Category: Uncategorized

What I’d Share About Trauma

A colleague of mine is set to lead some professional learning for childcare workers. Her topic is trauma-informed care, and she reached out to see what I’d make sure to include if I were talking to the audience.

Not wanting to double up on what I was sure she’d already be sharing, I sent her the following from Fostering Resilient Learners by Kristin Van Marter Souers and Pete Hall:

I am going to introduce you to a powerful series of six communication steps to begin using with your students and loved ones. I use these often in the couples therapy work that I do, and I swear by them in my interventions in the classroom setting with educators, administrators, students, and families. The steps are as follows:

  1. Listen.
  2. Reassure.
  3. Validate.
  4. Respond.
  5. Repair.
  6. Resolve.

Souers points out we usually hit #s 1, 4, and 6 pretty well, and I’ll admit this used to be my classroom practice. When problems arose in my classroom or in adult classes I teach, these three steps felt like all I needed to “handle” the problem and move on. These three kept us on schedule.

Unfortunately, they didn’t live up to my commitment to care for those I was teaching. In truly frazzled moments, listening more likely ended up as hearing which led to responding in ways that were inauthentic and one-sided, which led to a resolution that took care of what I needed and maybe took care of a piece of what the other person needed.

Pretty decent fail on the ethic of care.

Luckily(?), Souers points out I wasn’t alone:

Repair is one of the biggest steps we miss in education. So often, we mistake a student’s return to regulation as a form of repair. But getting a student to a place of being able to return to the classroom does not constitute repair; it just means that the student may now be primed to reflect on what happened so that repair can actually take place. In addition, many of our students and staff have never had healthy repair modeled for them, so the concept is foreign. Many families engage in the pattern of rupture-separate-return, in which a disruption, argument, or hurtful exchange occurs; the parties involved separate from each other; and, after time passes, they return and act as though nothing happened. Opting not to address what occurred leaves a void of understanding and a lingering fear that the upset may happen again. We have a huge responsibility to model what healthy repair looks like and to incorporate structures into our discipline and corrective policies that enable this step to take place.

Souers, Kristin Van Marter ; Hall, Pete. Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom . ASCD. Kindle Edition.

Since I’ve started incorporating all six steps, I’ve seen a few key outcomes:

  • I’m more connected to whomever I’m working with. The process is a mindful one. It requires me to stop what I’m doing and make sure I’m connecting with the other person.
  • There’s more time. Whether working with my kids or with adults I may be teaching or managing, making sure we’ve worked through the entire process means the conversation isn’t lingering. In each 1-4-6 scenario, my day or time was often interrupted down the road because the other person hadn’t felt the repair and closure they needed to move on. Whatever the original problem, it would keep gnawing away at focus and relationships like an unattended to splinter. Now, we’re working things through, so they aren’t re-manifesting later on.
  • I’m checkin in. As a somewhat conflict-avoidant person, I would often hit 1, 4, and 6 and then avoid the person and the problem for fear that festering splinter would start poking me. The issue, though, was always worrying me. As a caretaker, I remained concerned the other person was still upset and in need. A tough tension to navigate. Now, having worked through to repair and resolution, I feel much freer to check in with the person as a signal I’m still thinking about them and as a way to strengthen our relationship.

The Wind Storm

About two and a half years ago, my kids were – for their second time – visiting what would become our house . It was a week-long visit. I knew I hoped I’d be their forever home, but they thought they were just on a vacation.

One afternoon, I was walking around the block while they went ahead of me on their scooters. “This is what it’s going to be like,” I thought to myself smiling calmly.

“ZAC!” I heard, “He fell! There’s blood! He needs help!” my daughter came yelling to me.

The kids had gone around a corner just out of my sight, and my son had slid off a curb and crashed his scooter, gashing his knee in the process. I ran to him, picked him up and ran the rest of the way to the house.

“Grab the scooters!” I yelled behind me.

What a sight we must have been. He was wailing. She was all of 9 years old, dragging two scooters across the concrete. I’m sure I had a look of pure panic on my face. Irrationally, I thought, “They’ll never let me have these kids now!”

The scene in the bathroom was one of more wailing, navigating a very protective older sister and a little boy who had no reason to trust me clinging to my neck while I cleaned the gravel from his knee. We continued to be a sight.

Today, two years and change later, we had an intense wind storm with gusts of 100+ miles per hour. Neighbor Fran texted to let me know our trampoline had taken flight, hung in the power lines for a few minutes and ended up in Neighbor Gary’s yard. So, we had an adventure to look forward when we got home.

Gary answered his door.

“Gary, if you wanted to borrow our trampoline, all you had to do is ask.”

“I think my trampoline days are long gone.”

