The Importance of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

from Florida Music Director October 2022

by Center for Fine Arts Education, Inc

Student Experiences

Trauma’s Influence on Life

The Importance of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

IImagine you are in the seventh grade, and your best friend is about to perform a solo for the spring choir concert. Your choir director asks you the day of the concert to introduce your friend. You agree and prepare a threesentence introduction. This is your first time speaking in front of an audience—in fact, it is your first time in front of an audience doing anything solo altogether. Your introduction is written down, and you have practiced it to the point that you are able to say it from memory. You recite the speech perfectly during the dress rehearsal. Fast-forward to the concert. The gymnasium is filled with 500 people, including parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, schoolmates, and teachers. The choir teacher is offstage but nearby. The time has come, and you step into the spotlight to begin your elaborate speech. In the middle of the first sentence, your tongue knots up, and you stammer to finish the sentence but are unable to do so. The entire audience laughs as you struggle, but you continue to mess up. Similarly, the laughing continues. You begin to get dizzy and start to black out amid the laughter, failing to realize you have been standing there for almost 30 seconds trying to make it through this experience, but failing to finish a single sentence. As you

by Christopher Beach, MM, MT-BC

come back to your senses, you struggle to turn your body to your teacher. She walks onto the side of the stage and tells you to take out your speech and read it directly from the paper. You do so, while snickering can still be heard within the audience. You mumble through the remainder of your speech and walk off the stage, defeated.

Trauma – What is it?

When an individual experiences an event or a situation that alters the way they function in society, the event might be considered traumatizing. In the above scenario, complete dissociation from an event is a signifier of a potentially traumatizing experience. To understand how to work with individuals who have histories of trauma, it is important to examine what trauma is.

Trauma is a normal reaction to an abnormal event and is a whole mind-body experience. Scenarios that might be considered traumatizing can include cultural disparities, natural disasters, assault/abuse, and medical illnesses, to name a few.

Individuals who experience such events might show symptoms or changes in their overall demeanor, as the

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definition of a trauma is an exposure to an event that affects an individual’s ability to function normally (Briere & Scott, 2015). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – 5th Edition (DSM-5) suggests that an individual who has experienced a traumatic event may show symptomatology within the emotional, physical, psychological, and social realms (Beach & Ritchie, 2021). In my experience as a music therapist, to understand trauma symptomatology better, it is necessary to have a functional understanding of the human nervous system. Figure 1 provides an illustration of the nervous system as it is currently understood. It is often said that the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems house the primary functions relating to trauma. The sympathetic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that prepares the body to respond to potential threats, also called the “fight-or-flight responses.” The parasympathetic nervous system is the part of the body that maintains balance and homeostasis. It is vital that all who are in helping professions (including music educators) understand the importance of knowing how trauma works in the body and how to work with individuals who have experienced trauma.

Figure 1. Central Nervous System

Though the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are part of the autonomic nervous system, they are connected to the central nervous system through efferent nerves. As certain regions of the brain interpret these signals, perceived appropriate responses are initiated. Therefore, trauma might be difficult to understand because, though it is thought of as a peripheral nervous system concept primarily, it is heavily influential within the central nervous system.

When trauma is experienced, the message of stress/ danger overrides the ability of the brain to work through logical thought processes, causing difficulty or an inability to process or respond in healthy ways. Individuals who are put into stressful and foreign scenarios might show physiological behaviors. When individuals are placed into these scenarios without proper processing, they may actually create an emotional association with the event. The more frequent the exposure, the stronger the neural bond, leading to an intensification and solidifying of the response.

Survivors of trauma often exhibit behaviors that exist within emotional, physical, psychological, and social levels (Beach & Ritchie, 2021). For classroom settings, it is crucial that instructors understand that manifestation of these symptoms is not necessarily something that can be seen or understood, as they stem from individual perception and experience. In the emotional realm, an individual might show dysregulation or negative self-perception. Individuals with physical responses might show somatic symptoms (e.g., headaches, stomachaches, weakened immune systems) or avoidance of potential triggers. Psychological manifestations might include changes of consciousness (such as the student blacking out in the scenario previously described), hypoarousal, hyperarousal, or flashbacks. Finally, social symptoms might include isolation or trust issues (Beach & Ritchie, 2021).

Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

Stressors and potentialities of trauma can exist within any scenario. No individual controls the day they see a car accident, the day a family member passes away, the day someone is kidnapped, or the day they experience a medical illness. No one can foresee the day when one of their students walks onto the stage to present something to an audience (having provided no suggestion of concern) and then stumbles through their speech. As stated previously, when these events happen, it can affect the entire body. How do instructors use the concepts of trauma-informed pedagogy to avoid triggering individuals? How do we encourage educators, those empowered to teach and develop our children’s minds, to address an issue as complicated, intrusive, and sophisticated as trauma?

