is this student's name?
What is this student interested in? What are the student's hobbies and interests?
How does this student best learn?
What are this student's goals?
When has the student been successful? When do they tend to thrive?
Who in the building has the student connected with the most?
How often fo you interact with this student beyone academic interactions?
What has been the most helpful intervention for this student so far?

Asking these questions for each student, allows a teacher to truly know a student better and help form authentic real relationships. After reading these questions, go to this page. After reading this page, go to your Response and Reflection Journal

Safe Space
This last section has two strategies in one. First, creating a safe space as a whole classroom and then creating a safe space within a classroom. There are many different names for creating a safe space within a classroom.

Creating a safe space (classroom)- One of the first strategies to create a safe space is by establishing clear expectations for students. Expectations should be stated positively and not exceed more than five in a classroom. If a school already has expectations, they should be followed in the classroom. These expectations should be modeled and discussed in the classroom. In addition to this, Jennings (2019) explains that there are two mistakes classrooms and schools do as they create a trauma sensitive classroom. They are: "Overly harsh reactivity in response to trauma symptoms and ignoring inappropriate behavior" (p.72).

Susan Craig and Jim Sporeleder (2017) write about other strategies that help. These include not using authorotative classroom management, but collaboration and support strategies. Teachers should also use eye contact and match student gestures to display respect (p.71). Classes should be consitent in routines and students shoud not be suprised. Lastly, teachers should notice positive attributes of students and encourage students to do the same (Craig and Sporleder, 2017, p. 72).

Watch this video on creating a safe space and then read this blog. Afterwards, go to your Response and Reflection Journal

After creating a safe space as a whole classroom, another strategy is creating a safe place within a classroom. Watch these two videos to get an idea of how you could create a safe space within a classroom:

Safe Space

Safe Space II
After watching these two videos, go to your Response and Reflection Journal

Reflection

Answer the following questions in your Response and Reflection Journal:
1. After taking a resiliency test, do you need to improve your resilience?

2. What strategies do you already use in the classroom?

3. Which strategies do you think would help and could use?

4. After creating a rough plan for your safe space within the classroom, is there anything else you need to think about?

Conclusion

This final lesson gave strategies to implement to create a trauma sensitive classroom. These are general strategies that have been proven to work but as you create your own classroom, there will be strategies which work for you and your students and others that do not. It is always important to remember that you cannot help your students without helping yourself first. Building positive relationships and having a safe space classroom are the key aspects in creating a trauma sensitive classroom.

Lessons

Lesson One: What is trauma?
Lesson Two: The Effects of Trauma

Links

Introduction to Mini-Course
Portfolio page

References

Craig, S. E., & Sporleder, J. (2017). Trauma-sensitive schools for the adolescent years: Promoting resiliency and healing, grades 6-12. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Jennings, P. A., & Siegel, D. J. (2019). The trauma-sensitive classroom: Building resilience with compassionate teaching. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Souers,K., Hall, P. (2018) Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom [Reference Guide] N.P.: ASCD.org