What if Schools Are The Source of Trauma

[Music]

[Applause]

my teacher

yanked me down the hallway

and slammed my seven-year-old body

on a hard wooden

bench i was so afraid

my heart was beating rapidly

my hands were so sweaty

that as i tried to hold on to the bench

they kept slipping

legs were rocking back and forth but

because i was so small

my feet didn’t touch the floor

all i wanted

was my daddy

i just needed my daddy to be there and i

knew he was on his way i knew he was

coming and as i looked down the hallway

all i could see was

chalk dust

and my heart dropped

because i could hear them

i could hear the teacher

and the counselor and the principal

talking about me

they were trying to figure out what to

do with me

they were talking about suspensions

and expulsions

and even putting me in special education

and then i heard them

talk about my family

they said

they just didn’t care about me and that

wasn’t true

that’s not true at all then they started

using words like

at risk

culturally deprived

and

i didn’t know

what those words meant but they didn’t

sound right and they didn’t sound good

and there i am

a seven-year-old terrified

listening to this

but now that i’m an adult

i know what those words mean

but they’ve been replaced today

by terms like toxic stress

trauma

and adverse childhood experiences

now

they have a way of measuring toxic

stress and trauma

and that is done by using a

questionnaire

called the adverse childhood experiences

questionnaire

and on this question there are 10

questions

and they’re in the category of abuse

neglect and household dysfunction

but every single question on that

inventory on that questionnaire

is grounded in the child’s home and

family

of those 10 questions i would like to

highlight three of them

and one of them asked

was there anyone in your home a family

member or other adult

who hit you kicked you

beat you or harmed you

in any way

and my answer to that is no

no not at home

but it happened

at school

i was paddled regularly

i was told to bend over

hold on to the seat of a chair

and the principal or assistant principal

would take a wooden stick

and whack me

right across my behind

and when they really wanted to hurt me

they would use the paddle with the holes

in it

and that paddle would leave me bruised

and hurt so much that it was hard to sit

still

for the next few days

did you know that there are 19 states in

this country

that still allow

corporate corporal punishment

in public schools

and there are 48 states

that allow it

in private schools

just imagine

if that administrator left the building

picked up a stick and hit a child

outside of the school building they’d be

charged with assault

but here right now today

it’s still legal

let’s look at another question on the

inventory

it said did in in your home did a family

member

or another adult

put you down

insult you or make you feel bad about

yourself

that did not happen in my home in my

home i was elevated

but it happened at school

teachers actually told me that i would

be dead or in jail before i turned 18

that i would never amount to anything

and even though i was smart

i was put down for being a know-it-all

or a miss smarty pants

you remember when i said they were

thinking about putting me in special

education during that time they had to

give you an iq test

and my iq was off the chart

so they could not put me in special ed

they ended up skipping me a grade so i

went

from second grade to fourth grade

but if that would have happened today

i probably would have ended up in

special ed because african american

children are overrepresented in special

ed especially in the category of

behavioral disorders and intellectual

ability

let’s choose another question

the question say was there no one in

your home

who cared about you

or made you feel special

everybody in my home cared about me

it made me feel special

i was adored at home my intellect and my

behavior was praised at home i was told

i was smart and i could do anything

so when you look at these questions that

are so grounded in home and family do we

really believe that the home is the only

place that children experience trauma

i experienced my trauma at school

on three questions

and the way we measure trauma is that if

you have

answered

yes to four or more questions your

lifetime outcomes are diminished

you’re more likely to engage in risky

behaviors you’re more likely to have

poor health health outcomes and much

more likely to experience an early death

school was the source

of my trauma

and when a child’s spirit is murdered

at school

where does their soul go

to heal

dr patina love challenges us with that

question where does the child’s soul go

to heal

i spent seven hours a day at school

and i went home to heal

and my family would build me up every

night

just to send me back to school the

source of my trauma

every

day

so

this isn’t saying that trauma is not

experienced in the home of course it is

but that is an opportunity for schools

to become the healing spaces

so what can we do about this

first we have to stop blaming children

and families

and we have to understand trauma

we have to understand our own trauma

and our own trauma triggers

we also have to be aware of the cultural

lens that we bring everywhere we go

and recognize that everyone does not

have the same cultural lens

we have to be aware of implicit bias

we all have it

we didn’t ask for it and we don’t want

it but it’s there

and then

we can implement trauma-informed

practices

and what we’ve learned about

trauma-informed practices is that it

challenges us not to ask the child

what’s wrong with you

but what happened to you

but then we can go a bit further

we can then begin to practice and

implement

healing centered practices

and those practices take us from what’s

wrong with you to what happened to you

to what is right with you

it understands that trauma and

resilience is a collective experience

and it focuses on the healing by tapping

in to the inner strength

that every child and family has

and then

we can take a really good look at

ourselves and we can ask ourselves what

we can do

this overused statement

it takes a village

to raise a child

is

absolutely true

but we have to recognize

that schools

are a critical part

of that village

and when we do it right

we can ensure

that every child

can learn

grow

heal

and succeed

thank you very much

[Applause]

you