Teaching Hope and Resilience for Students Experiencing Trauma: Creating Safe and Nurturing Classrooms for Learning

Huge numbers of our students are caught in storms of trauma―whether stemming from abuse, homelessness, poverty, discrimination, violent neighborhoods, or fears of school shootings or family deportations. This practical book focuses on actions that teachers can take to facilitate learning for these students. Identifying positive, connected teacher–student relationships as foundational, the authors offer direction for creating an emotionally safe classroom environment in which students find a refuge from trauma and a space in which to process events. The text shows how social and emotional learning can be woven into the school day; how literacies can be used to help students see a path through challenges; how to empower learners through debate, civic action, and service learning; and how to use the vital nature of the school community as an agent of change. This book will serve as a roadmap for creating uniformly consistent and excellent classrooms and schools that better serve children who experience trauma in their lives.

Book Features:

• Makes a clear case for the need and responsibility of schools to equip students with tools to learn despite the trauma in their lives.
• Shows practical classroom instructional and curricular interactions that address trauma while advancing student academic learning.
• Uses literacy and civic action as pathways to empowerment.
• Provides a method and tools for developing a coherent plan for creating a trauma-sensitive school.

Douglas Fisher is a professor and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Nancy Frey is a professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College. Rachelle S. Savitz is assistant professor of adolescent literacy at Clemson University; she received the 2020 Association of Literacy Educators & Researchers (ALER) Jerry Johns Promising Researcher Award.