The lie isn’t that childhood trauma doesn’t exist. Of course it does.
Some of our students have been abused and neglected. Others have witnessed violence, criminality, drug use, and indescribable family strife.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Adverse childhood experiences can have long-term impacts on health, opportunity and well-being.”
You know all this, especially if you work in a public school.
The whole idea of social-emotional learning (SEL) is to mitigate these possible effects. Same with restorative justice practices, community circles, and incorporating SEL into everyday lessons.
I believe advocates of SEL have their heart in the right place.
They care for kids. They’ve also been extremely persuasive and have had a huge (and growing) impact on education, especially since the pandemic—which some believe was a traumatic event for every child.
They want more counselors, social workers, and paraprofessionals to pull students out of class for emotional check-ins, mental-health walks, and small-group therapy. They’ve also been behind the push for removing assignment deadlines and allowing more and more accommodations.
It’s become de rigueur to assume that every student has experienced trauma.
This is why standards are being lowered, rules dropped or ignored, and consequences diminished and removed altogether. It’s why a student can throw a chair across the room and be back in your classroom the next day. They’ve had trauma, you see. It’s not their fault.
You know where I’m going with this.
Maybe all the counseling referrals, SEL lessons, appeasements, and the like are actually hurting kids rather than helping them. Maybe it’s causing the increase in misbehavior by telling kids not-so-subtly that there is something wrong with them.
They can’t control themselves. They can’t pay attention. They can’t follow rules or make friends or stay off their phones. They can’t stop acting immaturely or being offended by the slightest offense.
They’ve been through too much and thus need help and a lighter load.
They need mental breaks. They need more chances. They need to listen to their thumping music or fidget with a toy or leave the classroom for a breather.
They need eggshells scattered in a wide orbit around them, bevies of “most improved” certificates, and excuse after excuse for why it isn’t their fault for disrupting the learning of others, terrorizing the school, and making teachers miserable.
Yes, the SEL advocates and their coterie, which overwhelmingly fill our schools and dominate every district across the oceans and plains, presumably mean well.
But they’re dead wrong. What students need—especially those who’ve experienced actual trauma—is the message that they can overcome.
They need to be given the message through high standards and expectations that there are no acceptable excuses. Divorce and crime and the stuff you’ve seen and experienced sucks. It really does. Many of us have been there too.
But you can do it.
No more wallowing one minute and making fun of others the next. No more being late and unaccountable. No more being given infinite pardons and reprieves for poor behavior and work habits.
Of course, if there is a student who has just experienced real trauma, then we should provide support and reassurance that we care. Even still, the best thing you can do for them, short and long term, is provide structure, consistency, and purpose.
Kids are resilient if only you allow them to be.
The idea that if you hold today’s students accountable or lay pressing responsibility on their shoulders they’re going to melt into a puddle of their own tears is hogwash. Not doing so based on good intentions is why we are where we are.
My advice: Throw out SEL and all of its manifestations. Replace it with better subject-matter teaching, more time on task, higher expectations, weighty responsibility, and the demand for impeccable behavior.
No exceptions. No excuses. No more telling students that they can’t because they’re damaged goods. No more implying through pull-outs, class surveys, and rushing to their side that they’re weak-minded, broken, and have no agency.
The transformative power of purpose, discipline, and genuine accomplishment is what all students need.
Not only is this the best solution for true adverse childhood experiences, but it removes the far greater trauma of low expectations.
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I agree with many of the ideas in this article. Interestingly, many aspects of teaching championed by Smart Classroom Management ARE trauma-informed: consistent daily routines and procedures, explicitly taught expectations, and being a consistently pleasant teacher who never yells, uses sarcasm, or singles out students.
I also think that small adjustments on my part do not impede my mission for high expectations for everyone. Things like providing noise-canceling headphones for certain students during fire drills, using light covers on harsh florescent lights (as much for me as the kids!), and teaching students they may ask for a water break if they need a quick burst of movement or a chance to calm down (a strategy I use as an adult).
