FROM A PLACE OF EMPATHY
Many students in Canadian schools are living with trauma, and it’s time to help
There are students living with trauma in every school in Canada.
According to the 2014 General Social Survey, one-third of Canadians under 15 have lived through some form of trauma, from sentinel events like physical or sexual abuse to growing up amid substance use. Those experiences can stifle the developing brain, flooding it with hormones that create problems for memory, emotional regulation and learning.
Teachers are seeing the impact, and some are changing the way they run their classrooms.
“If the brain is under stress, kids can’t learn,” says Maureen Dockendorf, longtime educator and Superintendent with the British Columbia Ministry of Education. “Teachers need to teach differently to meet (those) needs.”
At its simplest, a trauma-informed approach means taking the experiences of students into account, understanding why depression, anxiety and stress are following kids to class and how those moods alter behaviour and academic performance. From that place of empathy, teachers can start to build the type of environment that students in pain need to thrive.
The charity that I co-founded works in nearly 20,000 schools across Canada, the United
States and the U.K. Consistently, mental health is the top concern young people raise. For teachers to address this growing issue, they need better training and buy-in from us as parents. The solution will look different in every school depending on student needs and my team has seen some great initiatives in schools in the U.S. that can serve as models wherever there are students in need.
Arlinda Davis’ Grade 1 classroom in Birmingham, Ala., has a cosy corner full of pillows, blankets and stuffed animals next to a fridge stocked with snacks for students who come to class hungry or were kept awake in turbulent homes. Meanwhile, Mandy Currier lets her Grade 2 students in O’fallon, Mo., decorate their classroom at the start of every year, covering it in colourful ribbons and inspirational quotes. For students struggling with a sense of selfworth, she explains, the process imparts feelings of control and accomplishment.
These sorts of initiatives aren’t found in the curriculum — and that’s where parents come in.
We need a strategic and standardized approach to what is a widespread problem. Teachers and school boards respond to the collective voice of parents, who can advocate for making the whole child a priority. Only then will teachers get the training they need to identify trauma, the latitude to form strong relationships and the professional support to truly make a difference.
If you have a child in school, talk to their teacher about how mental health is addressed in the classroom. Raise the issue at PTA meetings and with friends. As parents, we share the responsibility for addressing trauma and all students stand to benefit. The latest research suggests that awareness, communication, relationship-building and creative skills are key to enabling all learning. Classrooms that focus on these abilities show better academic outcomes in the long run.
Some school boards and teachers are already taking action. British Columbia, for example, has been working with researchers for years to ensure the provincial curriculum is trauma-informed. The result is a tool kit with resources available for all teachers. But we can’t take a piecemeal approach. We owe young people more than that. Craig Kielburger is co-founder of the WE Movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day.