Building Relationships

Be The Yoga You Teach: Equity and Justice in Trauma Informed Practices

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This morning, I saw this tweet by Paul Gorski challenging us to think about how an equity and justice based approach to trauma-informed practices in schools might look different from common approaches not grounded in equity understanding.

Since becoming a Staff Development Teacher seven years ago, I have learned so much about race, equity, and social justice.  I’m still learning. And confronting.  I work to confront my own biases on a daily basis.  This, I believe, is the first step in our work on equity and justice practices within schools.

“Be the yoga you teach”

This afternoon, I viewed the next module in my online course, “Trauma Informed Yoga for Youth” and learned about their philosophy.  The internal practice of yoga is based on one principle: “be the yoga you teach.”  According to Yoga Ed, “practicing the yoga tools and life skills we wish to nurture in our students allows our work to emerge from an authentic place. The internal practice allows us to utilize yoga tools to empower our teaching.”  In order to “be the yoga we teach” the focus is on building the five pillars of our internal practice: self-awareness, authenticity, curiosity, self-compassion, and empathy.  

I immediately connected with the idea of embedding an equity and justice approach into two of the five pillars of internal practice: self-awareness and authenticity.

Self-awareness is the state of consciously being aware of thoughts and feelings.  When we work with children, we may encounter specific words or actions that cause us to react strongly. These triggers are often connected to our own unresolved emotional experiences from childhood. 

Being self-aware is where we begin the work on our implicit biases.  In this Teaching Channel blog post, guest blogger and author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Zaretta Hammond explained that, “one of the nation’s leading implicit bias scholars, Patricia Devine of the University of Wisconsin, compares implicit bias to habits that, with intention and practice, can be broken.”  She goes on to explain three conditions needed to successfully “de-bias.” 

  • Intention – the acknowledgement that we harbor unconscious biases and the motivation to change
  • Attention – pay attention to personal triggers and know when stereotypical responses or assumptions are activated
  • Time – make time to practice new strategies designed to “break” your automatic associations that link a negative judgment to behavior that is culturally different (my emphasis) from yours

Cultivating self-awareness in our teaching allows us to recognize our own past experiences and reactions as they are triggered. This awareness empowers us to shift from a place of reactivity to a place of clarity, where we move through our own past to recognize the present experiences of the children in front of us.

According to Yoga Ed, “authenticity fuels self-awareness. To live authentically means to be truthful and open to what is happening in the present moment. By practicing authenticity with ourselves, we honor our thoughts and emotions internally so we are able to monitor and express them effectively. By practicing authenticity in the classroom, we cultivate a safe environment for our students to explore what it means and how it feels to be authentic.”  To me, the pillar of authenticity aligns with Glenn Singleton’s “Speak your truth” agreement from Courageous Conversations About Race. 

I like when two pieces of my learning life come together into an “aha” moment.  Building my understanding around equity and justice within trauma informed practices is just another piece in my learning puzzle.  I’m going to continue to ask questions and confront issues of equity and justice, especially as my school begins to incorporate trauma informed practices such as yoga, mindfulness, and restorative justice.

©2019 by Dawn Little for My Learning Life. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Let Them Explode!

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Last night, we watched the fireworks from our balcony on the beach.  That is one of our traditions each year.  In past years, I watched through the eyes of my kids – the excitement, enjoyment, and joy was always a fun way to view the fireworks.  This year, while my kids still enjoy watching the fireworks, they didn’t have that pure unadulterated joy like they had when they were younger.  So instead of watching through their eyes, I viewed through the lens of an educator.

There were several groups of people who were shooting off fireworks in front of our condo.  All the people gathered on the beach, by the pool, and on their balconies were “oohing and aahhing”, naturally.  They put on a spectacular show. But, as we were watching the fireworks explode in bright colors in the sky, a policeman drove up and down the beach shutting people down.

Often times as educators, we tend to do the same thing.  Our students are bright, bold, fireworks.  They need time to build up and then shine brightly.  They don’t need the educators in their lives to shut them down.  What if we allowed our students to explode?  What can we do to ensure our students are able to shine brightly like those fireworks every day?  After spending some time reflecting on this analogy and thinking about ways I can help our students shine brightly in the new school year, I’m ready to start making plans. What are some ways you help your students shine brightly?

©2019 by Dawn Little for My Learning Life. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

I Did Something Scary a Few Weeks Ago

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Screen Shot 2018-12-27 at 9.31.01 AMA few weeks ago, I did something scary.  I made myself vulnerable to our staff in a meeting.  I opened up about my adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

In the late 1990’s, a doctor from the CDC and a doctor from Kaiser Permanente set out to find connections between childhood experiences and lifelong health.  They created a questionnaire and sent it to over 17,000 people in the Kaiser network.  The results were astounding.  The more adverse childhood experiences a person had, the more likely they were to have health issues.  Someone with an ACE score of 4 had twice the risk of heart disease and cancer.  Those with an ACE score of 6 or more, on average had 20 years lower life expectancy.

