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What happened to Jasmine?
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Photo Jinx!/FlickrWhen you look inside a classroom there are some things you can not see.
.Jasmine was one of my favorites.
She was one of the shortest, scrawniest children in our second grade classroom. Maybe 45 pounds with her coat on. Her tattered backpack seemed as big as she was. Somehow the tiniest children can hold the most energy, the most emotion, and somehow they manage to get the most compassion from me.
Soloway/Dreamstime.
When you peek in our classroom you may see Jasmine stealthily surveying the classroom for the child most likely to respond the most spiritedly when she gives them the the finger, or when she gives them a freshly sharpened pencil, in the side of the head, perfectly thrown from twenty feet away.
When Jasmine is unsuccessful in provokinga classmates response, she can get really amped. I have heard guttural profanity and I have been horrifiedto seeher raise a school chair over her head and heave it at a classmate. More surprising, sometimes Jasmine targets someone twice her size. Sometimes she will even taunt teachers, naming one Young Buck. Once juking her way around him, beating him to the hallway fire alarm, and crisply setting it off.
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Jasmines motivation is not related to anything we can see. Its complicated. What we dont see is why. Why would such a young child with such a lovable smile be so aggressive and confrontational?
Her teachers (including me) often see these behaviors as disruptive, which they most certainly are. Even seeing her as bad.
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What none of us see is that the classroom setting is not necessarily related to Jasmines actions either. Jasmines confrontational behavior can already be in full swing before she even reaches the school. Sometimes she freely enters the courtyard looking for someone to suckerpunch, or to bait by verbally defiling their mother. The best candidate is the one who will respond aggressively. Jasmine wants a fight, not someone who will run. She cant release anything if they run. More than once, Jasmine has physically assaulted a teacher who intercepted her attempts to get physical with a classmate. Our school had no regular nurse and the counselor was on longterm leave. There was not even another room for Jasmine to de-escalate in.
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Is Jasmine bad or is there something else? Why is her behavior so volatile; one minute so calm and so agitated the next?
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Beginning to see
We have to ask questions. Carefully ask the right questions.
Its NOT a question of whats wrong with Jasmine .
It is a question of what happened to Jasmine . . . (See Foderaro, pg. 191 in Creating Sanctuary by Sandra Bloom M.D.)
Most immediately what has happened to Jasmine is that she has been triggered. The trigger is thing that started her visible, physical release. You could peek in the classroom all day. In fact, you could look right at the trigger, and not see it.
Jasmine probably cant identify the trigger either. It was very likely some sensory detail: something Jasmine saw, heard, smelled, touched, or even tasted. Its locked in her (non verbal) memory and associated with a time of intense fear. It may have been as innocent as a ticking clock, or the nail polish color on a finger, an untucked shirttail, or even a backpack.The final memory that registered before abuse.
Meanwhile, as you are looking in our room, make sure you see the other 29 children with Jasmine. Her behaviors have ripple effects. You will see some of the 29 tense up and some may indeed become triggered themselves by something in Jasmines behavior.
So, its not necessarily the setting, and we cant identify a trigger, and it affects the whole educational process. Therefore some may surmise that its an unpredictable and unmanageable situation. If you are intent at that moment upon relentless pursuit of academics, the situation will be unmanageable.
Andrew Taylor/Flickr.
Back to Jasmine: something else you probably didnt notice came earlier. Before her visible, physical release came neurobiological processes that put her into a hyper aroused defense mode.
Hyper arousal is one of natures perfectly logical defenses, in Jasmines case, to a sensory memory embedded deeply in her brain (in her amygdala to be precise). Now in fight-or-flight mode from a terrifying memory, the brain is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol, preparing for action. When already in this state of hyper arousal, the slightest additional cue can detonate defensive action.
After hyper arousal(from the memory), and the trigger in the moment, the pent up traumatic energy (stress or fear) is released. That release is the defense that we can see.
Defense against what? you may still be asking.
Defense against something else that none of us see.
What none of us see is what happened to Jasmine .
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Frustrated?
Welcome to the world of teaching children.
