Category Archives: Elementary

Trauma-Informed Classrooms for All

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Professional Development, Social Issues, Teacher Leadership, Uncategorized | , , , , , ,

There is no denying it. Education is changing due to Covid-19. And, to be honest, it needs to. We have been stuck in a rut for a long time, and much needed change is long overdue. This last year I feel like the veil was lifted, and the dark and ugly side of education was laid bare for all to see. We found out what we strived to achieve was all an illusion.

Equity? We did not have it. Some families had the support, the technology, and the safe and secure space to conduct school at home. Many, maybe most, did not. Do any of us believe that it made no difference before the pandemic?

Engagement? How many of us had the illusion that our content was truly engaging blown away when our Zoom meetings were lightly attended and our remote learners opted out of all of our innovative and personalized resources? If they opt out as soon as they are out of our reach, did we really have their attention?

Achievement? Did our grades and test scores measure the important metrics? What good have they been to us this year? Who still cares about standardized tests? Have we all figured out what we are actually teaching yet? (I’ll give you a hint: It’s not standards.)

As we move back to so-called normal, we need to remember that the old normal no longer exists. More than that, we have changed. We have come through a time of collective trauma, and we can only succeed if we create safe and supportive learning environments for students and teachers.

I am a trauma-informed educator. I grew up with trauma of my own, and I have made a study of trauma-informed teaching practices to better serve my students. I believe this has helped me reinvent my teaching practice this year in ways that supported students and created a safe and secure learning environment. I plan to do more.

I remember when I first learned GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) strategies to better serve my English language learners in class. The selling point was that all students would benefit from them. The same must be said of trauma-informed teaching practices. They will make all students feel more supported, more safe, more able to learn and grow with us.

And, let’s face it; aren’t we all a little traumatized this year?

Students who have experienced trauma feel unsafe in most places, including school. They may have little control of their fear response due to trauma, and when they are under this stress they are less able to learn, to focus, or to regulate their emotions. They may be hyper alert or withdrawn. They may have disruptive behaviors. They may struggle socially, academically, emotionally, and even physically.

Here are some gems I collected from my recent research on trauma-informed classrooms:

  • A 2014 study tells us that 45% of students have experienced some form of trauma. What do you think the numbers are now?
  • All students learn best when they feel safe and supported.
  • A safe, caring, and consistent adult is the best intervention for a child affected by trauma.
  • Both students and teachers must feel psychologically safe in the classroom- no bullying, no judgment, no demeaning behaviors.
  • The key to relationship-building is authentic interactions that respect student voice and perspectives.
  • Trauma-informed discipline requires us to acknowledge the role of trauma in behavior and use appropriate consequences that promote healthier reactions in the future (think restorative justice practices).
  • Self-regulation and mindfulness skills are as important as any curriculum.
  • We can offset stressors with messages of empathy and optimism to support healing and resilience in our students.

I’d add to this list that we should do the following as we reinvent education:

  • Create systems for evaluating student work that are more holistic and less demeaning and/or stress-inducing.
  • Demand discipline systems that respect every child and offer support and encouragement over punishment.
  • Encourage creativity, student choice, physical activity, and all other joyful pursuits.

There is an excellent article from the School-Justice Partnership: Trauma-Informed Classrooms. It is very long, but comprehensive.

If your time is limited, here is a short tip sheet from WestEd for Creating Trauma-Informed Learning Environments.

I would love to see more resources in the comments. I hope that educators all over the state will band together to support our students with new and improved practices- trauma-informed classrooms for all.

Facing 2021

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Current Affairs, Elementary | , ,

I’ve hosted dinner parties in the last couple of weeks with fully vaccinated friends. It’s been delightful to see people again, face to face!

So many of those adults shared stories of how hard this year has been, how much they’ve struggled, how exhausted they are. We’ve talked about the need to rest. To recuperate. To do art and music and get exercise. To stop pushing to get everything done. 

Then I think about the kids returning to—possibly—full time school next year. And two SBA tests. (Lord have mercy! Why couldn’t we just acknowledge that this was a horrifically bad year and drop one test entirely?)

I heard an interview with a psychologist on the news the other day who said we won’t be able to “return to normal.” We will have to transition. It will be a process. It will take time.

Personally, I think we will have to focus on social and emotional learning (SEL) at least as much next fall as we have during remote and hybrid learning. For several reasons, “many students will need increased mental health support as they transition back into a full-time academic environment, and as they struggle to manage grief, anxiety, or other emotional responses to recent events.” We are going to need to monitor students, not just in the first weeks of school, but for months. Our schools will need a response plan in place for the year. We need resources and more resources.

One year I had a student die. I led my students through their grief. We wrote cards to the parents. We attended the memorial service together. We had an assembly. We planted three trees and set a plaque in the garden in memory of their friend.

memorial trees

It was A Big Deal when we changed desks a few weeks later. As everyone cleaned their desks, I cleaned out Kyle’s. When we moved desks, I made sure his was in the mix. No one knew who ended up with his desk.