I don’t think being trauma-informed and subscribing to your approach are contradictory as long as high expectations and student learning are at the forefront.
I disagree with the headphones for fire drills because if it was an actual fire is it more important to get the headphones or get out of the building? It’s ok for children to experience discomfort and inconvenience especially in a potentially harmful situation. Let’s instill grit along side empathy.
“It’s ok for children to experience discomfort and inconvenience especially in a potentially harmful situation.” I agree. Also, in the case of a true emergency, students need to be able to hear instructions; headphones may hinder that depending on the situation.
Indeed this is a very profound subject which can make or break students depending on how the matter was addressed. In most cases, teachers have been found wanting especially on how to mitigate on these cases. Some don’t have courage to deal with these matters as most them are emotional wrecks and damaged goods themselves. Some tend to personalize this rather than offer professional help and if not refer these cases to the experts. Most teachers lack the know how on how to handle these cases ending up doing more damage /more harm than good. It’s a very serious subject as most learners come from broken homes. It’s indeed very challenging as most learners suffer in silence without help hence they end up being violent themselves, unable to express how they feel inside. Teachers must ask right questions rather being vindictive & authoratitive. If could only understand that the matter has hot nothing to do with themselves. Many learners because of lack of support end up being drop outs, juvenile delinquents, alcoholists, drug addicts, parents at a very young age. Signs are always there, it’s only the one entrusted with the responsibility to nurture, mould them to identify these anomalities.
This is a tricky topic for me both personally and professionally. Personally, I grew up in a nice house, in a nice town, with a nice school system. But what happened behind closed doors after hours inside my house was anything but nice.
The horror always happened at night. The parental management system in place house involved daytime neglect and lack of attention followed by nighttime unpredictability and horror. Over many years, I self-learned hypervigilance. The fear and helplessness I felt at night during those years was intense.
I grew up in an era when trauma-informed teaching strategies were not followed per se, and were not yet named. In contrast to my home life, school offered predictable daily routines. In school, I worked hard, learned and was seen. My teachers celebrated my accomplishments. I enjoyed safe and structured recess where I learned to laugh, play and develop interpersonal skills.
In your post, you wrote this: “My advice: Throw out SEL and all of its manifestations…” However some of Jessica Minehan’s ideas presented in her 2019 article, Trauma-Informed Teaching Strategies, seem to align with your own. (https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/trauma-informed-teaching-strategies) For example, strategy #1 is “Expect Unexpected Responses [… and not take them personally”]. And strategy #4 “Promote Predictability and Consistency” is a common theme in your writing.
Teaching has been my life’s work and joy. I truly believe I was born to teach. By instinct, I decorated my first classroom using minimalism, before even that was a named concept. Each year, I know there are precious students on my roster, who may be experiencing sheer horror outside of school. I owe it to them to offer a safe, quiet, structured environment where they can learn, be noticed for their hard work, and grow.
Thank you. I thought I was getting old and going crazy. You need to take this on a PD roadshow.
Totally agree with Loretta!
High expectations and high accountability can and should go hand-in-hand with SEL/Restorative approaches.
Much depends on implementation and taking the view that teachers can be authoritative without being authoritarian.
We can’t just demand impeccable behavior without excuses and expect to get it.
Better subject matter teaching and knowing how to engage students is a huge part of it. But we also have to first create the relationships and the kind of classroom environment that makes kids WANT to behave appropriately because they are highly engaged and invested (both academically and socially), feel valued and connected, and WANT to be in the classroom instead of walking the hallways.
The magic combination, in my opinion, is a balance of high-quality, relevant content, engaging instruction; proactive SEL aimed at deepening relationships and building a positive learning community; and—when misbehavior and conflict do arise—using them as opportunities to teach social expectations, problem-solving skills, and why it matters that we know how to get along with other people and consider our impact on them.
