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What is a Trauma-Informed Classroom?

People often ask me: “what is a trauma-informed classroom and how is it different from a ‘regular’ classroom?” I’ll give a shorter, abbreviated answer here. In subsequent posts, I’ll offer extended, contextualized responses with a guide to implementing these principles.

A quick note: the educational systems I discuss in my writings are postsecondary; there’s likely a lot of overlap between this world and elementary/secondary educational systems, but I’m speaking specifically about college educational systems.

What is the definition of trauma?

SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) offers a research-informed inventory of trauma definitions and created a concept relevant to public health agencies and service systems.

(from SAMHSA “What is Trauma”)

SAMHSA describes individual trauma as an event or circumstance resulting in:

  • physical harm
  • emotional harm
  • and/or life-threatening harm

The event or circumstance has lasting adverse effects on the individual's:

  • mental health
  • physical health
  • emotional health
  • social well-being
  • and/or spiritual well-being

The Three “E’s” of Trauma

Event(s) and circumstances: The thing(s) that happen, including the actual or extreme threat of physical or psychological harm, may be a single occurrence or repeated over time.

Experience of Event(s): People experience events and circumstances differently. How an individual assigns meaning to and/or is impacted physically and psychologically by an event(s) or circumstance(s) will “contribute to whether or not it is experienced as traumatic” (8).

Effect: The long-lasting adverse effects of the event(s) or circumstance(s) may include the inability to cope with the normal stresses and strains of daily living; to manage cognitive processes; to trust and benefit from relationships, as well as hypervigilance, avoidance and numbing, being in a constant state of arousal.

What is a trauma-informed classroom?

A trauma-informed classroom is a space wherein the pedagogy, curriculum, assessment metrics, and physical (or online) space(s) have been designed with these six principles at the center:


  • Safety
  • Trustworthiness and Transparency
  • Peer Support
  • Collaboration and Mutuality
  • Empowerment, Voice, and Choice
  • Cultural, Historical, and Gender Issues

These six guiding principles were developed by the CDC’s Center for Preparedness and Response in collaboration with SAMHSA’s National Center for Trauma-Informed Care (NCTIC). You can read more about these principles here.

What a trauma-informed classroom is not

  • A therapy session
  • A treatment plan
  • A clinical space (unless it is!)
  • An open invitation for students or teachers to cross socioemotional boundaries with each other

How does a “regular” classroom differ from a “trauma-informed” one?

This question is tricky because I am uncertain what a “regular” classroom is, but many people ask me this, so I feel obligated to attempt a response. To do so, I will offer a scenario based on my own personal experiences. I feel it is important to share my own experiences in the hopes of normalizing the prevalence of trauma exposure and subsequent physical and mental health consequences.

I have an elevated ACEs score and have been diagnosed with PTSD; I have experienced long-lasting, protracted traumatic events and toxic stress. I experience multiple marginalizations (as someone with a disability who is queer and trans-identified). I have been physically assaulted for being queer and verbally and emotionally abused by care-takers and former partners.

Curious about your ACEs score? Find out more here.

A “normal” classroom ignores the prevalence of trauma exposure and denies or minimizes the impact of trauma on one’s body and brain. This type of classroom is a space that perpetuates trauma through inflexible policies, top-down pedagogies, shame, embarrassment, and humiliation to get students ready for a “real world” or subsequent academic training. A “normal” classroom instructor is unaware of how trauma, ACEs, and PTSD can prevent a student’s brain from learning and treats everyone “equally” as in fails to understand the impact(s) of collective trauma and systemic oppression. Most U.S. classrooms (K-College) are “trauma oblivious” if not hostile to trauma-informed practices.

Who benefits from a trauma-informed classroom?

Everyone--including the instructor

A trauma-informed classroom is a form of universal design for learning (UDL). UDL is a “teaching approach that works to accommodate the needs and abilities of all learners and eliminates unnecessary hurdles in the learning process” (“Universal Design for Learning”). According to the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, UDL:

  1. provides flexibility in the ways: information is presented, students are engaged, and students respond or demonstrate knowledge and skills
  2. reduces barriers in instruction, provides appropriate accommodations, supports, and challenges, and maintains high achievement expectations for all students, including students with disabilities and students who are limited English proficient.

Trauma-informed classrooms benefit everyone, but they are particularly helpful for teachers and students who also have increased ACEs scores (Adverse Childhood Experiences), PTSD diagnoses, and who experience multiple cultural and neurological marginalizations and/or vulnerabilities (LGBTQ+ students, students of color, linguistically-diverse students, first-generation college students, veterans, adult students, students who are at risk for deportation or are refugees, students with visible and/or invisible disabilities, neurodiverse students).

Trauma as a collective experience

A recent 2021 study argues for including the COVID-19 pandemic as a traumatic stressor (Bridgland et al.) Historical and cultural trauma is when members of a group perceive subjection to traumatic events that mark or change the group permanently (Alexander 2004). Educational trauma has been described as “the inadvertent perpetration and perpetuation of harmful systemic and cyclical practices in schools” (Gray 2011; see also Olson Wounded by School).

Principle Six (Cultural, Historical & Gender Issues) guides practitioners to center equity and social justice-oriented pedagogies. Multiply marginalized students benefit most from trauma-informed classrooms with equity at the center. I will speak to this specifically in later posts.

Conclusion

SAMHSA defines trauma as an individually-experienced event or circumstance that causes physical, emotional, and/or life-threatening harm.

Trauma is prevalent in the general population.

Trauma-informed classrooms are equity-centered and designed using the six core principles of TI-care. Classrooms that are not trauma-informed ignore, deny, or minimize the prevalence of trauma in the general population. Non-TI classrooms may perpetuate educational, cultural, or historical trauma.


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