Welcome to the world of trauma-impacted children,.
Public Health Research
Childhood trauma is the response of overwhelming or helpless fear, or terror. Specifically, it is a response to abuse, neglect, to a missing parent, or a household which includes violence, mental illness, or substance abuse. Other childhood traumas can include experiences with community violence, or ethic oppression, and many more. Lets be clear. Trauma means things like rape. Like physical beatings, like relentless emotional destruction, or maybe complete disregard for basic physical needs. Total neglect of another human being. Often the trauma is inflicted by someone who is a caregiver.
The CDCs public health research says that 22% of our children are trauma-impacted with 3+ categories of trauma, to the point of predictable, lifelong damage and early death. Yes, early death. Early death related to childhood experience. They call it Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE).
Center for Disease Control.
ACEs are no respecter of demographics, zip code or socio-economic status. The CDC researchers found that even in beautiful suburban San Diego, roughlyone-fourth of the mostly middle class, mostly white, working folks with medical insurance had experienced3 or more ACEs!
ACE rates in urban areas can be double the suburban level, but the 22% rate in San Diego is shocking in itself. Percentages translate to 6 to 7 children (6 to 7 Jasmines), severely trauma impacted with 3+ ACEs, in a class of 30, even in San Diego.
Three or more ACEs is significant because experiencing 3 or more ACEs correlates with doubled risk of depression, adolescent pregnancy, lung disease, and liver disease. It triples the risk of alcoholism and STDs. There is a 5X increase in attempted suicide.
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Neuroscience Research
Neurobiology tells us that traumas impact is deep. Chronic, or complex trauma changes childrens physical brains, and impairs cognitive and social functioning. These injuries relate specifically to the prefrontal cortex and academic processes, especially executive function, memory and literacy
So, the children are not bad or sick, they are injured. . (See Destroying Sanctuary p 135 by Sandra Bloom M.D.).
Neurobiology further informs us that cognition shuts down for trauma-impacted children who are overwhelmed by a state of chronic, or complex trauma: it is physiologically impossible to learn .
Trauma-impacted children can not equally access their education.
Another learning from neuroscience is that young children can not just get over it. In fact, the younger the child, the more immature the physical brain and the less practiced in social defenses, the greater the damage the more difficult to access and verbalize, and the longer it takes to heal, if ever.
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Trauma Informed Education
There is an abundance of literature on the topic of ACEs and Trauma-Informed education. A successful education paradigm requires: a) explicit acknowledgement of childhood trauma, b) screening students, c) training teachers and d) creating safety across the learning environment. (See Common Sense for much more detail)
Crucial investments towards safety include appropriate class-sizes, with limits on trauma-impacted children per classroom. For example, one teacher alone will struggle tobe effectiveaiding one triggered student from among the 6+ who have 3+ ACEs, within a classroom of 30 kids, who are waiting to be taught. Additionally, dedicated appropriate space for children to de-escalate is needed, as well as on-site nurses and counselors; counselors, who build on-going relationships with the children and families.
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Elliot Gilfix/FlickrWhat no one can see by peeking in the room:
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What happened to Jasmine ?
When I had my first peek at Jasmine, she was in Kindergarten. Someone had confined her in the small, 4X6 entryway of the main office, in the narrow space between the registration counter and the wall with the bulletin board. The veins on her neck bulged and throbbed, as she lay on her back furiously kicking and screaming, her face smeared with tears. Shed already ripped the paperwork from the bulletin board.
I could see the behavior.
I could not see the ACEs Jasmine was impacted by.
My eyes were opened only later when I sensitively started asking her caregivers What happened to Jasmine? Only then did I begin to see. I saw of the incarceration of her father. I saw the death of her mother. I heard her uncles anger at having to take in his sisters baby. Still, the uncle caregiver rarely sees Jasmine because of his night shift work.
