Resources
The Community Education Committee provides resources that are relevant to our children's development and well-being. Below you will find articles that are relevant across the community.
The Surprising Benefits of Teaching a Class Outside
A new study finds that a class in nature helps kids be more attentive and focused once they return indoors. As any teacher knows, students need to be engaged with learning to absorb lessons in any meaningful way. Otherwise they can become distracted, disrupting everyone in the classroom and taking time away from instruction. There are many ways to foster engagement, of course. But one may surprise you: holding classes outside. Findings from a new study show that learning outdoors is not just a fun, novel experience for kids, but also helps them focus once they return to the classroom.
Researchers Say They Have A New Tool To Address The School-Absence Problem
Educators consider chronic absenteeism a red alert — a blaring sign that a student might be academically at risk. But schools and parents now have a new tool to investigate the problem, in the form of open-source data collected by UC Davis and research partners Attendance Works and Children Now. Together, they produced “Seize the Data Opportunity in California: Using Chronic Absence to Improve Educational Outcomes.” The report uses an interactive map to pinpoint the type of schools that struggle with chronic absences. Chronic absence is defined as missing 10 percent or more of a school year for any reason, a level educators say puts students at academic risk. The report found more than 800 public schools in California had high rates of chronic absence, where 20 percent or more of their students met the risk threshold.
http://www.capradio.org/114988
Restorative Justice Could Be the Key to Preventing Violence in Schools
A student throws a chair at a teacher. A typical chain of events follows this incident: The student is removed from the classroom—perhaps sent to the principal's office or escorted by safety officers in the school—and then receives a prompt out-of-school suspension. When the student returns to the classroom, it's likely that nothing was done to repair the relationship with the teacher. And thus, the cycle of misbehavior and stricter punishment continues. This type of retributive justice, or justice based on punishment rather than rehabilitation, has been the most widely used method of discipline in American schools for decades. And it makes sense: If a student is disrupting the class, the easiest and most effective remedy is removing the student from the classroom. Or is it? LaQuesha Grigsby, the principal of Bammel Middle School in Houston, Texas, doesn't think so. "We're in a situation where we have to do something drastic," Grigsby told the Texas Tribune, "because what we've been doing is not working."
https://psmag.com/education/restorative-justice-could-be-the-key-to-preventing-violence-in-schools
Teacher - student relationships key to overcoming trauma
Over the next three years, graduate and doctoral students from UNC-Charlotte will work to train teachers to create solid relationships with their students in a way that helps build resiliency and decrease teacher stress. “And I thought about the children I worked with at Koontz,” Post said. “… These children I worked with at Koontz had [ACE]scores of 7, 8 — 6, 7, 8.” So, with the blessing of the school system Post launched her program. The goal? Within three years, every teacher at Koontz will be trained in building positive child-teacher relationships. A positive relationship with an adult has been shown to be the No. 1 intervention that can change a child’s life for the better. “We can train parents in these skills, and we can train teachers in these skills and teachers can use them in their classrooms,” Post said.
Trauma-Responsive Education Is Changing School Culture
Together Mrs. RB and her staff have come up with innovative applications for changing the school culture to trauma-responsive. Instead of being a punitive atmosphere it now has one filled with a sense of achievement, excitement and respect. Not only did learning about ACEs affect teacher relationships with students, but the faculty members themselves attest that having a trauma-informed lens has made them more aware of being supportive to each other as staff. What’s amazing is how this culture shift was not an expensive one to the school system. At first there was an investment of time in getting staff trained and then meeting together to decide what changes might be made but in the long run Mrs. RB says now with trauma-responsive practices in place, situations that arise actually take less time to resolve by using these new methods.
http://www.acesconnection.com/blog/trauma-responsive-education-is-changing-school-culture
How Social-Emotional Skills Can Fit into School Curricula
“No time.” Again and again, teachers tell me this is why they can’t teach social-emotional skills to their students—and it’s no wonder given the demands placed upon them. But while a 30-minute social-emotional learning (SEL) lesson might be impossible to fit into a week, slipping a social-emotional concept into already-existing curriculum content may not be. In one study, student teachers were paired with novice school psychologists to create language arts lessons with an SEL focus. The researchers found that the process yielded “creative and powerful” lessons and fostered a desire in both groups to continue such collaboration.
