The Trouble With Trauma-Informed Education

For many students, school is where they experience the most trauma.

Admittedly, my children experienced a wonderful, relatively carefree childhood void of any serious trauma outside of learning how to ride a two-wheel bike. My husband and I created that environment intentionally. We went to great lengths to protect their innocence and sense of awe and wonder about the world around them. We made sacrifices and implemented specific rules and family policies to ensure they would not be inadvertently put in harm's way. Because of that, all four entered kindergarten blissfully unaware of many of the world's evils. It didn’t take long for that to change.

When it came time to decide on the best educational path for our children, we chose public schools because we wanted them to meet people different from what they had always known. Although the word now holds a different meaning than it did nearly twenty years ago, we wanted ‘diversity’ in classmates and peers. We got diversity but also situations and issues that we never intended to introduce our children to.

It started when my oldest was in kindergarten, and they had “Red Ribbon Week.” They made the week seem fun and benign by assigning themes to each day, like wearing pajamas to school, but the overall message was about avoiding drugs. Of course, we planned to teach our children about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, but we didn’t plan to have those conversations at the tender age of six. When I expressed my concern, I was told it was necessary because some children see drugs in their homes on a daily basis. So, my child’s innocence was chipped away at just a little bit because a few other students needed the conversation. 

Nevertheless, the year went by without another hitch, and my son excelled socially and academically. He was excited to move on to first grade the following year and looked forward to making new friends. A few months into his first-grade year, he started having “stomach aches” and calling me to come get him in the middle of the day. He was not ill-prone, and I was not the most compassionate nurse. I generally told him to tough it out, and magically, the stomach aches disappeared when he got off the bus each day. Subsequently, these bouts were brought on by a girl in his class who bullied him into “being friends.” She scared him because she regularly threw wild tantrums in class, leading to her being carried out by three or four adults each time. My son had never witnessed anything like this, and he did not, at seven years old, know how to process it. The girl remained in his class all year, disrupting whenever she wanted to, and the rest of the students were expected to learn to adapt. 

I could go on and give examples for every year he was in public school. I could then cite examples from my other three children’s experiences. I could also tell you stories from my own experience in the classroom as a teacher, as well as friends who have been in the profession for decades. The point is that, for too long, public schools have been exposing or inflicting trauma on unsuspecting children for the sake of the few students who have sadly suffered trauma in their young lives. Today, this is called trauma-informed education, and, like many initiatives in the education world, it started with good intentions and has led to adverse outcomes.

On paper, trauma-informed education sounds like a compassionate way to build empathy among peers and help struggling students remain in the classroom setting. In reality, this often means a teacher giving the majority of her time and attention to a student who needs much more care than she can provide. Meanwhile, a room of twenty-five other terrified students is looking on (and missing out on learning opportunities). Essentially, the other students, and often the teacher, experience trauma to appease the child in need of professional care. 

My degree is in elementary and special education. My passion is for quality education for all children, regardless of zip code or life circumstances. My knowledge and experience inform my opinion that it is always unhealthy to intentionally expose children to trauma as a means of teaching them kindness. I also believe it is often necessary to remove some students from a setting where they are being disruptive or violent so they can be placed in a learning environment that adequately meets their needs. This allows their classmates to have the opportunity to learn in an environment free from fear or intimidation as well. We should be compassionate toward students who have suffered trauma, but inflicting trauma on other students in the process is neither compassionate nor effective.