Trauma-Informed Suggestions

for Helping Everyone Learn

Follow these tips from expert Jen Alexander to help everyone in your classroom learn during times of collective trauma.

1. Slow Down
   Think about how you will reassure students and families you are ready for all students, whether or not they met the previous grade level's standards. Consider how you will prioritize pre-testing, instruction, practice common formative assessment, supplemental intervention, and summative assessment without pushing too much. Trying to do too much academically too soon will cause dysregulation and may contribute to behaviors that compromise real or felt safety as well as relational or even personal health. Focus on felt safety, relationships, and regulation first.

   Academic skills may undergo a small decline after school closures, but they tend to be followed by a catching up. In part, this may be because teachers often respond to school closures by focusing on what students need to learn most in an effort to make up for lost instructional time. Good teachers who connect and provide feedback during distance learning and who help address inequities once schools reopen make a difference.

2. Keep Your Eye on the Ultimate Goal

3. Be Compassionate With Yourself and Others
   As stress goes up, it's hard for any of us to access the executive functions that help us act to meet short- or long-term goals. If you've noticed yourself being more forgetful, more disorganized, or even foggy in your thinking, that's why. Expect that students will forget things more often and have trouble organizing their worlds too. Give yourself and others the same grace when struggling as you need on your worst day (and on days even worse than you've ever encountered). Each of us is doing our best.