Education Week: Students in Distress Are Putting a Strain on Teachers

Getty // Education Week

In an Education Week article titled “Teachers Support Social-Emotional Learning, But Say Students in Distress Strain Their Skills,” Sarah Schwartz reported about Turnaround for Children’s work bringing the science of learning and development into schools in Washington, D.C. and supporting educators to implement strategies that help all children thrive:

When students have faced trauma or adverse childhood experiences, they can remain “locked” in a fight, flight, or freeze response, said Michael Lamb, the [Executive Director, Washington, D.C.] of Turnaround for Children, an organization that uses neuroscience to inform childhood learning and development. Turnaround has partnered with the D.C. schools, including Ketcham, where Snell works.

 “If you experience an adverse or traumatic event, your body and your brain react to that in that moment. But it also stays with you for the rest of your life,” he said. Almost half of all children in the United States have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, such as abuse or neglect, or witnessing violence in their community, according to Child Trends.

 “We must purposefully design the learning environment to buffer students from that stress,” Lamb said.

Read the article.