Last night, in a kickoff event for Education Week, several hundred people crowded into the fabulous Tishman Auditorium at the New School in New York City to watch Paper Tigers, a documentary that follows six students during a school year at Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, the first trauma-informed high school in the U.S. Nearly 70 schools, colleges, universities and communities across the country are screening Paper Tigers this week.
Immediately following the New York screening, Paper Tigers director James Redford was joined in a live streamed panel discussion by Turnaround for Children founder Dr. Pamela Cantor, New York Times columnist and Solutions Journalism Network co-founder David Bornstein, and Dr. Howard Steele, professor of psychology at the New School.
A special guest joined them -- Kelsey, one of the students featured in the film. She was a sophomore when the film was made. She's now a senior, is attending community college and working part-time. She had a 4.0 grade average in her junior year. The reason she stayed at Lincoln High School, she said, is because "I don't feel judged there. I feel like I can be myself there. That's still the biggest part about Lincoln. There's such a level of acceptance, such a family atmosphere. You have people you can talk to all the time."
Steele said that the documentary shows that what Lincoln was providing, from an attachment theory perspective, was typical relationships, "relationships where affection and support and limit-setting are part of it on the part of the teachers, but also honest exchanges about difficulties that come up many times a day."
"This is an emerging movement right now," said Redford, "but in the three years since I first read the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (the CDC-Kaiser Permanente ACE Study), the level of awareness that’s cropping up is extraordinary….What you do see (at Lincoln) is the true value of love and compassion. The extraordinary stats that come out of Lincoln -- I mean if other schools could shadow and vaguely mimic the success at Lincoln, they would be making a huge leap forward. You don't have to be a superhero to be trauma-informed. You just have to have a little bit of heart and stay cool.”
Cantor, whose organization is helping schools in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., become trauma-informed, echoed that sentiment: "We’ve seen it across all of our schools -- if a teacher sees relatively quickly how something you teach them is actually going to make their job much much easier, their job that is causing them stress, their job that is making them feel like a failure, and their job to see kids successfully engaged in learning, they grab it, they want that."
The list of most the screenings this week is below.
Monday, November 16th Screenings:
Ann Arbor, MI - University of Michigan - SSW
Appleton, WI - Fox Valley Technical College - Jane Roisum
Austin, TX - Communities in Schools of Central Texas
Bangor, ME - University of Maine at Augusta
Belfair, WA - North Mason School District
Belfast, ME - Broadreach Family & Community Services
Bloomington, IN - City Hall Council Chambers
Bremerton, WA - Olympic Educational Service District
Cambridge, MA - Harvard Graduate School
Cedar Rapids, IA - Iowa BIG
Charlottesville, VA - Center for Learning and Growth
Culpeper, VA - Family Preservation Services, Inc
Culpeper, VA - Greater Piedmont Trauma Informed Community Network
Dayton, WA - Coalition for Youth and Families
Delray Beach, FL - Achievement Centers for Children and Families
Farmington, ME - Franklin County Children's Task Force
Fond du Lac, WI - Fond du Lac School District
Gainesville, FL - Univ. of Florida - Social Justice
Geneva, NY - Family Counseling Service of the Finger Lakes, Inc.
Grand Rapids, MI - Grand Valley State University
Hamden, CT - Cedarhurst School
Harrisburg, PA - Midtown Cinemas
Hudson, WI - Hudson School District - Anthony Mayer
Kent, WA - Kent School District
Lake Forest Park, WA - Shoreline School District
New York, NY - The New School
North Wilkesboro, NC - Wilkes County Schools
Oneonta, NY - SUNY Oneonta
Prairie du Sac, WI - Sauk Prairie High School
Redmond, OR - Redmond High School
Salt Lake City, UT - University of Utah College of Education – Education, Culture & Society
San Diego, CA - San Diego Unified School District
Seattle, WA - Bezos Family Foundation
Stanwood, WA - Stanwood -Camano School District
Stillwater, MN - Saint Paul Public Schools
Tallahassee, FL - Leon County Schools
Wallingford, CT - Lyman High School
West Bend, WI - West Bend High Schools
Whitewater, WI - UW Whitewater
Williston, VT - Howard Center
Winona, MN - Family & Children's Center/Winona State University
Tuesday, November 17th Screenings
Bethel, AK - Univ. of Alaska
Dubuque, IA - Hillcrest Family Services
Helena, MT - MT Department of Corrections
Marysville, WA - Victim Support Services
Mobile, AL - Drug Education Council
Newville, PA - Big Spring High School
Wednesday, November 18th Screenings
Bozeman, MT - Kidslink
Kelso, WA - Kelso School District
Milton, WI - School District of Milton
Prescott, WA - Vista Hermosa Community Programs
Rochester, MN - Rochester Alternative Learning Center
Vermillion, KS - Vermillion School
Waterville, ME - Maine Film Center
Thursday, November 19th Screenings
Bemidji, MN - The Idea Circle
Carlsbad, CA - North County Academy
Minnesota, MN - PCA Minnesota
Newburyport, MA - Shore Educational Collaborative
New Hope, MN - Intermediate District 287
Oakdale, CT - Montville Schools
Richmond, VA - Greater Richmond SCAN
Seattle, WA - NorthWest PBIS
Vancouver, WA - Evergreen Public Schools
West Allis, WI - West Allis- West Milwaukee School District
Friday, November 20th Screenings
Rohnart Park, CA - Tribal TANF of Sonoma Marin
Prescott, WA - Vista Hermosa Community Programs
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