Beyond Culturally Responsive and Trauma-Informed Best Practices: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Embodied Teaching

• In Event: The Humanity, Emotionality, and Love of Teaching

Abstract

This conceptual paper develops an interdisciplinary framework to effectively address the impact of trauma in schools. The framework of embodied teaching draws upon the theory of the three domains of teaching to categorize teaching acts as simultaneously including relationships, classroom management, and curriculum and instruction. It draws upon the theory of culturally relevant pedagogy in relating the quality and content of those acts to the goal of social justice. An additional focus on the role of physiology in teaching and learning yields measurements of conscious and unconscious effects of teacher acts and classroom interactions that can address trauma. The embodied teaching framework can support interdisciplinary research studies as well as guide teacher practice. An example is provided.

Author

• Brianna L. Kennedy, Utrecht University