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Photo Daun KauffmanEarlier, when Id walked Jasmine home that night from Kindergarten I was scared (as an adult) to see the squalor and dilapidated row house. The front door was hanging open to the street and it was dark inside. I know there is drug traffic and drug related violence on her block and the surrounding blocks. My alarm shifted to anger when the smell of illegal smoke wafted out the open door with moaning sounds of stupor inside. I was somewhat relieved when Jasmines cousin bounded out to meet us. But I have never forgotten what I saw.
Now, when I see a child with a backpack, I still trigger
Keep in mind that Jasmine is NOT an unusual child. That year there were 9+ other trauma-impacted children in our classroom. See Danny Goes to School and Failing Schools or Failing Paradigm? .
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.Trauma-Impacted Students Do Not Have Equal Access to their Education
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Our education systems are NOT trauma informed today. Districts dont train teachers, children and schools remain unsafe, and trauma informed systems remain unfunded.
Preparing individual Section 504 plans for individual children does not address system-wide needs and is not a practical option, given the scope: millions of students.
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Education reformers focus on Common Core and standardized testing. They use phrases like no excuses and high expectations for all without providing appropriate accommodations for all. That contradiction is wrong. Morally wrong.
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The system ignores the 22%+ of trauma-impacted children and their classmates. In my urban district, the rate is even higher, at 45+% children with 3+ ACEs. ACE-blindness disproportionately penalizes urban districts impacted with doubled rates of trauma. That is doubly wrong. . (See Common Sense ).
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Photo Jinx!/FlickrInstead of accommodation, punishment. Punishment at the system level (much like punishment at the personal level).
The system generates wrong decisions, life-changing decisions, based on uninformed, misleading data. Attempting to compare States or School Districts scores, and even individual schools, given the wide variations in trauma rates, is dangerously wrong. Then realize that the system continues this level of travesty at an even more deluded level: an individual classroom compared to another individual classroom. Even comparing those classrooms to year ago scores. None of the above get adjusted for radical variations in rates of trauma of as much as 100%!
An uninformed approach.
We still do not see..
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Action Steps
We have the right to be frustrated and angry about what happens to all our Jasmines and her classmates!
Our own U.S. Department of Justice report, Defending Childhood , calls childhood trauma a national crisis . The CDC says it is critical to understand . Becoming Trauma Informed is no longer optional. Lets channel that anger into action.
Stand up and be heard by your politicians:
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1) An immediate opportunity for action is lawmakers rewrite of national education legislation (ESEA), ironically known as No Child Left Behind. (See Common Sense ).
The rewrite is already in House/Senate conference committee, so no time to waste.
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Click this OpenCongress link to get names of your Congress members. Click on a lawmaker and then find contact information on right side of screen. Email or call them today, or send them a link to this blog . Ask them to acknowledge and fund accommodations in ESEA for trauma-impacted children!
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2) If you are in Pennsylvania, there is a second opportunity, maybe even larger opportunity for yo, with state lawmakers, detailed here (with contact information at the end).
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3) If youre not trauma-informed , read here , or research childhood-trauma orseek training, here, here , here or here .
Soloway/Dreamstime
Then realize that the system continues this level of travesty at an even more deluded level: an individual classroom compared to another individual classroom. Even comparing those classrooms to year ago scores. None of the above get adjusted for radical variations in rates of trauma of as much as 100%!
Both the No Child Left Behind and the Common Core were really bad ideas, and continue to be.
As a teacher, years ago, I tried my best to understand the education garbage that was thrust at me, constantly. It was like it was written in a foreign language. Extremely difficult to translate in to common sense ideas and ways of dealing with the kids you had. Back then, too, we needed more classes in things like this-- instead, we had 1/2 of a semester of student teaching and 1/2 of a semester on Early Childhood Development. That was an interesting class, but, for me, as a secondary teacher, I needed more information about kids in puberty.
I found teaching to be an extremely frustrating experience, because the children or young adults that needed the help worst, got NONE.
I wish I had known this, then. Of course back then, there was no internet, either-- looking stuff up at the public library yielded few clues, and my graduate level teaching courses were worse than useless.
I wish that the educational Big Woos would stop and realize that teachers need support, not more paperwork. I wish that they spoke English, and I wish that they would use some common sense for a change.
