Final Thoughts

At this point, you have deeply explored trauma-informed and trauma-responsive pedagogy. This is not a light topic, and it is a great idea to take a few moments to check in with yourself. As we now know, being exposed to others' trauma may bring about trauma symptoms in others in the form of secondary or vicarious trauma. Needing time and space to process this important information is perfectly fine.

Here are some key take-aways to keep in mind as you attempt to implement the concepts from this module:

Prevalence of ACEs: approximately 64% of adults have experienced a traumatic/adverse childhood experience. This percentage does not account for people outside the study's demographics which included "mostly white, insured, high school-and college-educated adults", which suggests the actual percentage is much higher. Encountering students with trauma is extremely likely whether you are working with refugee and immigrant students or others at the Spokane Community College.
Limitations/Boundaries: We don't need to know every detail of a students' trauma. Their behavior will communicate it for us. When we listen to our students' behavior, we can recognize a) they have experienced trauma, and b) what they may need from us. We should avoid stepping into the role of a counselor or therapist.
Safety: the heart of trauma-informed teaching is creating a physically and psychologically safe space for students to drop into learning and providing opportunities for students to experience agency.
Growth: to practice trauma-responsive teaching, we must model and create opportunities for growth.
The teacher's state: The state of the teacher informs the experience of the students. Teachers must be settled and connected to create a safe and positive environment for the students.
Group effort: a truly trauma-informed/trauma-responsive organization must have buy-in from everyone. It cannot be happening only in one classroom or with one faculty member.

References

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, June 29). Fast facts: Preventing adverse childhood experiences. Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html

‌Daniels, E. (2022). Building a trauma-responsive educational practice : lessons from a corrections classroom. Routledge

Delaney, K.Trauma-Informed Education. [training] Happy Teacher Professional Development, Adams State University.

https://happyteacherpd.com/product-page/trauma-informed-education/

EDU, S. (2017). Brené Brown | Daring Classrooms | SXSWedu 2017. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVD8YRgA-ck

DeveloPlay.(2019, June 13). What is trauma? How do we help children who experience trauma? (video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=QlNBPPrjIE8&t=7s

Hamm, J. (2017). Understanding Trauma: Learning Brain vs Survival Brain. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoqaUANGvpA

Kostouros, P., Scarff, B., Millar, N., & Crossman, K. (Katie). (2022). Trauma-informed Teaching for Teachers of English as an Additional

language. Traumatology, 29(2).https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000381

Palanac, A. (2019). Towards a Trauma-Informed ELT Pedagogy for Refugees. Language Issues, 30(2), 3–14. Research Gate. https://

www.researchgate.net/publication/341452361

Palanac, A. (2023). Working with Trauma in the Refugee Language Classroom. [training] University of Leicester. https://le.ac.uk/cite/

sanctuary-seekers-unit/events/trauma-workshop

Walker, Tom. “I didn’t know it had a name”: Secondary traumatic stress and educators. NEA.

https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/i-didnt-know-it-had-name-secondary-traumatic-stress-and-educators

Wilson, V. (2022). Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Trauma-Informed English Language Teaching to Adults. The International Academic Forum.

https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2758-0962.2022.19