Blog

In Raul Hernandez’ Discovery Lab classroom in Yakima, his fifth-grade students are in a flurry working on lines for a poem. Then they hear the melodic “zwoop” of a harmonica, and all noise and movement stop in an instant. Hands go up in a two-fingered peace sign. All eyes are on the teacher. This is PAX, and it’s out to change the world. The PAX Good Behavior Game is an evidence-based program to help teachers and students build a safe, teamlike classroom environment, where the focus is on...

How implementing trauma Informed care is like building an IKEA shelf. I just moved across the country to the Philadelphia area to start working as an Americorp VISTA in Camden, New Jersey. I am working with the Healing 10 collaboration to bring a trauma informed paradigm to Camden, arguably one of the most traumatized cities in the US. At the moment, I am in the midst of both trying to understand my new job in trauma informed care and set up my apartment in a new city. Obviously, trips to...

Making do with what you’ve got There are a lot of stories about refugees in the news. Some years ago, I helped resettle refugees from the Vietnam War. Trauma and resilience define what it means to be a refugee. All of them had lived through years of warfare. They had seen friends and family members killed. They had to flee the familiar towns and villages they had lived in all their lives. They arrived in a new country with hardly any resources, in a land where nobody spoke their language or...

Stillness is hard. There is a psychological need to do something, accomplish something. Even when physically still, restlessness can stir a tempest of our thoughts, an internal storm beneath a quiet exterior. Our workplaces can make us slaves to productivity and efficiency, rewarding us for behaviors that are soul damaging. In the midst of the craziness of life, we need rest. We need quiet. We seek peace. Sometimes in the midst of my hurriedness, the gentle voice of God speaks through the...

Are we regressing emotionally as a society? The rise of a presidential candidate who feels the need to respond aggressively to every slight, real or perceived — and the perception that he is seen as somehow more “real” or “authentic” than our current, less-reactive commander in chief — suggests as much. The fact that we’re rewarding such behavior with fame and, perhaps, power sends a terrible message to kids. But parents have a counterweight they can employ, one which apparently teaches...

Early childhood education makes a valuable contribution to society by advancing children’s learning and development, enhancing their path toward success in school and beyond. Because of this, and tied to the belief that tangible contributions, both immediate and long-term, will be forthcoming, public investments in early childhood education are rising at federal, state, and local levels. But these results won’t be achieved if we don’t also invest in the preparation of early childhood...

Sitting safely at the computer in his Chicago home, Ross Ritchell believed he was going to die. The 75th Ranger Regiment veteran didn’t know how or why — he just knew death would come before he could finish The Knife , a war novel influenced by his military experiences during a three-month period between 2007 and 2008. Dying before finishing was unacceptable, so Ritchell wrote like it was an act of survival. “It was almost like I couldn’t write fast enough,” Ritchell says. “It almost felt...

Robbin Taylor picked up a bottle of corn oil, its contents completely solidified. "I don’t know what temperature vegetable oil freezes at," she told an interviewer from WBUR in February 2015 . (The answer: 12 degrees F.) "And that was in the kitchen near the stove"—what should have been the warmest place in her house. Taylor was living with her daughter and granddaughter in Dorchester, the Boston neighborhood with the city’s highest concentration of poverty . Taylor had been unemployed for...

According to a recent report from the Department of Education, one out every eight students in America missed three weeks or more of school during the 2013–14 academic year. (The number among older students is even more dramatic, as 20 percent of all high school students missed three weeks or more.) The results indicate that chronic absenteeism — which is defined as missing 10 percent of a school year for any reason — affects students across the entire country, among all races, and has an...

Teaching is one of the most stressful occupations in the country, but introducing organizational and individual interventions can help minimize the negative effects of teacher stress. The Issue This research brief examines causes of teacher stress, its effects on teachers, schools, and students, and strategies for reducing its impact. Key Findings Forty-six percent of teachers report high daily stress, which compromises their health, sleep, quality of life, and teaching performance. When...

Thanks to Samantha Sangenito for sharing research about holocaust survivor children with schizophrenia on ACEsConnection. The source of schizophrenia is an important issue we should address as a member of the ACEs community. Although you can find advocates who state that there is no relationship between childhood adversity and schizophrenia, the research is starting to show that those diagnosed with schizophrenia actually have a higher rate of childhood adversity that the general population.

Suicidal thoughts do not just appear in a person’s mind. It may seem that someone has no reason to feel suicidal, but depression is a very real illness, regardless of circumstance. For others, there are certain factors that contribute to an increased risk of suicide. Certain groups of people, such as middle-aged men, youth in child welfare settings such as foster care or the juvenile justice system, veterans, and American Indians/Alaska Natives, for instance, experience a higher rate of...