The Trauma Teachers Bring to Teaching

• In Event: Teacher Trauma and the Struggle for Self-Care and Well-Being

Abstract

As schools and districts support new teachers through their first year of teaching, do they realize the depth of primary trauma new teachers bring? This proposal highlights a subsection of a larger study that examines teacher secondary traumatic stress. This proposal delves into primary trauma, the traumas new teachers bring as they enter the teaching field. Ninety-two new teachers completed the Life Events Checklist, a scale that screens for potentially traumatic events in a respondent's lifetime. 88% have experienced one or more primary traumas varying from struggles with mental health to sexual assaults to witnessing school shootings. This critical finding uncovers an aspect of experience that new teachers bring to the classroom and offers implications for the teaching field.

Authors

• Megan Brennan, Resilient Futures

• Kathryn S. Young, Metropolitan State University of Denver

• Ofelia Castro Schepers, Purdue University