“Wait, where’s Kyle’s desk?”

“It’s gone,” the kids said.

“Like Kyle’s gone,” someone added.

“Kyle will never be gone,” was the fierce reply.

We read some short stories at the end of the year that elicited yet another highly emotional response and discussion. Kyle had died months earlier.

We are going to have classroom full of students who have lost a family member or a family friend—someone they know. Imagine the compounded grief and the emotional echoes that will reverberate all next year.

I know how long trauma can linger in a classroom. I’ve seen it.

This year I’ve had parents call me, in a twist, worried that their child will be academically behind next year. I’ve said, “No, they won’t. The entire country went through the same pandemic. Everybody’s kids struggled with remote learning and Zoom lessons and connectivity issues. Your child won’t be ‘behind’ because everyone will be set back the same amount.” The parents breathe a sigh of relief.

On the other hand, I’ve had parents tell me that they aren’t pushing their kids to achieve this year. If the kids get their work turned in—eventually—the parents really couldn’t care less about the quality. I tell those parents that I understand. There is a limit to what we (teachers/schools/districts) can expect out of families when everyone is overwhelmed.

I think the very worst thing we could do next fall is walk in the door with the attitude that all our students are months and months behind and we have to get them all caught up in the space of the next nine months. “If we don’t get them caught up next year, we will have failed.” Even worse: “If they don’t get caught up, they will have failed.” “Failure is not an option!” Buckle up, kids, it’s pedal to the metal from the first day of school! 

Adding that level of stress to kids—and their parents—will be a disaster. We don’t need to be in launch mode. We need to be in recovery mode.

Instead of looking at the students who come into my fifth-grade classroom next year as “fifth” graders, I need to look at where they are. I may actually have a class of “fourth” graders, in terms of achievement. I need to start there and work forward at a reasonable pace.

Meanwhile, next year I should do art (therapy), music (therapy), and poetry (therapy). I want kids to journal, sharing their experiences, their stories, and their feelings.

I want them to heal.

According to my husband, who chairs a coworking community group, business people are doing that kind of social-emotional work right now. Adults recognize how important that work is—for adults. Kids are going to need extra SEL support next year too. 

Night School For Kindergarteners

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Education, Elementary, Equity, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment | , , , , , , , , , ,

Equity is a buzzword in education. We hear it used by staff, administrators, and presenters. Under regular circumstances the practical application of equity seems to fall short of the ideal. During a pandemic, ensuring equity for students when teaching digitally becomes an almost insurmountable challenge. 

This school year my district stepped up to tackle this challenge with an innovative approach: an evening school option for elementary students. 

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Blue-Sky Thinking, Part 2

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Education Policy, Elementary, Social Issues

Why do we have public schools? Depending on the era, you might get very different answers:

Let’s be honest, for a lot of working parents, having elementary students in school all day every day isn’t just about getting them an education. It’s about getting them adult supervision.

What if school districts and parks and recreation departments worked together to create a seamless educational and supervised day, from 8am to 6 pm, year-round?

8 am-2 pm—Academic Day

The day starts with academics until 2 pm. For example, a fifth-grade schedule might look like:

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Behind the Score

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Assessment, Distance Learning, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Uncategorized

Every teacher out there can safely say, “I hate testing!” Yes, it is a part of checking for student growth. Yes, it gives us a baseline and can inform instruction. Yes, in some cases it may be necessary.

In every case, there is always more behind the score.

Testing is a complicated, sore subject. Educators work hard to create the best possible setting for students to excel on these tests. So, what does this mean in the midst of a pandemic, when the testing environment is no longer our classroom? 

Testing environment is one that teachers work so hard to get just right. The right lighting, music, no music, chairs, no chairs, water breaks, snacks, seating charts. It even comes down to what is on the walls. If testing environment plays such a huge factor in student success, how does testing at home correlate?

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The Struggle Between EL & SPED

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Education, Elementary, Equity | , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My family moved to the United States almost twenty-three years ago from Ukraine. My younger brother turned six that summer and attended first grade in Washington. Our family moved before his third-grade year, marking the start of his struggle with school.

My brother in fifth grade, age 10.

My parents don’t recall ever being notified of the placement. They say, I brought it to their attention at the end of his fifth-grade year when I asked them why he qualified for the SPED program. My parents first had me explain what SPED meant. Then, they contacted the school to ask the same question: what about my brother qualified him for SPED?

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One-Hundred Years from Now

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Education, Elementary, Equity, High School, Life in the Classroom, Middle School, Professional Development

How will 2020 be categorized in history books one-hundred years from now? How will teachers then, learn from our mistakes now? The larger more pressing question is how do we, today, give student the opportunity to be educated in a system they will not grow to resent for its oppressive and dismissive policies and curriculum?

