It is rare, so
very rare, when you hear someone speak and what he has to say touches your very
soul. I was blessed to have this
experience Thursday, October 12th, right here in Hutchinson,
Kansas! I didn’t even need to leave
town.
We were honored
to have Mr. Jim Sporleder speak to the public.
Mr. Sporleder is a retired principal from Walla Walla, Washington. Under Mr. Sporleder’s leadership,
Lincoln High School, an alternative education school, became a Trauma-Informed
school, gaining attention across the United States due to the dramatic drop in
out of school suspensions, increased graduation rates and the number of
students going on to post-secondary education. Because of these
changes at Lincoln High School, the successes caught the attention of Jamie
Redford, who spent a year filming a documentary, Paper
Tigers, which tells the story of Lincoln High School.
In Jim’s talk on Thursday, he stated that, we, as educators need to
break away from the tradition mindset of testing being tied to teacher
evaluations and from the traditional, fear-based, forms of discipline, which
only add to a student’s trauma and use fear to manipulate the situation. He went on to say that our children are the
most hurting population in our communities across the United States. He says that people use punishment to cause
pain and this type of action feeds into the cradle-to-prison pipeline. He also stated that the children of affluent
and middle class families are the most hurting.
With regard to ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), Mr. Sporleder says
that these are hands no one should have to hold. He went on to say that the ACEs pyramid
(pictured below) is a very adequate predictor.
When anyone
experiences trauma, that person goes into a “flight-fight-freeze” mode.
·
Flight-Avoidance, anxiety, or fear.
·
Fight-Irritability, defensiveness, loss of
temper
·
Freeze-numbing, detachment, giving up easily
When a person is exhibiting one of these responses to
trauma, their brains go into a “survival mode,” and it is physiologically
impossible for them to de-escalate.
Mr. Sporleder
said that the traditional way of discipline was that the behavior was
recognized by the teacher, then the teacher reacted to that behavior, and this
caused the student to escalate. This is
the type of reaction is the kind of reaction we need to break away from. He said this is a dysregulated adult dealing
with a dysregulated student. As adults,
we need to work at building caring relationships with our students. To do this, Mr. Sporleder gave those in
attendance the following keys:
·
We, as teachers, need to be self-regulated
·
A child’s behavior is a reaction to fear of
failure
·
Intervention needs to be a calm, teachable
moment
·
Approach the intent with a positive intent
When dealing with
a student who is experiencing trauma, the teacher needs to allow the student
time to de-escalate and to self-regulate.
Ask the student what caused the behavior. More often than not, the behavior has nothing
to do with the current situation, but something happening outside the school
setting.
Trauma-Informed
holds kids accountable to a higher level.
A caring adult give the child hope and helps them heal, when that adult
is asking and responding, not reacting and telling. The influence of one caring adult can change
a life path for a child. The
unconditional love of that adult teaches love and forgiveness. Being Trauma-Informed wipes out racial and
social lines. Mr. Sporleder says, “Being
trauma-informed is not what we do, it’s who we are.” He challenges us all to be that one caring
adult for our kids.
I will leave you
with two quotes from the evening:
“You cannot reach 100% of your students, but you can love
them all 100%.”
“Not every story can be a success story, but every story can
be a love story.”