I think there are such schools, but, there certainly aren't enough of them, very sad.
Dowser, while reading this, I was thinking of one of our friend Stephiwho deals with such children. I'm not sure if they are quite as severe, but definitely have some very bad home situations, and act out in the classroom.One of her student's sibling committed suicide, and Stephi made a special trip to the house to try to comfort the family. Stephi got word that one of her student's home was burned to the ground. Stephi was going to buy the student a big stuffed dog, becausethe child'shad gotten burned. I don't know if the school as a whole did anything to help these families or not
The teachers seem to get more and morework placed on them by the school to push these troubled children to do work that they just aren't ready for, and it frustrates the children terribly.I hope Stephi gets a chance to read this article.
I agree...so any of these children have such horrible home-life situations.
These programs that you mentionedsound like great programs. Thanks for the link!
I hope she can, too! Stephi is such a great teacher, she probably already knows this, even if just through osmosis...
It's sad that the schools don't realize how difficult it must be to try to teach these poor children, they just keep expecting more and more from the teachers and students.
This is such an important topic Very true...I'm sure that these unfortunate children will pass" home lifedysfunction" to their own children. (hopefully not all of them) At the end of the day, every child is the future of this country.
They all need love and help!
Thanks XXX! I just hope that people will wake up and realize that more of these are schools are desperately needed......SOON!
When I was seven years old I was raped and beaten by my mom's boyfriend who she eventually deserted us in our apartment (and ran off to Florida with him) where no one knew we were there until my dad came for his weekly visitation and took us to live with him and my step-mother in the country. My childhood after that was nearly idyllic.
I never told anyone what happened until just a few years ago in therapy, because Jerry said he would kill me and he was on parole for murder, so I believed him.. It was not a sudden memory, I carried it with me in the back of my mind all of my life and it's still there, though much less so, When he beat me (and my sisters) with his favorite object, a classroom pointer, I never cried. Because I would do what I called getting deep down inside of myself and never felt the pain. It was happening to someone else, but it didn't touch me. When something like this happens to a child, a trauma such as molestation (I don't like that word really. It sounds too nice) they either act out, as it appears Jasmine did or they disassociate themselves and become withdrawn. I did the latter. My first wife said that she felt I had built a wall around myself inside that I would never let anyone, even her, see into and she was right.
Now, more then 50 years later, even with very, very good therapy, I still get anxious and feel a feeling of impending doom nearly every evening of my life. For years I self medicated with beer and scotch, but now I am lucky that I am still getting decent Psychiatric treatment, via medications and once every two weeks of good therapy. However, even though the trauma was happening to me in just one year of my childhood, it still never really goes away. I'm afraid that Jasmine, even with help, will always act out in some manner the rest of her life.
(((Randy))) Itbreaks my heartwhen I hear of these things. My father would regularly punch the hell out of my younger brother, if he did something or "just in cast you THINK of doing something" that was MANY years ago, and my brother still loathes our father. I wish , like you he would get help of some kind. It sound as you have really come a long way..."Keep on Keeping on!" Good for you. Thank you for sharing. Child abuse CAN be broken if proper steps are taken, and not passed down from generation to generation.
We can only hoe that society will see the damage abuse and dysfunction does, and will do something to break the cycle....
Thanks RW.......I didn't think about that, I'll send her a link.
RW....I just postedthe linkin her Cat Group, I think she will enjoy reading it...at least I hope so! Thanks for theidea!!!!
In away I was lucky. What happened to me lasted just short of a year, but there are many others who had to face a nightmare like that throughout their whole childhood. I can't imagine what they have gone through and how they can begin to heal.
Five years ago this past August 4th I was still drinking and that night I was very depressed and drinking increases that. I used the last part of the bottle to wash down 30 Ambien and 60 Somas and I laid down in my bed to die. It would have worked too except my wife got up to use the bathroom and noticed that my bedroom door was closed (hint, secret to a happy marriage, separate bedrooms) and then she found out the door was locked. She called 911 and the LAFD showed up, got the door open and took me to the Ronald Reagen hospital at UCLA. I mean couldn't they have gone a few extra miles to my hospital, Ceders Sinai? I don't remember it, but I stopped breathing in the ambulance and they had to bag me until I could be hooked up to a respirator in the ER to breath for me. I woke up 2 days later in intensive care. I was seriously pissed at myself. I kept thinking that I was even a failure at killing myself (I had also tried and overdose more then 20 years ago).
