Trauma-Responsive Schooling

the educational structure is such that the adults in schools purposely attend to the brains, bodies, and psyches of students first and foremost, deeper academic engagement and learning will naturally follow, and greater expectations for student growth are finally realistic and attainable.

The differences between traditional education and healing- and resilience-centered schooling in terms of educational focus, school structure, and philosophical foundation are described in table I.1.

Table I.1: Traditional Versus Healing- and Resilience-Centered Schools

Traditional Schools

Curriculum Instruction Assessment Rules Literacy Wellness Learning Connection

Time-based schooling Teacher-driven and content-focused Standardized testing-focused

Content and curriculum Instruction Assessment Compliance Standardized

Healing- and Resilience-Centered Schools

Focus

Structure

Mastery-based learning Student-driven and learning-focused Personalized and authentic high-level learning

Philosophy

Mastery Connection Learning Empowerment Humanized

We assert that the school wellness wheel, described in greater detail in this book, provides the functional integration of educational, psychological, social, and medical research, and establishes a specific framework to help schools provide dynamic, rich contexts that can better facilitate and support the healthy development and high-level learning of all students.

About This Book

Change does not happen in schools unless someone leads it well. A massive paradigm shift like the one toward a healing- and resilience-centered model entails an

array of leadership qualities and behaviors that are critically necessary for the vision to come to fruition. Thus, this book is fundamentally leader-centric. This shift, however, is a very heavy lift that requires the entire staff’s commitment and combined cognitive energy. So, we assert that this book is for everyone in an educational organization to delve into and digest over time.

Students’ brains are malleable and can be supported and healed through mastery learning principles, culturally responsive school practice, and developmentally designed settings that address the impact of trauma and stress (Cantor et al., 2019; Osher et al., 2019; Vander Ark, Liebtag, & McClennen, 2021). The purpose of this book is to help schools become healing- and resilience-centered organizations in which personal mastery, as well as trauma-competent and culturally responsive practices are the norm in the educational process. If we know that trauma can negatively impact and even damage the brain, we also know that there are actions educators can take to reverse those effects, heal the brain, and build resilience in nontraumatized brains. The research is clear: if people engage in these activities, they get better and stronger (Bath, 2008; Bloom & Farragher, 2013).

This being the case, we maintain that schooling’s primary purpose is to help every student reach their fullest potential—as students, certainly, but also as human beings. Many educators are familiar with the hierarchy of needs by Abraham Maslow (1943), the prevalent model that researchers use to explain human motivation. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was heavily influenced by his work with Blackfeet people in 1938 (Michel, 2014; Bray, 2019). In fact, the familiar triangular shape of the hierarchy diagram was inspired by the Blackfeet tipi. Interestingly, Blackfeet philosophy recognizes self-actualization (fulfillment of the self) not as the topmost goal of human development, but rather as a critical foundational component for the more highly valued evolution of the community. Thus, community actualization sits at the pinnacle of the Blackfeet hierarchy (Kingston, 2020).

In any case, Maslow’s (1943) construct involves the pursuit of specific needs and goals, and teachers must be cognizant of the physical and psychological needs of their students in order to capture attention and eventually move them to subsequently higher levels of engagement. Maslow (1943) asserted that motivation and inspiration occur when we believe that an activity or opportunity will help us meet a specific need or goal. Conversely, they do not occur when we believe we will be unable to accomplish a specific need or goal. Each level is generally not available without fulfilling the needs related to the prior levels. See figure I.2 (page 14).

Since we assert that a primary function of schools is to foster healthy and resilient people who have the skills and strength to be successful, we have purposefully aligned the chapters of the book with Maslow’s famous hierarchy. Just as students