The kids and I started to pull the legs and such off the trampoline in Gary’s back yard. The boy went back to our house to get the dogs who’d been barking orders at us from across yard back in the house to bring some semblance of calm to the neighborhood.

The girl and I were working and heard the boy yelling, “Come! Come! Come! Come!” Listening through the wind, I heard the tone my heart knows needs me – now.

A gust of wind had blown through the garage door to slam the back door on his fingers. One of them had a decent chunk of skin missing. He clung to me once we were in the bathroom. Unintelligible words coming from his mouth, gulping air. The kind of crying only children can do when life hurts and scares at the same time.

Once I’d determined no need for a visit to urgent care, “I know what we are going to do, but I won’t do anything without you telling me it’s okay. Would you like me to tell you what we’re going to do?”

A whimpering nod.

Around this time, his sister appears. “What’s going on!?”

We explain, wailing much lessened.

She is concerned, but waiting for directions.

We move through the steps of repair. When we run out of things requiring three of us, I ask her to go clean up the shreds of paper the dogs greeted us with when we go home. She goes without argument. She knows I’ve got this.

Once the bandage is secured with ample antiseptic, he asks to go play a video game and she asks to watch a show. I say yes and start to make dinner.

The rest of our evening is status quo. Well, eating dinner with a non-dominant hand was interesting to watch.

Two years ago, or even four months ago, any of these things would have derailed our night and possibly our week.

Tonight, I didn’t stop to think, “This is what it’s going to be like,” because this is simply what it’s like. This is our family.

Next Monday, two years and 16 days since they moved in, we’ll sit in a courtroom, and a judge will make our family official. Tonight, though, we wrangled an errant trampoline, patched up a finger, cleaned up after anxious dogs, ate dinner, and brushed and flossed.

I’d say it’s official.

30 Jan 21 – Trauma

I’m worried my kids will have teachers who haven’t done or refuse to do the work of becoming trauma-informed in their practice.

I’m worried the actions that come from survival instincts of flight, fight, freeze, and submit will be mistaken for their true and beautiful personalities.

I’m worried this will mean my kids won’t be seen for the amazing people they are.

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, “More than 25% of American youth experience a serious traumatic event by their 16th birthday, and many children suffer multiple and repeated traumas.”

Acknowledging trauma and acting in trauma-informed ways are not the same things. Without the latter, we will only find success by accident and happenstance. That’s unacceptable.

If you are an educator who hasn’t yet started this work, start. If you work with children, you work with children in trauma. They need you to do this work.

Some places to start:

29 Jan 21 – She ran up a wall

Starting a good many months back, I signed the kids up for Ninja classes through a local gym called Warrior Playground. It’s an obstacle course gym in the vein of American Ninja Warrior or my favorite Ultimate Beastmaster.

In these pandemic times, classes are limited to 4 students, which is pretty amazing. Among all the obstacles, the warped wall has most been the focus of both kids’ efforts. It’s what it sounds like. In the first weeks, they were able to run up and summit the 8-foot wall. No problem.

Next, Coach Glenn challenged them to get to the top of the 12-foot wall. So, for more than 4 months, that’s what they’ve been trying to do.

Well, today, the 11yo did it. For week’s she’s been within 6-8 inches. But those 6-8 inches have proven too much. It has led to many a “Can we go home now?” midway through class.

Running into and up a wall more than twice your size can take the spirit out of you on a normal day. When it’s the wall you’ve been running up against for months, it can feel literally insurmountable.

Tonight, at dinner, she said, “And, Coach Glenn said, ‘Believe you can do it.’ So, I closed my eyes and decided to believe I can do it. And, I did it.”

Simple as that.

I don’t need to list all the walls she’s faced. I don’t need to warn her of all the walls ahead. She knows what they were, and she’ll know them when she meets them.

“So, I closed my eyes and decided to believe I can do it. And, I did it.”

Keep going, love.

28 Jan 21 – Ten (living) people I will likely never meet, and very much would like to

10. Dan Levy

9. Brandi Carlile

8 & 7. The Avett Brothers

6. Robert Fulghum

5. Vice President Harris

4. Rainbow Rowell

3. The Most Rev. Michael Curry

2. Sen. Tammy Duckworth

1. George Takei

Who are ten of yours?

23 Jan 21 – My Gratefuls

How about a few things I’m grateful for right now?

achievement confident free freedom
Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

1. Instant Pot – I used my moms’ digital pressure cooker while we were home in Illinois over the holidays. Then, I was hooked. Through a compilation of gift cards, mine showed up today. I’ve made applesauce – in 8 minutes!!! – and macaroni and cheese with broccoli. I had to cut the children off. There’s only so much cheese and broccoli a body should consume in one sitting. I’m legitimately excited to keep making things. We’re having orange “chicken” later this week. To not have to monitor the brown rice feels like its own gift.

