Trauma-Informed Teaching

Understanding Trauma 

Before addressing trauma and mental health in our classrooms, we must accept that experiencing trauma is normal. But how we react and respond to trauma depends on self-care and community support, on campus and off.

Trauma is Universal

Everyone experiences trauma. Each administrator, faculty member, student, staffer, and volunteer on campus has lived through something in their past that has negatively impacted the way they cope with stressful situations in the present.

The present has been traumatic as well. Each person reading this paragraph has survived a global pandemic that claimed millions of lives and many of our loved ones. We have weathered political and civil unrest. We have found ourselves socially isolated and economically challenged. The events of today will inevitably shape the ways we think about tomorrow.

What is Trauma?

Trauma does not have a single definition. But most people know what it feels like: Anxiety, dread, apathy, dissociation, brain fog. Trauma may result from any experience in which a person’s emotional resourcesare not adequate to cope with external stressors(Hoch, Stewart, Webb, & Wyandt- Hiebert, 2015). Trauma resurfaces in real-time when past feelings of helplessness bubble up into current feelings of emotional distress.

When we experience feelings of emotional fatigue or reactivity in the present, it is often because an external stressor has unearthed feelings of trauma from our past. This is called a triggering event.

Systemic and Historical Trauma

Trauma can happen at the individual level, as with sexual assault, or at the community level, as with police brutality. Trauma can also be historical, with the psychological and physical outcomes passed down for generations, as seen in survivors of genocide, such as Holocaust survivors or First Nations communities.

Some trauma is acute, meaning feelings of distress are brought about through a single event, such as a car crash. Other traumas are compounded, meaning feelings of distress accumulate over time, as with systemic racism.

What Does Trauma Look Like?

Trauma manifests through the sympathetic nervous system, resurfacing through physical and emotional responsessuch as headaches, substance abuse, insomnia, memory loss, and panic. The sympathetic nervous system is what creates our bodies’ fight-or-flight response. When we’re stressed, it can flush us with hormones that make us feel jittery, short of breath, sweaty, or flushed.

In the classroom, trauma may present through poor attendance, missed deadlines, withdrawal from coursework, acting out in class, or hypervigilance. Some students may attend class while under the influence of substances, or they may be hungover. Others may seek reassurance and clarification about course materials, to the point of disrupting the class or bothering the instructor. Even exceptional performance can be a trauma response.

Triggers and trauma reminders

Trauma resurfaces when we encounter something in our present that instigates subconscious feelings of fear and disempowerment. This is sometimes called a “triggering event” or a “trauma reminder.” Someone who is diagnosed with PTSD or otherwise has acute stress response may say they are “triggered” by a stimulus that reminds them of their trauma.

Reminders of trauma may include:

• Sounds, such as songs or fireworks
• Sensations, such as hunger or cold
• Smells, such as perfume or foods
• Locations, such as cars or classrooms
• People, such as professors or roommates
• Events, such as weddings or concerts
• Animals, such as roaches or pets
• Communication, such as disagreements or praise
• Physical touch, such as hugs or foreplay
• Tastes, such as alcohol or medication

Almost anything can remind someone of trauma they have previously experienced.

Age and Traumatic Experiences

Traumatic experiences happen at all developmental and life stages. Childhood and young adult traumas may include bullying, parental neglect, divorce, school violence, or loss of a caregiver, for example. College students may experience sexual assault, poverty, housing instability, unwanted pregnancy, or substance abuse. Adult traumas may include unstable employment, domestic partner violence, birth, miscarriage, serious illness, loss of an aging parent, or loss of a spouse. Catastrophic events like natural disasters, pandemics, house fires, or transit accidents can happen at any age.

Trauma Is Not PTSD
PTSD is the acronym used in psychological circles to describe post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental health response that some people develop after experiencing or witnessing a tragedy or horrific event.

To be diagnosed with PTSD, an adult must experience all of the following over the course of at least one month: Re-experiencing symptoms (flashbacks, recurring dreams, or intrusive thoughts), avoidance symptoms (avoiding people, places, or thoughts related to the trauma), arousal or reactivity symptoms (being startled, experiencing anger, insomnia, or edginess), and cognition or mood symptoms (memory loss, negative emotions, guilt, blame, or apathy) (NIMH, 2021).

PTSD can be “uncomplicated,” resulting from one acute traumatic event. PTSD can also be “complex,” meaning the individual has experienced multiple traumas that have compounded over a long time period. Most people who experience acute or long-term traumas do not develop PTSD.

Trauma Post-COVID

Students, faculty, and staff will re-enter campus post COVID-19 without the necessary resources to cope with the loss we experienced during the height of the pandemic. During COVID-19, researchers observed increased rates of mental illness, substance abuse, and self-harm.

Every person on campus was forced out of their learning environment and academic routine. Some were required to work and study in unsafe living environments. Others lost income and were unable to access stable housing or food.

Regardless of academic appointment or status on campus, none of us are emotionally equipped for our return to the “new normal.” How could we be? A pandemic of this magnitude occurs only once every 100 years or so.