In the beginning of a school year it is important to remember that every student is on their own learning path – with their private history (which can be scary, maybe with harmful elements for learning process, like neglect and abuse causing serious trauma that messes with their learning process) [1]. We all are in our own learning paths with our previous experiences and hopes/plans for the future learning. As educators, we can design learning experiences that guide students on the path of making responsible decisions (for their learning and lives #sel), but we cannot force people to change or follow a given path. This is why using the power of positive regard is so important! We are helping our students to create hopeful futures – and I have found empathy, curiosity and open-mindedness to become my most valuable tools as an educator!
It is not easy to try to see the positive in a disruptive behavior. Reminding myself to perceive students as complex human beings is often the most helpful first step for me. Students are on different paths, they have lives outside of school, and sometimes just reframing our perception can help us to remember that there might be a reason for a student to act differently. Isolating the behavior from the person helps us to accept our students as they are, not as we wanted them to be. And the younger the student, the more they need our help in managing their emotions and stress, which is why we want to actively design and build emotionally safe learning environments [2] to help every student to get onto a hopeful learnign path. I know this sounds like a lot of extra work but the payback is incredible: deeper learning, better learning outcomes, less disruptions, students helping each other, and so on. Acknowledging the presence of trauma in all our lives allows us to have more compassion for students and help them to see that the hopeful futures can exist! To design these learning experiences, we need to have empathy, work to find our curiosity again, and then just decidedly stay open-minded.
While we are not counselors or mental health professionals, we ARE supporting our students’ personal growth with all our learning design and classroom interactions – and helping students to stay curious is important! We can (and should) actively choose how to teach because our pedagogical choices impact the deep and surface learning strategies our students decide to use. An important role for a teacher is to help students make good choices. Otherwise kids could just learn everything they need from a video feed.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are often very visible in the classroom, causing many kinds of disruptions. Students may appear disrespectful or angry, disengaged or lazy, but without knowing what is causing their misbehavior, we are more likely to react to the situation than using a pedagogically sound response. The “disrespectful” student may be scared of something and in the fight-flight- freeze-fawn mode; the “angry” student may be worrying about their family or safety. The “disengaged” student may be simply overwhelmed and doesn’t know how to ask for help. And the “lazy” student may have no idea how to get a task started, or homework completed. Which is why they need our help. Lot’s of help. To get on a better path and to make those responsible decisions about their learning and futures.
Designing opportunities for positive childhood experiences (PCEs) are our best tools for creating those hopeful futures [3]. Their report shows that “Children can succeed in school, even with substantial adversity, when they develop executive functioning skills and use the relational supports that are known to promote resilience.” And while I know that the report talks about childhood experiences, during my 10+ years in Higher Ed, mentoring M.Ed. grad students, I have learned that students of all ages react well to the unconditional positive regard. In addition to the trauma from our personal life situations, adult learners often also carry some serious educational trauma, making it harder to be curious and open-minded in a formal learning situation, like continuing education course or while earning a degree, making positive regard and individual support essential pars of our learning design.
What are your ideas for designing learning paths to hopeful futures? Please comment below!
References:
[1] Perry, B. D. (2006). Fear and learning: Trauma-related factors in the adult education process. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 110, 21.
[2] Burstein, D., Yang, C., Johnson, K., Linkenbach, J., & Sege, R. (2021). Transforming practice with hope (healthy outcomes from positive experiences). Maternal and Child Health Journal, 25(7), 1019-1024.
[3] Sege, R., Bethell, C., Linkenbach, J., Jones, J., Klika, B. & Pecora, P.J. (2017). Balancing adverse childhood experiences with HOPE: New insights into the role of positive experience on child and family development. Boston: The Medical Foundation.
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