Of course, ACE scores don’t tally the positive experiences in early life that can help build resilience and protect a child from the effects of trauma.  Having a grandparent who loves the child or a teacher who understands and believes in the child may help mitigate the long-term effects of early trauma.

So why did I share this information with our staff?  Because many of our students are living with adverse childhood experiences right now.  How can the adults in the building help?  First, we need to be aware of the types of trauma that our students may be living with.  Then, we need to arm ourselves with strategies to help our students build resilience and coping skills.  If each staff member is “the one” for at least one student enduring trauma in the building, think about the impact we can make!

My ACE score is 4.  Thankfully, I had two teachers who took me under their wing and helped to mitigate the long-term effects of my early trauma.  I’m fully aware that my life could have gone in a different direction.  I’m also acutely sensitive to the trauma that our students endure, as a result of my own trauma.

Last week, I finally had a chance to sit down and read Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction by Jarrett J. Krosoczka.  This is a timely and profoundly important memoir, that unfortunately too many of our students will see themselves in.  But, that is exactly why it is a necessary book for our middle school and high school students.

Students who are living in a similar situation will see themselves in this graphic novel and will see how Jarrett was able to overcome his childhood trauma.  Other students will read Hey Kiddo! and will become aware of situations that some of their friends may be going through, perhaps building some empathy for their classmates.

Think about the students in your classroom or building.  Do you know them?  I mean really know them?  Do you know the trauma that some of them may endure in their homes?  As we close out 2018 and begin to edge into 2019, I will think about how I can “be the one” for the students in my building. I hope you will do the same.

©2018 by Dawn Little for My Learning Life. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Making Connections, Building Relationships

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image“If you were going to let yourself be connected to people, you had to be willing to take chances.” – The Secret Hum of a Daisy by Tracy Holczer

As I reflect on my reading of The Secret Hum of a Daisy, I can’t help but think about what the book signifies to me.  Relationships.  Sure, it’s about love and loss, but ultimately, I found that at the heart of the book was Grace and her relationships with those in her life.  One friendship was changing as another was blooming.  She had to learn to trust a grandmother she had never met before.  Cycles.  Trust.  Change.  Relationships.  We have all of this in our own lives and that is why I could relate to The Secret Hum of a Daisy.  The foundation of human connection – relationships.

I think about how important it is for us to build relationships in schools.  With our students and our colleagues.

Grace had a teacher who believed in her, Mrs. Snickels.  I think back to my teachers.  Two stand out.  Lisa Baar and Terese Rushford, though they were Ms. Bayse and Ms. Dukelow that year.  These two women were my fifth grade teachers and were pivotal in my development, not just academic, but social-emotional as well.  See, my parents separated when I was in fifth grade and these two women took me under their wings.  They believed in me, they took me out to dinner to celebrate my academic achievements, they took me strawberry picking, and most importantly they just listened.  They cared.  Years later, after my parents divorced and I was about to enter high school, my mom decided to move us out of state.  I was not happy about it to say the least, but Lisa was right there offering me a place in her home for the summer to help her with her children, but also as a member of the family. A way for me to transition to the new change in my life.  Cycles.  Trust.  Change.  Relationships.

When I became a teacher, I worked to build relationships with my students as well.  I worked to get to know my studets as individuals, their likes, their dislikes, their personal achievements.  I made personal connections with several students.  Several years ago, my former student Molly babysat for me. Just as I had for Lisa.  Just this past week, I ran into the grandmother of one of my former students.  Andrew was full of energy and traditional school expectations didn’t seem to work for him, even through high school.  But, in college, he bloomed.  She filled me in on all of his achievements since he was in my fourth grade class – my first year of teaching! He is now a sports journalist and works for Auburn University.  I’m so proud!  Cycles. Trust. Change.  Relationships.

Last year, I took a position as a staff development teacher.  My role is to support the teachers, but I also work closely with the principal, our instructional leader. I worked very hard last year (and continue to) to build relationships with my colleagues.  Not only was I new to the position, but I was new to the school, an established staff of committed teachers.  Our staff is committed to our students and to each other.  Cycles.  Trust.  Change.  Relationships.

As we begin this new calendar year, I strive to continue to build relationships with all in my life.  My colleagues, our students, my family, and my friends.  We all want to feel a connection to someone.

The foundation of human connection – relationships.