Totally agree with you. I would add that some students have never experienced conflict resolution and do not know how to do it. When students understand emotions and how to control them they can get along with their peers and appreciate the concept and experience of mutual respect. I think SEL is important for this reason and have seen it work for the students in my classroom.
I confirm.
I have worked at both a school of very disturbed children and a school of very healthy and wealthy children…. Ironically, the traumatized student population significantly outperformed the “healthier” students both behaviorally and academically. Why? Because at that school with traumatized students, we held students accountable for their choices, and were required to begin teaching our core subjects exactly at 8:00 am. We had to! These students lives depended on it! There was no such thing as a student “can’t.” When I moved to this current school with a healthier population of students…. I honestly couldn’t believe how many teachers were convinced that some students just “can’t.” I became disliked very quickly because I had evidence that actually not only can these students learn a ton, but they are significantly underperforming. My students had the highest scores and happiest days thanks to everything I learned here at Smart Classroom Management. Parents and students became obsessed with my classroom, begging to let their child learn from me. I even had some families find out where I lived to try and convince me to let their child in my classroom…. Totally crazy. Even my mother-in-law was stopped several times by families desperate to put their child in my classroom. It was like I was some kind of celebrity! Our families and children need high expectations, accountability, and content knowledge brimming with joy! Thank you Michael Linsin for spreading the truth!
Thank you!!
This is so true. I was a school counselor and school psychologist, and all students, especially those from traumatic experiences, need reassurance that they can accomplish tasks and meet expectations life hands them. To merely feel sorry for them is counterproductive to their healing and moving forward. The “eggshell” method is agreeing with them that they are broken and can’t do whatever for themselves and that the world will accommodate their every difficulty. They need to learn constructive ways forward through structure and high expectations, and respect for them that they can do it.
I feel this to my core. All the wishy washy, excuse making is so detrimental to our students. Being a specialist, I am with over 400 students. I see consistently that students do better with clear boundaries, lines drawn in the sand and routines. It makes them feel SAFE. They know where they stand. When they act out and you allow it because you use trauma as an excuse makes them act out MORE. Some of these kids hit and kick other students and are right back in the classroom in 20 minutes. What about the trauma inflicted on their classmates? Everyday knowing you could be hurt and nothing will be done about it? If I was a parent I’d be pulling my kid out of school and homeschooling from what I’ve seen. Oh wait–I did that. And I quit teaching.
What I have noticed is that my students who are always asking for a break or to go see the social worker are the one who are far behind. It isn’t my on-lrvel students constantly leaving the classroom- it’s my kids reading 5 levels below. And , their choice to constantly leave keeps them behind. They’re using these resources as an escape because they are kids and don’t know how to manage and use such resources wisely. It’s our job as the adult to teach them that they can push through. Unfortunately, we aren’t allowed to say “no” to them, so the problem is only getting worse.
Best article ever! You just said so perfectly exactly how I feel.
Some random thoughts provoked by your article.
Nothing motivates like success, but it must be genuine success. Students know when they have not earned the tokens of success, and these become meaningless.
Grades are neither success nor learning. They are the tokens that education has chosen to implement. Whenever I have attended student-parent meetings with other teachers (e.g., IEP, 504), most teachers emphasize the tokens rather than the learning. Parents and students buy into this (because they must?) and focus on the grade in the class. This focus on the tokens leads to one of two unhelpful outcomes. 1.) Grades are inflated, and top grades are handed out for things like being in class, leading students to “grade apathy.” 2.) Tasks and tests are made so difficult in the name of “rigor,” and the system is so skewed against success, that students recognize they cannot gain the all-important token of success no matter how hard they try, so they quit trying. Then teachers complain in both cases that “students don’t care about grades.” My question is, in the typical situation, why should they?