2. Misfits Market – They take the produce grocery stores won’t stock because of physical imperfections and sell it at a discount. We’re two weekly shipments in and I’m pretty happy. It’s increased our fruits and veg in the house, and it’s diversified them. Kale chips, potato soup, the aforementioned applesauce. Plus, it’s fun to have the kids help me build our box each week. I dare say they’re more willing to try the things they helped pick. Who knew choice and control were important?

3. Running – I mentioned I’d be giving it a go a few posts back. Well, I’ve gotten 5 lunchtime runs totaling 11.5 miles since then. My word has it improved my mood and sense of self. Those 11.5 miles are more than I totaled all of 2020. Here’s to more miles and shedding some of the meat suit I feel like I’ve been wearing.

4. People are reading – I have been pretty constantly surprised and humbled by reactions from folx reading these posts. In the same way running has helped me feel connected to myself, writing and seeing responses has connected me beyond the 9 and 11 year olds I spend most of my time with.

5. Pokémon – Each night, after dinner and before books and bed, the three of us watch one or two episodes of Pokémon. With more than 1,100 episodes, we should be set for a few years. While the bulk of the content is episodic, from time to time, a character or scene from an earlier episode will be the focus of a later episode. Listening to the kids recognize this through line of the plot and characters always makes me smile. They are able to do and remember more about the world every day. They’re letting down the defenses that kept that from being able to do that. Keep ’em coming, Ash.

What are your gratefuls?

22 Jan 21 – I need to write more

Sure, a blog post every day feels like a personal return to form. And, geez, I’m loving it. That last post? I wrote, deleted, and re-wrote it three times before I found what I actually wanted to say. So, yes, I’m very much enjoying a return to writing.

low angle view of spiral staircase
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

And yet.

This is only the public writing I’m used to doing. When it went away, it was accompanied by other forms of writing that brought me great joy. In the Before Times, I would make a point each week of writing thank you notes to a few people across the district with whom I’d interacted that week or who were on my mind as being wonderful human with whom to work.

It is the grown-up version of making sure the last thing I did before leaving school was writing one positive note home for at least two students on my rolls. Knowing the last thing I’d done with my day was putting pen to paper to express my joy in teaching my students helped turn some pretty crap days around.

The rub of it is these are exactly the times when I need to be writing more notes to colleagues. When we are necessarily separated and prohibited from running into each other in the halls on the way to meetings, that’s the time to stop at the end of the week and write.

Maybe you want to get in on the action? Maybe there are some colleagues or students who could do with reading your words of encouragement and gratitude? I’ve just added a calendar event for next Friday and every Friday after. It’s 30 minutes and simply called, “Write Notes.”

Who will you write to first?

20 Jan 21 – One Good Question

For those keeping track, I went on another lunch run today. That’s three in the last four work days. Running has always been where I get my thinking done. I ruminate.

Today, I was thinking about classrooms – physical, digital, and those who have yet to make up their minds – and how I know they must be struggling to create the communities that must be established as foundations of learning.

I started thinking about what I would do. I came up with questioning. This is not surprising for a guy who really hangs his hat on inquiry. For this, though, I was trying to think of something a teacher could implement with absolutely no prep and yet reap a deep benefit in shoring up community.

The idea is to challenge students to come up with one good question they would be interested in hearing their peers answer and would be okay with answering themselves. Then, they pair or group up and share their questions and answers.

Sure, sure, there can be reporting out, sharing, and asking who had similar questions or answers. But, there doesn’t need to be. All that’s necessary for community to begin to form is for people to try to find out about one another and to share a piece of themselves.

Not having a classroom of my own, I used our dinnertime conversation as a testing ground this evening. “Think of one good question you want all of us to answer, and we’ll take turns answering.”

They wanted a model, so I went first. “What’s one thing that can almost always make you smile when you are sad?” Tickling was a popular response.

My daughter was next, “What do you like about doing our gratefuls?” Our “gratefuls” are our nightly ritual of putting a coin in a mason jar and sharing at least one thing we are grateful for that day. Hearing what both kids thought about the process was wonderful.

The boy went last, “Are you afraid of heights?”

I had to think about my answer. I wasn’t sure. Turns out, yup, sometimes.

So, with one text audience of kids who will definitely let me know if one of my ideas is bad or stupid, I had a 100% success rate. You will too.

Try it tomorrow. Even if those you’re learning with are adults. All it takes is One Good Question to bring us closer.

12 Jan 21 – What I’ve Been Working on the Last Few Years

In October, I wrote a bit about the Essential Questions a team of teachers got together and wrote in our district almost two years ago. They were the first step as our district started to develop our own secondary ELA curriculum resources. At the end of this year, the pilot of those resources will be concluded, and we’ll (hopefully) be gearing up for full implementation.

Screenshot of the curriculum homepage.