After I was released a few days later from intensive care I was transferred to The Judith Resnick Neuro Psychiatric Center in the same hospital into a locked ward on an involuntary hold. At first I knew that I could just say what they wanted to hear and that I'd be released in a couple of days. But then I was sitting on my bed and decided that, since I was there anyway, I might just as well give them a serious try. So I went to all of the groups they had to offer, including occupational therapy, group therapy, one on one therapy with a Psychiatrist and actually did what they said I should do and it surprised me, but it really did help. To remind myself not to backslide I have taped the wrist band I had to wear in the locked unit to the side of my computer and I still have the business card of the therapist that helped me so much back then attached to my PC too. That's when I discovered that if you haven't cried, screamed at your therapist, walked out saying you'd never return and at times hating his guts, then you have not really been through therapy. Real therapy means tearing open old scabs and scars and infections and draining them. It's very, very painful. I am also heavily medicated, especially in the evening, which also helps.
The point is that if only one year of my childhood had such a bad effect on my life and my psyche, then I can't imagine their pain and how those children who have gone through this all of their childhood and the ones who are going through it right now, can ever really heal. I haven't. I am just maintaining, but not a day goes by that I don't think of suicide. Most of the time I am able to push it back in my brain or talk about it with my therapist, but it never goes away completely. I have been put on a 5150, involuntary hold twice since then, because I was unable to control the urge to kill myself. My Psychiatrist says I need in patient care and my insurance and Medicare will pay for it at any facility that accepts Medicare, but none of them for hundreds of miles around where I live do and the can cost from $7,000 to even $50,000 per month.
Thanks for the good wishes from everyone, but please remember that what happened to me is happening to some child or children right now. They need our help, but sadly mental heath services always seems to be the first thing on the chopping block when it comes to budget cuts. Until it happens to them or someone they love, they just don't want to hear about money for comprehensive mental health care.
Randy, have you ever thought of sharing your experiences with groups ofpeople that are going through the same thing that you went through? Just curious.
No. I don't care for 12 step programs (and don't need one since the only thing I have ever been addicted to was smoking) because the are all basically non-denominational religious organizations.
I did go to a small group that didn't use the higher power idea and was really for agnostics and atheists, but all they did was talk about how much they missed their drug of choice and how they again only had two or three days sober over and over again, so I stopped going. Since then I have had several drinks at home and on cruises. I sometimes buy a fifth of scotch and have one or two on the rocks in the evening, but only in moderation. I actually love the taste of scotch, so I save it as a treat.
When we go on a cruise, like we are going to do the first two weeks of October, I usually go to the onboard pub (and all of the ships have one) and have three or four Guinness', since my wife likes to turn in at about 8pm and I like closer to midnight instead. I also intend to buy two bottles of hand made blue agave tequila at small family type run distilleries that you can't get in the states, while down there. I know of two or three at the ports we'll be stopping at. I prefer the Blanco and I sip it, with no salt or lime. It tastes great all by itself. Besides if you have to shoot it down and then you have to use salt and lime to kill the taste of what you're drinking (like most gringos do), then you need to be drinking something else.
I have thought about it, but I can't find a support group that I might be able to help at. Mental heath in the Coahella valley is abysmal. They have plenty of room for drug and alcohol abusers, but nothing for just mental health. Only one of the three hospitals here has a mental health ward (and it's not Eisenhower for some reason), but they just started it a few months ago and it's over whelmed with 5150 patients sent there on a hold. It's supposed to be voluntary and they take Medicare, but it's small and there are never any beds available because everyone who is ordered to be on a 72 hour hold are taking them all up.
It's nice that you would at least be willing to share your experience, to hopefully help someone that was in the same situation.