Introducing Heal The Classroom
Bringing safety and support in learning spaces
Rohit is smart, but disrupts classes all day and is called to the principal’s office at least once a week. He’s regularly the topic of disparaging talk among teachers for his low scores and attendance. He mutters “I don’t care” in response to the lectures he frequently receives.
Neha sits behind in class and throughout her day teachers get very little work or response. Soham, on the other hand, who is required to sit in the front, just can’t stop talking and disrupting class.
These three students will often get extra attention in school, but won’t succeed because the real reason for their behavior isn’t addressed: trauma.
From being bullied, witnessing violence and abuse, to watching a sibling or parent being hurt, to moving cities. There are many situations in their everyday lives that can create long-lasting trauma for children, who find it overwhelmingly difficult to make sense of these events. When children come to classrooms, they come with their past and current traumas, and unfortunately, most classrooms either intensify existing trauma, create more trauma or find it difficult to include learners with trauma altogether.
When children experience trauma in their lives, their brains go into survival mode. Students who have had highly stressful experiences in their lives can experience difficulties taking advantage of what learning spaces have to offer. Learning, remembering, trusting, or managing your own feelings and actions can be a painful challenge for a student who has experienced violence or -other adversity. They will prioritize survival over most things, and certainly over learning. A child who has experienced chronic toxic stress will have a difficult time feeling safe even when in a safe environment, as a school should be. This child isn’t coming to school ready to learn. Yet, when educators are unaware of trauma’s impacts, institutions too often fail such students and even punish them while misreading their behavior as laziness, apathy, or intentional misbehavior.
Our learning spaces need to be equipped to offer a safe and supportive environment for the learning and wellbeing of students. Heal The Classroom aims to create and support trauma-informed, safe, and supportive learning spaces. Such learning spaces would promote feelings of social, emotional, physical safety among students and address students' needs in holistic ways, taking into account their relationships, self-regulation, academic competence, and physical and emotional well-being.
More on how we will do this in our next post. :)
