Trauma Informed Practice

The OCT Ethical Standards for the Teaching Profession that this blog post is related to are as follows:

1. Commitment to Students and Student Learning: Members are dedicated in their care and commitment to students. They treat students equitably and with respect and are sensitive to factors that influence individual student learning. Members facilitate the development of students as contributing citizens of Canadian society.

4. Leadership in Learning Communities Members promote and participate in the creation of   collaborative, safe and supportive learning communities. They recognize their shared responsibilities and leadership roles in facilitating student success. Members maintain and uphold the principles of the ethical standards in these learning communities.

5. Ongoing Professional Learning: Members recognize that a commitment to ongoing professional learning is integral to effective practice and to student learning. Professional practice and self-directed learning are informed by experience, research, collaboration and knowledge. 

For this blog post, I have decided to talk about trauma-informed practice which is related to a workshop that I previously attended at the Niagara University Educational Conference. The focus of trauma-informed practice is the student as an individual and ensuring that we as educators are focused on the why instead of just the behaviour we see. 

As we all know, having been in classrooms there are always some behaviours or challenges that we need to deal with from students. Trauma-informed practice advocates for educators to stop and look at the student and ask why when a negative behaviour occurs. We may not always know all the things that our students are going through but we can take a number of steps to ensure that we are prepared to be a support. 

Firstly, we need to ensure that our classroom is a safe space that can be a "home" for all students in our room. Creating a stable and consistent environment that is built on mutual respect can help to ensure that students feel safe in the classroom space to ensure they have the ability to attend our class each day. 

The second thing we need to give our students is the knowledge and information to learn successfully. We as educators need to stay up to date with not only curriculum documents but also things such as mental health, and the things that are important to our students. If we are well educated and prepared we can give our students a better experience and level of understanding. 

The third thing that we need to have in order to be good educators in trauma-informed practice is to ensure students feel cared for and valued. Students that feel cared for and valued are more likely to trust their teachers and open up to them about issues. This is crucial because when we understand the why of the behaviour we can help to address these issues and will better be able to react in a caring manner that is informed and beneficial to the child. 

The final piece we should be creating for our students is confidence. The confidence to take risks and share thinking will help to build students' resilience and confidence moving forward. By developing the student's resilience and confidence we are giving them the tools to help overcome their traumas and learn ways to cope with them in a supportive environment. (Eldridge, 2023)

If we as educators can take these four steps with our students we will create a classroom environment that is filled with respect, learning, and care for one another. This type of environment allows students to attend school without being nervous or feeling that they don't belong. By allowing our students to trust us and our room as a safe space we will get to develop better relationships with each of our students. These relationships will allow us to know what is going on with our students in their lives and with this knowledge, we are better able to understand what they need and how to assist them. By being informed educators we can provide a better classroom experience for students in our class. 

References

Eldridge, J. (2023, March 20). Hearts and Minds Matter: The importance of trauma-informed practice. Niagara University Education Conference, Vaughan, ON, Canada. 

Courtesy of TylerR@NU-491