The implications of trauma on the body’s overall system demonstrate the imperative need for an approach that accounts for these responses. Many individuals suggest that trauma-informed pedagogy might be a necessary approach in the future of education. Trauma-informed pedagogy is a “pedagogical practice that keeps trauma, its prevalence, and how it affects an individual, in mind” (Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, n.d., para. 2). Others, such as Harrison et al. (2020), expanded this definition to include symptomatology, as well as individual identities and any interacting entities, within organizations. The goal of trauma-informed pedagogy in the classroom is to provide educational experiences and information that attempt to avoid potential retriggering.

Guidance for Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

In order to cultivate a learning environment that alleviates potential trauma-inducing results, Imad (2020) summarized seven principles of guidance for trauma-informed pedagogy: (1) work to ensure safety, (2) build transparency and communication, (3) provide support, (4) enable choice and decision making among students, (5) build on students’ strengths, (6) be aware of potential marginalizing issues in society, and (7) instill a sense of purpose. These steps are critical in combatting the effect of traumatization in such a way that it allows students to engage at the level of their own comfortability while still being set up for success. Not only does it provide the students opportunities, but it also requires the instructor to engage in self-education of events (past and current) that might be damaging to others. With the understanding of what trauma is and the principles highlighted by Imad (2020), I suggest that trauma-informed pedagogy demands a collaborative process between student and teacher.

Research has documented children as being some of the most vulnerable to trauma, simply due to developmental stages (Jowett et al., 2020). As a child’s brain builds connections, enhances learning, and stores memories, it does not exclude negative experiences. It is for this reason

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that educators should change their way of thinking about individual students from “what is wrong with you” to “what happened to you” (Hess & Bradley, 2020, p. 441). By changing this frame of thought, we encourage individuals to be open about their experiences and themselves rather than isolating themselves and feeling demeaned, which are behaviors of survivors of trauma.

Providing an open space for survivors of trauma to feel welcomed and invited is of utmost importance. Although these individuals may not use the space, it is crucial that we as educators provide it to them so that the space is a safe environment for them to step away from the stress and trauma experience. In so doing, we provide them an opportunity to lessen the reinforcement of the trauma. (Think back to the concept of strengthening the neural bond discussed previously.) We want to create an atmosphere that allows the individual to stop perseverating on the issue, and if initiated, to process the trauma in an appropriate way. It is imperative for the educator to feel comfortable in helping the student with processing these events and feelings. Otherwise, they should provide resources to the child along with a referral to a qualified professional.

Conclusion

As educators, we hold a significant responsibility in ensuring that all students within our charge are safe, both physically and mentally. When students experience trauma, we have the ethical responsibility to do what we can to ensure safety for those students. We do not want them to establish a negative or damaging relationship with an experience, but rather process the experience and learn how to adapt it to better serve them in a healthy, developing way.

I want to revisit the scenario from the beginning of this article. After I walked off that stage, nobody talked with me about this experience until 18 years later, when I opened up about the repercussions of the experience. Yes, the scenario at the beginning of the article was my personal experience. In the time it took for me to realize the ramifications of that night, significant damage had been done. I have difficulty with public speaking. When I am placed in this situation, I often find myself reliving the dissociation that I experienced 18 years ago. I have difficulty being in a crowd, and I remain secluded and isolated—not only my physical body, but also my mental thoughts. I cannot share information with people without fear of judgment. Occasionally, I will find that I also begin to feel nauseated and start to dissociate from the experience, just like I did in the seventh grade.

As educators, we have the resources and tools to better understand the damage that trauma has the potential to cause. We are charged with protecting our students from the harmful effects of trauma as we strive to encourage individual and group development and success for each student. Using a trauma-informed pedagogical approach to education will help us to offer a place of safety for each individual. No educator should have to see a young student walk off a stage in defeat and suffer from the effects into adulthood. The damage is just too great.

Christopher Beach, MM, MT-BC, is a board certified music therapist who is pursuing the PhD in music education with a focus in music therapy from Florida State University. With prior experience in mental health and supervision, Mr. Beach is a graduate assistant and is focusing his research on trauma work in music therapy.

References

Beach, C., & Ritchie, C. (2021, October 17). Neurobiology of trauma and music therapy [Conference presentation]. American Music

Therapy Association National Conference, virtual conference. Briere, J. N., & Scott, C. (2015). Principles of trauma therapy: A guide to symptoms, evaluations, and treatment (2nd ed.). Sage

Publications. Harrison, N., Burke, J., & Clarke, I. (2020). Risky teaching:

Developing a trauma-informed pedagogy for higher education.

Teaching in Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1786046 Hess, J., & Bradley, D. (2020). Dewey’s theory of experience, traumatic memory, and music education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 39, 429-446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-02009706-z Imad, Mays. (June 3, 2020). Leveraging the neuroscience of now.

Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/ advice/2020/06/03/seven-recommendations-helping-studentsthrive-times-trauma Jowett, S., Karatzias, T., Shevlin, M., & Hyland, P. (2020).

Psychological trauma at different developmental stages and

ICD-11 CPTSD: The role of dissociation. Journal of Trauma &

Dissociation, 23(1), 52-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2021 .1934936 Trauma-Informed Pedagogy – Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation | UCI. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2021, from https://dtei.uci.edu/trauma-informed-pedagogy/