BTW, “rigor” is often used as a buzzword without definition. Rigor is not simply more work; that’s onerous. According to the U.S. Department of State, rigor consists of four elements: 1.) Depth and integrity of inquiry; 2.) Sustained focus; 3.) Suspension of premature conclusions; 4.) Constant testing of hypotheses. I added a fifth element for my students: Formal and Personal Challenge. Then I explained what each of those elements looked like in a world language classroom.
A psychology professor I had at university provided us with an insight that has stuck with me throughout my career. Children, including teens, (most often) push against boundaries because they want to be certain that they hold. The boundaries not only keep children in, they keep bad things out, and children want to know the adults in their lives will protect them.
As a result, I worked to have as few rules as possible but enforced them without fail. My students and I had an often rollicking good time, and they excelled in learning German because everyone knew the classroom was safe, what the requirements were, and that their effort would be rewarded with something greater than a mark on a piece of paper.
Teachers help students when they provide an environment that is safe and supports genuine success, which includes recognizing and accommodating needs as opposed to wants or ideology.
This is what I need to work on:
“A psychology professor I had at university provided us with an insight that has stuck with me throughout my career. Children, including teens, (most often) push against boundaries because they want to be certain that they hold. The boundaries not only keep children in, they keep bad things out, and children want to know the adults in their lives will protect them.”
Thank you!!
I get that you’re frustrated with admins who use trauma as an excuse to not enforce discipline and promote time consuming behavioral development programs that are meaningless. But serious childhood trauma, among all young people and especially among kids from poorer families, is frighteningly common and has scientifically proven and measurable effects on cognitive functioning that must shape our teaching practices generally. The title and tone of your article seem to deny both the extent of the problem and the need for any kind of general response. We certainly must improve our response but it seems you are aiming more towards abandoning it.
“Kids do well if they can.” (Ross Greene) Some students need to be explicitly taught SEL and social skills to regulate their emotions so that their energy level matches the given task, inside and outside of school. However, I do support your idea of more rigorous standards and student responsibility.
You are right in the mark! Abigail Shrier is an excellent resource if you want to go down this path a bit more. She has the same message.
I agree.
I agree with the basic point of keeping high expectations for students, with high support.
Throw out the excuses and blame. Take responsibility for one’s choices. Outrageous and harmful behavior must have firm consequences.
But do not throw out all SEL learning. Knowledge of what emotions are, how people respond to one another, skills in communication and understanding are valuable and help people grow in character and empathy. In my own experience, it would have been so helpful to have learned much sooner in life to identify what I was feeling, why, and how to communicate what I was experiencing and what was needed.
thanks for some very good thoughts, I agree
Great article. And I agree with Zoe that SCM principles are in fact an effective way to address trauma in your teaching. The combination of kindness/lack of friction + rigor is what students need.
Thank you for addressing this topic! I have taken the approach stated in this article because it makes sense to me and all my students do well. However, I have had students who have Education Assistants with them who do the pull outs, check ins, etc and on the days they are there, that student’s misbehaviour is higher and there is very little learning time at all. Yet I find myself second guessing what I do and wondering if I should have more SEL in my class. Again thanks for clarifying some things about all this for me.
Yes, and thank you for speaking out! I hear so many teachers making excuses for student behavior instead of holding children accountable. I teach kindergarten (25 years) and you can bet that I’ve seen a difference in students from my first year to now, but they leave my class the same as ever because I hold them to the same high standards. They come in sad, angry, oppositional, etc. and leave happy and loving school. Even the obviously ADD can be held to the same standards. They need the structure even more than others in order to be successful in school. I call it “leveling the playing field” for them and I have not been very popular with some colleagues, but until it doesn’t work I will continue on. Authority and consistency, pleasantly administered, creates happy kindergartners who love school. Last year my most challenging student told me he wanted to be a kindergarten teacher when he grew up. LOL.
That is so heartwarming to read about your students loving school, even the challenging ones. I admire you and your teaching methods!
