Trauma-Informed Education:
Learning, Growth, and Cultivating Care
When our students come to our classes and institutions, they arrive with dreams and aspirations to learn, grow, and contribute to the betterment of their community and society. As educators, we nurture their potential, hoping that when they step into the world, they will make it a better place. Our faith in them is boundless because they are the future of our humanity.
However, our students, as well as national and international data, tell us that many are struggling emotionally, if not existentially. This struggle profoundly impacts their learning journey and dreams as noted below by one of the students who participated in a recent study conducted by Dr. Mays Imad at Connecticut College on Trauma-Informed Education.
“Navigating college life while dealing with trauma can feel incredibly isolating. Many of us are silently struggling with emotional pain and a sense of loneliness that others can’t see. Our struggle deeply affects our ability to concentrate and do well on exams. Acknowledgment of our trauma and offering a compassionate, understanding environment can make all the difference in helping us feel seen, supported, and capable of healing.”
Despite the challenges in the world, we, as educators, persist with hope and believe in the transformative power of education. Echoing the words of American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, “I live a hope despite my knowing better.”
It is with this spirit of hope and belief in education’s power that we present our course: Trauma-Informed Education: Learning, Growth, and Cultivating Care. We have designed an open educational resource (OER) course on trauma-informed education, created with educators and staff across various disciplines and institutions in mind. This course invites you to dive into understanding trauma and its impact on learning. By using a trauma-informed framework, we aim to empower both educators and students to continue learning, growing, and thriving even in the midst of adversities.
The course focuses on four key areas:
- Understanding the effects of trauma on learning so we can gain insights and recognize that trauma is not just a psychological phenomenon but also a neurophysiological one, affecting our ability to learn and succeed.
- Integrating trauma-informed principles into our teaching practices not simply to improve student learning, but also to empower our students, helping them to heal and grow. We will address common misconceptions about those principles.
- Listening and learning from the voices and insights of students themselves, drawing on their lived experiences in order to help us create more empathetic educational spaces.
- Co-creating and learning with each other; supporting each other with care and grace. We will embrace the spirit of Ubuntu, an African philosophy that promotes a community of care and moral imagination, which reminds us that “I am because we are.”
We invite you to learn about our course and join us as we not only equip ourselves with the tools to support our students but also transform our classrooms into nurturing spaces where care and learning and growth go hand in hand. To learn more about our course please watch this Course Overview Video, and see the further information, below.