To Tom Wolf: Childhood trauma is the elephant in the classroom [Newsworks.org]

Dear Gov. Tom Wolf and Education Secretary-designee Pedro Rivera:

I write regarding injured, marginalized children in Pennsylvania schools, to ask that you include them explicitly in a broad, “Healthy PA” paradigm in your new administration.

I am an educator serving children in elementary and middle school classrooms in my own neighborhood in a major urban center for 14 years. I advocate today regarding an aspect of education rarely discussed, but clearly visible to experienced classroom educators.

Childhood trauma is a tragic, life-changing assault on the minds and lives of children in our schools. Unaddressed (which is the general, present state), its ravages continue, life-long. This applies to all neighborhoods in Pennsylvania.

Childhood Trauma is not "poverty." It is a response of overwhelming, helpless terror to events some call “adverse childhood experience” (ACE). It can result when adults who are supposed to love and protect, instead, cause hurt: physical, emotional and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; single-parent homes (because of separation, divorce, incarceration); violence; community violence; substance abuse; and mental illness. When a child is dealing with chronic ACEs in three or more categories, the impact can be devastating personally. It is powerful and shockingly prevalent.

We won’t have a successful education paradigm, or even accurately interpret academic results, until we explicitly confront trauma’s overwhelming impact.

[For more of this story, written by Daun Kauffman, go to http://www.newsworks.org/index...inktype=hp_speakeasy]