How Educators Can Become More Resilient This School Year
With 25 years in education under her belt and a decade as an instructional and leadership coach, Aguilar draws on research in mindfulness, neurobiology, positive psychology, change management, and systems thinking to package a coherent year-long program for developing resilience. She explains that resilience is influenced by four factors: who you are (genetics, values, personality), what you do (habits), where you are (context), and how you are (emotions, dispositions). Aguilar teaches you how to work on these factors with her 12 habits of emotionally resilient educators, which include things like building community, being here now, and taking care of yourself. You can read about one habit every month or go straight to the topics that are most important to you, each of which is supplemented by a long list of daily activities and practices in the companion Onward Workbook.
How Trauma Affects Kids in School
We tend to think of trauma as the result of a frightening and upsetting event. But many children experience trauma through ongoing exposure, throughout their early development, to abuse, neglect, homelessness, domestic violence or violence in their communities. And it’s clear that chronic trauma can cause serious problems with learning and behavior. Trauma is particularly challenging for educators to address because kids often don’t express the distress they’re feeling in a way that’s easily recognizable — and they may mask their pain with behavior that’s aggressive or off-putting. As Nancy Rappaport, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who focuses on mental health issues in schools, puts it, “They are masters at making sure you do not see them bleed.” Identifying the symptoms of trauma in the children can help educators understand these confusing behaviors. And it can help avoid misdiagnosis, as these symptoms can mimic other problems, including ADHD and other behavior disorders. In brief, the obstacles to learning experienced by these children include:
- Trouble forming relationships with teachers
- Poor self-regulation
- Negative thinking
- Hypervigilance
- Executive function challenges
https://childmind.org/article/how-trauma-affects-kids-school/
Addressing Race and Trauma in the Classroom: A Resource for Educators
This publication helps educators understand how they might address the interplay of race and trauma and its effects on students in the classroom. The guide outlines recommendations for educators and offers a list of supplemental resources. This resource is intended to help educators understand how they might address
the interplay of race and trauma and its effects on students in the classroom. After defining key terms, the guide outlines recommendations for educators and offers a list of supplemental resources. This guide is intended as a complement to two existing NCTSN resources—Position Statement on Racial Injustice and Trauma and Child Trauma Toolkit for Educators—and it should be implemented in accordance with individual school policies and procedures.
https://www.nctsn.org/resources/addressing-race-and-trauma-classroom-resource-educators
Five Ways to Support Students Affected by Trauma
For some young people, school is the only place in their lives where they know they are safe and can form trusted, enduring relationships. It is, therefore, a cruel irony that many students who are affected by trauma also have trouble engaging at school. They may attend school with the best of intentions, hoping to form friendships, feel connected to their teachers, and succeed at the day’s tasks. Yet they can find themselves defiant, demanding, and disengaged—unable to learn and confused about why they can’t relate and bond with others. What do the latest scientific findings from the fields of traumatology, neuroscience, and positive education tell us about how to best help students who are affected by trauma? Below, we highlight some of the new practices that teachers can use to not only help students heal but also help them grow.
A Teacher's Role in Dealing with Tragedy
When death intrudes in the lives of children in a school community, the classroom is one of the key settings in which kids will experience grief and anxiety, and struggle to come to terms with their feelings. I wish I could give you words that would protect the youngsters in your class from grief and fear. But since that’s not possible, I offer some thoughts and guidelines, based on my experience, to help you help them process their feelings in a healthy way. Acknowledge the loss. When a tragedy involves a school community—especially when the lives of students or teachers are lost—it’s likely that it will be in the classroom where the loss may be felt most keenly. Some kids may be very uncomfortable with that awareness. That means it’s particularly important for you to acknowledge the loss and give your students an opportunity to express their feelings about the traumatic event.
https://childmind.org/article/teachers-role-tragedy-strikes/
Overcoming Childhood Trauma: How Parents and Schools Work to Stop the Cycle
Children have to be healthy enough to learn,” said child psychiatrist and Stanford professor Shashank Joshi. “That's something that all school districts can agree on. And mental health is part of overall health.” At Honey Run Academy in Paradise, California, principal Dena Kapsalis and her staff are careful not to assume anything about their students -- what kinds of homes they come from, or even that they have homes…The school’s environment is built from the idea that each student is an individual and that every interaction is significant. Even a student’s added selection of fruit with a meal is recognized. Multiply those moments over the course of a day, a week, a month and you start to see children growing healthy enough to learn.