Reflection by: Paiden Castelblanco

With roles across the nation, Dr. Micere Keels is the Policy and Practice Leader at the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation, an Associate Professor of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago, as well as the founder of the Trauma Responsive Educational Practices (TREP) Project. Dr. Keels’ youth-oriented background and her expertise in mental health intervention were apparent as she introduced behavioral, academic, social, and emotional (BASE) support in educational systems.

The central tenant of her presentation responded the the question of how schools—administrations, school nurses, security staff, educators—support students dysregulated because of trauma and violence. As the urgency of creating school climates that are responsive to the needs of students dealing with trauma grows in relevance, the answer to this complex question becomes more pertinent. 

Dr. Keels begins with the root of this issue, pointing to the trauma of structural violence on Black and brown students. She gives a definition to explain, “Structural violence is the harm individuals families, and communities experience from the economic and social structure, social institutions, and relations of power privilege and inequity that may harm people and communities by preventing them from getting their basic needs met,” she drives home the importance noting that, “[The resulting trauma] is a psychological, [emotional and spiritual] injury.” However, she argues that integrating mental health promotion in our education systems goes beyond recognizing the definition of structural violence as it relates to trauma–it’s identifying the students afflicted by such harm. Even more, it’s meeting the expectations of the school community by disrupting the harm. The issue here is the educational institution’s ability to do so.

But Dr. Keels makes clear the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), stressing the importance of school staff being equipped to respond to students dysregulated because of trauma. She points to research; All racial and ethnic groups of children experience exposure to ACEs but approximately 45% of Black children will be exposed to one ACR by their 1st birthday but not until their 10th birthday will 43% of white children be exposed to one ACE. What’s particularly interesting in ACEs research is the fact that we don’t get better at dealing with trauma the more it happens. In fact, we get worse at managing trauma and become more reactive and sensitive when they compound, given that there is no time to heal.

Adult perceptions are key here, with the first step to proactive, prosocial, and positive discipline being schools rejecting the notion that students are making a CHOICE to be defiant. Schools can be trauma-organizing places, but Dr. Keels’s trauma-responsive pedagogy encourages the school community to ask how they can make their institutions safe spaces and transform that ideal. She repeatedly stresses that how educators initially determine the behaviors they perceive is highly indicative of whether their reaction is punitive or not. Acting on initial impulses with punitive discipline can provide insight into our nation’s racialized discipline, especially ISS, rates.

Dysregulated coping behaviors are nested in historical and contemporary social policies, but school communities are in a position to disrupt these behaviors. Research shows that children who are persistently exposed to violence become more, not less, sensitive to its negative psychological and physiological effects. So when students’ stress reaction systems take on more frequent activation than their prefrontal cortexes, lack of impulse control in some behaviors is an overwhelming product. Dr. Keels asserted that impulse control was a common uniting factor of people chronically exposed to trauma because they experienced significant disruptions in the development of their neurobiology.

Responses, in non-trauma-organizing schools, are not discipline reactions. The solution-based shift in Dr. Keels’ presentation highlighted how adults could respond to dysregulated students to improve outcomes. It comes with a series of prosocial discipline decisions:

1. Viewing dysregulated behavior as internal dysregulation, not willful defiance. 
2. Responding with proactive, positive discipline, not reactive, punitive discipline.
3. Implementing pro-social behaviors (resisting ISS, exclusion), not decreasing school belonging.
4. Increasing classroom instruction, not increasing time in neighborhood (OSS).
5. Maintaining school engagement, avoiding a juvenile justice contract.

Trauma, especially chronic trauma, impairs students abilities to learn. When schools respond with developmentally supportive strategies, post-traumatic growth becomes possible. As children are navigating belonging in school, it’s extremely relevant for adults to practice management and prevention of secondy traumatic stress from students. Dr. Keels offers SEL and mindfulness integration in to classroom instruction as a best practice for educators. She ends, stressing the importance of creating a culture of belonging. Keels ends by asking the audience: how do you get the kid with the lowest grade in the class to still feel like they have a place in the classroom?