Recent Events

Harvard Graduate School of Education–Education Now (April 20, 2022)

Navigating Trauma — for Teachers and Learners

With Mark Tappan and Aysha Upchurch

“Join us as we look at how teachers and learners are navigating trauma today — the trauma left in the wake of a lingering pandemic, racist violence, economic hardship, and pervasive inequality. What are the trauma-responsive strategies that can help both students and adults — and can an effective trauma response lead to better, more just schools? And finally, what does a holistically healthy school community — where everyone’s wellbeing is prioritized — even look like? We’ll offer some answers as we zero in on feasible strategies for schoolwide wellbeing.”

Harvard Graduate School of Education–Gutman Library Book Talk (April 18, 2022)

Trauma-Responsive Schooling: Centering Student Voice and Healing

About the book: Trauma-Responsive Schooling outlines a novel approach to transforming American schools through student-centered, trauma-informed practices. The book chronicles the use of an innovative educational model, Trauma-Responsive Equitable Education (TREE), as part of a multiyear research project in two elementary schools in rural Maine. In this model, Lyn Mikel Brown, Catharine Biddle, and Mark Tappan endorse whole-school change, encouraging educators to upend traditional classroom power dynamics by listening foremost to student voices, validating student experiences, and promoting student agency. The authors provide complex real-life examples of student involvement in the creation and implementation of trauma-responsive and equitable practices. Their work offers readers concrete, actionable examples of such practices, which include supporting the whole child by promoting social and emotional learning (SEL) as well as academic achievement; providing access to basic needs such as food, clothing, and health care; and meeting the instructional requirements of dual-language learners.