TEACHING THROUGH A STORM


A former colleague would often say to her Kindergarten charges, “If you don’t know, you won’t grow!” This applies to all of us!

African American students might miss the fullness of holistic, rigorous, rich, nurturing, and well-rounded education at the hands of teachers who do not understand the effects of compound/complex trauma on both ourselves and on our students. African Americans carry this trauma on (not in) their genes (epigenetics) as a result of ancestral slavery. The presence of ancestral trauma alongside the traumas of daily life, such as ACE’s, could indicate the need for teachers of African American students to incorporate trauma sensitivity in planning lessons and in routine classroom interactions with African American students. Trauma manifests itself in many different ways among students.