See me! See me! Oh my goodness they see me, I need to hide….

Real connection is vital, healing, whether the connection is to another human being, an animal, nature, or even to an idea, to understanding, or to a skill, any honest connection can be life-giving. Trauma “embeds in us” because we feel “emotionally unsupported in the midst of fear and pain that exceeds our ability to integrate the experience with our own resources.”

The latest neuroscience is showing just how important connection is for human beings to thrive. Without connection learning is not possible. Connection is exciting, but also terrifying.  We crave real connection and yet we sometimes run from it, hide, especially when connection has been dangerous.

How do you foster deep caring connection in your setting?

How do you stay in connection with yourself whatever erupts?

How do you help students connect to themselves, to each other, and to the material they are trying to learn?

(Bonnie Badenoch (2018), Healing Trauma Summit, Sounds True. And (2017) The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships, New York: Norton.)

Photo Credit: Judy Murphy

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“I don’t have students who’ve been through violence, the problem I have is students who aren’t motivated. If they can’t be bothered to show up on time each day, to pay attention, do the work I set, why should I go out of my way to help them? Fortunately, they’re not a problem for long, they soon drop out, and then I can concentrate on teaching the ones who want to learn.”

I can hear him still, this adult educator I met years ago in a workshop I was leading in Canada’s north. I have heard such complaints many times since then. They’re not his exact words, I can’t recall my own precisely either, but I remember his certainty that it was better that those students quit, and I know I worried about what they would learn from dropping out—again.

I know I kept looking for ways to convince him that all those behaviours that told him so certainly that those students weren’t motivated, fit into another story too—a story about the impact of violence on learning. They may look like they (or we) don’t care, but perhaps they care so much that trying again is almost unbearable. I wanted to help this instructor, and so many educators, see an altered outcome might be possible if we approach those students differently. I have seen the dramatic difference that can occur ‘just’ from naming truths!

That day I think I described how self-doubt can rob a person of the capacity to get out of the house on time, leaving them, or us, feeling “what’s the point” “why bother” “I’ll fail again this time, just like before!” I learned that from students whose absence was frustrating me, when I finally asked them why they weren’t in class each day and the stories spilled out. I learned it too from the drumming course I took, when I was often late. I felt so bad about my failure to master the drumming patterns, that even with plenty of learning success behind me in other areas, I found I just couldn’t get out of the house on time, missed when I was just a little sick with a cold, got farther behind, until I quit, promising myself I would return some day. Many years ago now, but I still haven’t returned! My undertaking wasn’t vital, I’ve found other ways to play, but I remember those feelings clearly.

When the course is the gateway to a job, or some other important change, then the stakes are far higher. I feared that this instructor’s adult students might find it too hard to counter their negative voices, to keep showing up, only to feel bad again and again, unless they were met with rich relationships, clear encouragement, a teacher with faith in their capacity, to help them keep going, until they dared to believe in themselves. Without that support, the voices of doubt and despair are often too strong, and the pattern gets clearer: late, missing, forgetting work, not speaking up, not asking for help. It might look like “not trying,” or “not caring,” but I’ve seen how much invisible hard work it can take to withstand the old stories! Even the student themselves can believe they are lazy or unmotivated when they can find no other explanation!

Perhaps a student does, with mighty effort, get to class, even on-time, in spite of the slowing effect of anxiety, the drag of doubt, alongside the myriad practical demand: the kids to get up, the breakfast to prepare, the lunches to pack, the youngsters to drop at daycare. But what will they meet after that super-human effort to show up? Will there be a warm welcome even when they are late, reminders that it is always hard at the start of a course, that it gets easier?

Will they be told it’s ok if they miss instructions, get confused, that no question is stupid, that if they find it too hard to ask in front of the group, they can ask after class? Will the teacher make it clear to everyone that it is normal to blank, to get lost literally and figuratively, or will a certain impatience, a hasty explanation, a quick leap into the content leave some students gasping, unable to get fully present in that classroom, to open to learning? Will they dare to ask questions—even when asked “do you understand”? Will they actually hear such an invitation, or will they be long gone already, only the body left in place, while mind and spirit have already left? Self-protection learnt well in the hardest times, is necessary, it helped us survive violence, but it provides no safety from judgement.

Now, I think we all need to figure out the “real” problem, or perhaps I should say the problem behind the first problem we think we see, otherwise the solutions won’t help! Kate Nonesuch, a wise educator friend of mine, says every adult who signs up for a class is motivated. Perhaps I could have asked that adult educator what drive he thought had led his “unmotivated” students to sign up in the first place, to come to class, if not every day, at least some days; and what he thought had changed for each one when they dropped out?

