Toward a Politics of Healing in Classrooms

• In Event: Where Do We Go From Here? Reimaging Educational Contexts in the Era of '45

Abstract

Purpose
Among the lessons that emerged after the 2016 presidential election is a recognition that teachers are generally not prepared to address the intersections of healing, politics, and emotion in classrooms. Now, more than ever, educators must address the intersections of trauma, emotion, and politics in classrooms, while also recognizing how individuals and groups are positioned differently in the material and emotional stakes of the Trump presidency. In this conceptual paper, we draw on research and our experiences working with teachers, children, and youth since the 2016 election to call for more expansive conversations among educators across perspectives and locations (i.e., K-12 and university) concerned with creating safe, relational, anti-oppressive classrooms.

Perspective(s)
We focus on two areas of research and practice—Social and emotional learning (SEL) (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004) and critical trauma studies (Zembylas, 2007)—on which we have each drawn in our inquiries with teachers and youth in K-12 classrooms. SEL tends to be grounded in educational psychology and the cognitive and sociocultural theoretical traditions of that discipline and its expansions over time. Addressing similar concerns from different perspectives, critical studies of trauma are most often grounded in critical, feminist, and poststructural theories and philosophical traditions. We discuss some of the central ideas and assumptions of these areas of scholarship, showing how their different disciplinary and theoretical histories raise tensions as well as generative overlap.

Arguments/point of view
Perhaps because of their often different disciplinary and theoretical roots, we find SEL and critical trauma studies often exist in parallel with one another, rather than in conversation. We argue that this historical moment demands engaging across perspectives to address the impact of politics and policy. For instance, SEL must address what it means to cultivate belonging in a broken world and position educators, youth, and families as agents to help remake and repair the world. In addition, attention to trauma in schools must include critical concerns with power and politics and explicit recognition of how the material and symbolic violence of the current administration is inflicted on some bodies much more than others (Dutro, 2013). Threading these areas of research/practice points to a politics of healing that is crucial to center in our work as educators-researchers. To accomplish this necessary and intensive work, attention to healing, humanizing practice, and political and civic engagement must be reflected in how teacher education and professional development are shaped (Mirra & Garcia, 2017). We offer examples of how such work has been unfolding in some of our partnerships since the 2016 election.

Significance
Teaching in this political context requires creating a nurturing and validating space within which to learn from and with students as they navigate the varying identities lived in classroom communities along with the sociopolitical systems beyond schools. As researchers and teacher educators, we need to build coalitions and partnerships with K-12 colleagues and students to harness the burgeoning attention to SEL and trauma in schools and districts to pursue a politics of healing.

Authors

• Elizabeth Dutro, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Antero Garcia, Stanford University