By the time students reach high school, many realize that the ways in which they have been taught to view history are centered around the Eurocentric belief system. As Gloria Ladson-Billings (1998) states these curriculums “legitimize white, upper-class males as the standard knowledge students need to know”. This is increasingly problematic. History pertaining to students of color is suppressed, creating a system where they only see themselves as descendants of slaves, and not the descendants of change makers, inventors, doctors, writers, homemakers, scientist…teachers.

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Imagining 2021

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Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Equity, Life in the Classroom, Literacy

Perhaps one of the most powerful of phrases in all of teaching is one embedded deeply in the Washington State K-12 Learning Standards (Common Core State Standards) for English language arts. This phrase is one that I honestly believe could change all of humanity if it were embraced and appreciated fully; lives could be improved, our environment could be stabilized and nations would no longer be at war with one another. Wow—what phrase could possibly have such a powerful impact? Reasoned judgement. In essence, reasoned judgement is the critical thinking skill of being able to objectively analyze and evaluate information such as data, text, and research findings and derive a sound argument. Take it a step further and reasoned thinking can be shared with others in a coherent manner. 

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Engaging with Students Long-Distance

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Current Affairs, Distance Learning, Elementary, Life in the Classroom, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment, Social Issues

For the last month, the number one topic in our staff meetings has been student engagement.

Meanwhile, I have a 10-year-old student who wrote a personal narrative about how he got his first car, a 1971 VW Beetle. He plans to convert it to an electric car. He said, “I want my Bug to be the first car of my old car electric conversion shop. My next car is going to be for my dad. He wants a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette with a big electric engine.” He explained that his current car, the Bug, needs work on its transmission.

Transmission? Student engagement? Same idea, right?

If the transmission isn’t working, the gears aren’t meshing. They aren’t connecting properly. The engine can have all the power in the world, but the car won’t go anywhere.

It’s the same for us.

  • If teachers aren’t connecting with students, or students aren’t connecting with teachers …
  • If schools aren’t connecting with parents, or parents aren’t connecting with schools …
  • If districts aren’t connecting with families, or families aren’t connecting with districts …

… then we can have all the skills and experience in the world, but we can’t drive our class anywhere.

Teachers at my school monitor students as they work through our district’s 100% online curriculum. We have weekly Class Connect Sessions (CCS—similar to Zoom) where we focus on the social and emotional side of school.

As far as academics go, we have students who come to CCS and do their work independently. They need an occasional check in about a lesson. Other students come to CCS regularly but don’t do their work. Or vice versa. Or they do well in one or two classes and skip others. There are students who come to about half the CCS. They struggle with the coursework. They are often behind. They occasionally come to help sessions set up by teachers, but often they don’t. Then there are the students who don’t come to CCS, who don’t do the work, who skip most of the lessons. They aren’t making progress. They don’t come to any help sessions.

We are used to having a captive audience in our classrooms. If a child won’t come to our desk, we can go to theirs. We can kneel down to their level. We can connect face to face.

The first question we wanted to solve was, How? How do we fix the problems in front of us?

Instead, the first question we asked ourselves was, Why? What makes the students (and families) less engaged?

There were several reasons why kids might not come to CCS (or Zoom):​

  • ​They have high anxiety about being on video (even if they can turn off video)​
  • ​They have speech impediments and are embarrassed (even if they can turn off audio)​
  • ​It’s one of the only things in their week that happens at a scheduled time, and they forget​

There are several reasons why students may struggle with work. Kids lack the organizational skills to tackle online learning without an adult at home to help them during the day. There are kids with ADD/ADHD, and there are so many more distractions at home than in the classroom; again, there is often no adult at home to consistently redirect them. Keep in mind, many parents work full time. Even if they are at home, parents may have up to five school-age kids, which taxes their ability to monitor them all.

Some parents and kids may not trust us yet.​ And it can be hard to reach students and families. Phone calls, emails, texts. Sometimes nothing seems to work.  

It can be daunting! Here are some ideas to help.

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Conferencing without a Conference Week

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Current Affairs, Elementary, Online Teaching, Parent Involvment

In a typical school year, our elementary fall conferences run for three days at the end of October. I sit and talk with parents and students for half an hour at a time.

This year, however, our schools started 100% online, so our district decided to have a “soft start.” The first three days in September became our “conference days.” Teachers called every family to talk them through what to expect for the beginning of school and checking that every family had computers and internet connection.

Meeting parents on those phone calls, I made brief notes about their children. “She has severe social anxiety, especially on Zoom calls.” “He likes doing his work on the computer. Online learning has suited him.” “She has ADD/ADHD, so staying focused is hard for her.” “We have two other children in the online program, and we both work full-time, so he’s going to have to work independently.”

Moving our conference days to the first three days of school meant we lost them in the last week of October. No time set aside even to Zoom with parents!

But that didn’t change the normal reminders running through my head:

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