How does trauma affect learning

Recently, a headline popped up in my Google news feed. My eyes quickly scanned over it, but I never actually opened it up to read it. It was something to the extent of when one thinks one is bad at math; it might just be that one suffers from trauma. 

This is something I have come across many times working with thousands of students during my career, which I thought will be a good topic to write about in the very first blog on the Simplifying School website. 

I have had the opportunity to work with thousands of students in my career, on a one-on-one level, by now and I have seen how much trauma and damage can be inflicted on a student’s academic performance through words of classmates, sibling, parents and even teachers. 

If I have to write about every single case I came across I will be writing non-stop for weeks, if not months. I have seen cases, where parents introduce their kids to me as follows: “And this is (name), (name) is terrible at (subject). I don’t think there is any hope for (name).” I have seen cases where after a couple of sessions of winning a student’s trust, they open up, telling me about the trauma a teacher from an earlier year inflicted, knowingly or unknowingly, which has killed the student’s confidence and, eventually, had such an impact on the student that the student not only started to think the same about their abilities but believed it with all their heart. In other cases, I have seen how one sibling makes fun of another sibling or keeps destructively criticizing the other sibling, also killing their confidence which later on can lead to them not only disliking the subject but believing that they will never be good enough. The same can happen in a classroom situation at school. 

For each student, the implementation of this will look different, but one has to win the student’s trust, find out where it went wrong, and then help them build their confidence while helping them to work through and sort out the parts of the subject they are struggling with. This is a process that requires a lot of patience and kindness, but which is worth it when a student’s frown of frustration turns into a smile of success and when one sees how much a student starts to enjoy the subject. 

When addressed constructively, mistakes can help someone improve, but when addressed destructively, mistakes can kill someone’s confidence and negatively impact his/her ability. 

Let’s all speak words of kindness and remember that “The expert in anything was once a beginner”, as correctly noted by Helen Hayes. 

Feel free to visit Simplifying School to see how we can help you turn your frown of frustration into a smile of success.

Till next time, 

Stay safe

PS. I am moving all my blogs over to this platform. This blog was originally posted on 13 July 2020.


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