I wholeheartedly agree with not pulling students out for social emotional support. They’re just going to come back having missed partof the lesson and now in need of extra academic support from their classmates or me. I also dislike the open door wellness center that allows them to leave class frequently.
One thing I do like, and incorporate in my classes occasionally, is mindfulness and mindset education. I make efforts to encourage all of my students to challenge their own thinking, especially negative thoughts.
Such a powerful blog. Maybe one of the most powerful of this time. I couldn’t agree more and what I see in my own experience is so sad. No drive, no goals, no pride in themselves, no desire to thrive in anyway. I believe we have done a huge disservice to our children by not teaching them how to persevere. By being so afraid to push them if just a bit. It breaks my heart to see what I do everyday and if your like me and push them because you know they can they despise you for it. There is no longer accountable or consequences but how will they learn. How will they learn and grow if they aren’t challenged and if they aren’t held accountable. I have a deep rooted fear for what’s to come and feel that we have made them complacent and we only have ourselves to blame. We are responsible for our children and their success. To lead them on the right path. To guide them to show them a better way! I hope others see what you do and aren’t afraid to be the change that we need. If we don’t do something now I fear things will only get worse and we will create a generation that are given excuses, make excuses and become the excuse. I love my job and I’m fortunate to be one of the few people that feels this way about my career. Being a teacher is a part of my soul.. we have to continue believing in them the way we once did. It is only this way that we will guide the change and the one way that they can be the change.
Childhood trauma is a real fact. There is abuse, neglect, violence, crime, drug use, family strife, fatigue and health problems all around. Teachers are often filled with responsibilities, lesson plans, meeting the standards of lesson delivery, managing the class behavior, record keeping, meeting expectations for themselves and the students and overworking long hours at work and after work, that the true purpose is sometimes misunderstood. Most of the students are dealing with life as best they can. Some are misunderstood at home, at church, in the community and at school. Where as the proper use of time and purpose must be considered, counselors, paraprofessionals are spending their valuable time with the purpose of helping the students to find their true purpose and to be a stepping stone in the students total success. Yes, there is trauma, but efforts are being made to faulter them. I am saying to you, not all, but some students suffer, hurt, unnoticed daily. Staff personnel are offering to help and should. The how, why, when is an issue of time management.
I agree
One student i had this year in particular will move on to the next grade level (and harder math class) after having attended roughly 3/4 of my classes and keeping an average of 50. He was very emotionally distraught, was combative, and was a tremendous distraction to everyone in the classroom, myself included. We (parents, teachers, admin, counselor) dedicated hours and hours toward him in conferences, emails, notes, chats, etc. and constantly adjusted his meds. Sadly, in spite of all the effort and with all his missing class, he will move onward to the next teacher without the skills he needs to be successful. The problem is just compounded. We as a group have sought his emotional stability over all other goals. I wonder if we had instead sought his mathematical stability/skills and demanded more of him, we would have gotten his emotional stability thrown in too.
Michael,
Thank you for your continued great work.
I definitely need to keep praying for wisdom and so much more to be able to do my job with discernment and true love for the good of the children.
I appreciate your ongoing support and efforts for bringing up the most important issues to me personally for so many years.
With gratitude always.
The soft bigotry of low expectation !
I’d also point to the importance of structural things we should always be advocating for – caps on class size and counselor caseloads, educator retention, on-the-clock opportunities for faculty to meaningfully collaborate. I don’t mean listening to canned PD, but having time meet in their grade level/department teams to help one another serve students well. When I have a student who is struggling academically or has behavioral issues, it always helps when I am actually given the time and space to connect with their other teachers. And I want those other teachers to be excellent educators who have been at my school for a long time and are able to stay. If you have these things in place, kids are going to automatically be better supported.
I realize these aren’t things we can accomplish individually, but I have found that it helps to have concrete solutions to advocate for. Ultimately this has to be a collective effort.