I still want to insist there is much we can do to create a safer environment for learning, and that moving away from certainties, and turning towards curiosity might make an important difference!

Note: You are Amazing image was generously drawn by Rosalind Penfold, author of Dragonslippers for learningandviolence.net

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“She wants me to leave the learning centre and get a job” the student says perhaps, or to her friends maybe she is angrier: “That b—- wants me to quit school, she doesn’t think I’m worth bothering with!” While the teacher tells her colleague that she spoke to the student to encourage her to “lift her thinking about her abilities. If she wants to work, she has the skills.” These different understandings of the meaning of the teacher’s words, by J, and about her, in Linno’s post, have led me to muse about the stories we tell!

Many of us can be felled by some small comment: a few critical words, or words of concern, or feedback. All may be intended to be constructive, an attempt to help. But the self-talk begins, adding more and more weight to that little comment—the initial “trip” on something hard, like the images shown here—then the feelings of bad and wrong land heavily on us!

When I showed this animation at an adult literacy workshop I listened to a deluge of stories. Each student there was convinced they were the only ones who felt so strongly when they heard, or even imagined, criticism! They were all startled to hear others too felt bad, wrong, stupid, and certain they didn’t belong in that class, that program, or that job! I am disturbed by the certainty we so often have that our interpretation of another’s actions, words, or even inaction or silence, is right, that the story we are spinning is the “truth.”

I can hear Mary, an adult literacy student who died many years ago now, yet still I can feel her fury at people with “big papers” she was sure were judging her, even when they didn’t say a word! She knew her therapist thought she was worthless just from the certificates that lined the woman’s office walls. I remember suggesting those certificates might be on display to show that the therapist had studied how to be a support for Mary, and others. But Mary “heard” only that this therapist believed that with no high school education, Mary was worth nothing. Often people with “big papers” touched that tender place in Mary, likely without even realizing it, but nevertheless leaving her feeling bruised by their words or actions.

It was a long time before I understood that those “judgements” Mary heard bothered her so much because she secretly believed they might be right! A strange contradiction this, because it was her doubt about herself that led her to be so certain about what others were thinking about her. She didn’t ask, she didn’t imagine other plausible stories about why a teacher had said what they did, or what her social worker, or therapist really meant by their actions, she knew! But then I catch myself getting caught up in certainties about others’ judgements too, it’s a very easy slippery slide, even silence can wither us on the spot, until we feel small, immobilized, unable to move forward, or learn! In this era of email overload, silence is too common a response to tentative requests, and the stories of being intentionally ignored we can grow as we wait, can easily drag us down!

When I first began to explore these issues of violence, trauma, and neglect and their impact on learning, I wanted no student to feel stupid, as I had too often as a child, or as I heard so often from Mary. I wanted to declare violence impacts learning from the rooftops! Mary and I began writing about our work together long ago and for nearly 30 years now I’ve been looking at how these impacts play out and what everyone in any role can do that can make a difference to support learning.

I’ve learned many things that can make a difference. I have learned that even the most sensitive teacher, counsellor, or anyone else we cross paths with, can leave us feeling bad. So now I see a starting place is if we all, whatever our location in the learning interaction, whether in the centre or on the sidelines, understand that these big reactions will happen, and try to avoid shame and blame, as much as we can! Once we acknowledge they are there, that they are simply self-protection, that nobody is bad or wrong, the challenge is to find ways to interrupt and reshape them to be more helpful now! Each of us will find different ways that work for us, and for those we seek to support, whether our students, clients, or employees, friends, family, or colleagues. But having some possibilities can help us find our own tools!

I, for example, need to take a total break: read a novel for a few minutes for instance; or do something I feel skilled at, to feel a sense of success, of efficacy; or connect with someone, to laugh together with kindness at my over-the-top reaction! A friend and colleague gave me a reminder that sits above my desk, if I can only remember to look up, it helps me feel connected! I may need to try several options, then, sometimes, I can push the certainty away, knowing it for an old reaction, believe it a little less, and may be move on!

And you? Do you have an array of ideas of what you, your students and others, might try in order to step away from the slippery slope, to shake the certainty of bad, wrong, stupid, don’t belong – to open to learning again as soon as possible?

Note: Drawings above are part of an animation created by Elaine Sayoko Yoneoka, from learningandviolence.net – to be found in the Helping Myself Learn section.

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