KEY CONCEPTS

➨ Developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) is an “approach to teaching grounded both in the research on how young children develop and learn and in what is known about effective early education” (National Center on Safe and Supportive Learning Environments).  However, it generally does not encompass older children and adolescents.

➨ Adolescents can look and sound like adults, but neuroscience has shown that several areas in adolescent brains are still developing, affecting their abilities to make decisions. Young people may struggle with challenges like “impulsiveness; inflexibility; aggressiveness; recklessness; emotional volatility; risk-taking with less sensitivity to risks than to possible short-term rewards, excitement, and arousal; reactivity to stress; vulnerability to peer pressure; tendency to underestimate long-term consequences; and tendency to overlook alternatives.” (Diekema, 2020, n.p.)

➨ For educators of older (secondary-age) children, developmentally appropriate practices may be considered those focused on supporting students’ developmental assets, or those defined locally by a school or district.

➨ “Adolescents are sensitive to environmental cues, affective elements, rewards and punishments, and the presence of peers, and have a more difficult time resisting these pressures than a more fully mature individual.…adolescents do not appear to enhance cognitive performance when the stakes of a decision are high.” (Diekema, 2020, n.p.)

➨ Research has shown that students who have experienced four or more adverse events during childhood are 32 times more likely to have learning difficulties and behavioral problems, including higher rates of absenteeism and failure to meet grade-level standards. It can also lead to higher rates of substance abuse (Goldin & Khasnabis, 2020, n.p.). 

➨ It is also understood that many aspects of brain development rely on experience, and that trauma can negatively impact a range of cognitive functions, including memory (Nelson & Carver, 1998) and executive functioning (Carrion & Wong, 2012). 

➨ It is important to recognize that trauma “is pervasive across all demographics” and affects all students regardless of their ethnicity, race, class or gender; at the same time, students of color who experience trauma are often “read differently” than white students by educators (Goldin & Khasnabis, 2020, n.p.).

➨ Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of the implementation of trauma-informed practices “the emergence and rapid growth of trauma-informed care into the educational realm… has occurred with no standard, formally agreed upon terms or framework… in districts and schools specifically.…there in fact is currently no consensus on use or clear operationalization of the terms ‘trauma-informed approach,’ ‘trauma sensitive,’ ‘trauma-informed system’” (Thomas et al., 2019, p. 441).

➨ Trauma often disrupts healthy attachment, especially in children, and traumatized youth may “bond too easily with anyone who shows a passing interest in them” (Craig, 2017, 59). Young people who have experienced trauma “need the adults in their lives to model and teach how to be in relationship with peers and adults,” and when relationships are inconsistent or harmful, it may result in the internalization of “unhealthy confused or risky beliefs about who to trust” (Venet, 2019, p.1).

➨ In US schools, the norms and values of whiteness and the behavioral and relational codes of white culture are accepted as the default (Will & Najarro, 2022, n.p.). This can harm Black and brown students, contribute to gaps in achievement and feelings of belonging, and constrain student-teacher relationships. 

➨ Gloria Ladson-Billings introduced the framework of culturally responsive teaching in the 1990s. She states that effective teachers “know enough about students’ culture and its role in education (teaching and learning), take responsibility for learning about students’ culture and community, use student culture as a basis for learning, and promote a flexible use of students’ local and global culture” (Ladson-Billings in Edwards & Edick, 2013, n.p.). 

➨ Knowledge of students’ cultural values, traditions, and contributions to society can allow teachers to adjust their instructional practices in response to those understandings (Will & Najarro, 2022, n.p.).

➨ Another element of culturally responsive pedagogy that can assist teachers in developing culturally appropriate relationships with their students is an understanding of how culture affects communication styles and relationship and boundary development (Will & Najarro, 2022, n.p.).