Piloting all-new resources in the midst of a pandemic when teachers have been asked to put into practice no fewer than four instructional models since the year began isn’t ideal. I’ve come to think of it as more of a consumer reports lab where context and reality have repeatedly beaten my plan for the pilot with a hammer to see how much the spirit of this project can withstand. Turns out, quite a bit.

If you’d like to see what we’ve been cooking up, you can find it here.

A few notes for context:

  • Our state has rolled out revised academic standards for ELA classrooms.
  • We have licensed all the materials under Creative Commons in hopes that other districts might leverage what we’ve created and share back their own work.
  • The approach is tight/loose. Tight on summative, on-demand writing, types and numbers of experiences, and themes/essential questions. Loose on how teachers use the resources to get students there.

I’ll go into more details down the road. For now, I wanted to share what we’ve done and where we are so far.

11 Jan 21 – Feedback in English Classrooms

Over on the professional twitter account, I mentioned this piece from Dan had me considering what possible corollaries exist in how we give feedback poorly in English classrooms.

Dan replied with a few questions:

and

Let’s take them in the order they rolled in. Dan contends the average ELA space as “richer” in feedback than most online math. Parsing out richer, I’d guess he’s thinking more meaningful. I would label it as more verbose. The average ELA classroom has a lot of words coming at students for feedback. Certainly, I’d argue the feedback on a short essay is full of more words than the feedback on a daily math assignment – online or in print.

But those words aren’t usually saying much, and their meaning is often more for the teacher than the student. These are the not quite sins, let’s call them sinlets I committed when grading such work.

  1. A cheat sheet. There were certain error types or weaknesses in writing that came up over and over again across multiple students’ work. So, I had a file open as I responded that allowed me to copy and paste identical feedback when I encountered a version of that error.

I don’t think ELA teachers are alone in this, but I would argue it does a greater disservice in the ELA classroom than in other disciplines. If students are working to create an artifact of their learning and thinking unique to their own minds, then copying and pasting my feedback where that thinking falls shorts fails to connect in a way that is constructive to growing those students thinking. It’s like trying to connect an off-brand LEGO to the real thing. It’ll stick, but it won’t hold together.

This particular sinlet was born out of a want to avoid repetitive grading injuries. I falsely thought I couldn’t let these “errors” slip by, so I pasted the relevant comments on everything. This brings us to…

2. Hyper commenting. There’s an principle in writing instruction that sets review and revision as a conversation between the writer and their editor. With this sinlet, my students were trying to have one conversation, and I responded so prolifically that it felt as though I was having 20. Even if the feedback was more specific than that mentioned above, where were students supposed to focus in the conversation with my hyperactive suggestions bouncing from comments on tone to grammar to evidence to structure? If they had been real conversations, I can’t imagine my students would have stuck around for long.

Again, this was often born out of a sense of needing to teach everything in each essay. The cumulative effect was that it taught nothing or very little.

3. It was already dead to begin with. When did I look at student writing? After they had written it and written it off as being done. For this sinlet, I was giving advise on pieces of work that, in the students’ minds, were now etched in stone. And, no matter how much I encouraged them to set goals for the next writing assignment based on that feedback, the bridge between the two was always too far.

With the exception of math courses where re-takes are allowed, I know feel there’s strong overlap on this one. Most non-computerized feedback comes only at the end of an assignment. Where ELA falls short is the bigger assignments cannot be graded in terms of individual pieces like math problems. We could give grading paragraph by paragraph, but there are issues there as well.

Those were my 3 annoying sinlets of teacher feedback. I have visited and worked with enough English teachers across the country to know they’re playing out right now in hundreds of classrooms and piles of grading.

As to Dan’s contention around meaning and artifacts of thinking, this is still the exception and not the rule. In some studies of practice in ELA classrooms, findings are that very little reading or writing are happening. Instead, it’s the stuff. Faux writing to prepare for constructed response items. Grammar exercises. Graphic organizers. So, when they encounter the rare soup-to-nuts writing experience, students are still shooting for the right answer in terms of a way of writing or particular content that will appease their teachers. Yes, the page may be blank, but there are unspoken expectations to fill it with the right words in the right order. And, like math, the possible combinations are infinite.

Because of this game of Guess What the Teacher is Thinking, peer feedback can also be paralyzed at best or apathetic at worst. If the teacher is going to come in at the end and render a verdict based on what they expected to be included, then no peer comments or suggests are going to make any difference. This is where we get the inspired, “I like the words you used” and their ilk as comments.

So, Dan, to answer your questions, yes, the possibility exists for these things to hold true and set ELA spaces apart. For myriad reasons, though, that is not how the average ELA space functions. Additionally, and for another post, moving these creative acts into spaces where the feedback is automated is an even bigger killer of the work.