Gearing up for the Leading for Learning Summit: Fostering Resilient Learners

by Pete Hall and Kristin Souers

Across the nation, conversations about childhood trauma dominate our discourse. On one hand, that pleases us, because it means we – as a society, in particular as educators – are willing to talk about something we’ve long ignored. On the other hand, we’re awfully wary of this increase in frequency, because there is still quite a bit of misinformation, confusion, and false confidence circulating this topic. And this is way too important a topic to get jumbled up.

And that’s why we’re coming to WASDA in June! As a licensed mental health professional (Kristin) and a former school principal (Pete), we know full well the span of not-OK events that occur to our nation’s young people. We have seen how these stressors impact school performance, relationships, and success across all arenas. And – perhaps most importantly – we know how we can build positive learning environments to help mitigate the harmful effects of childhood trauma.

Together, we’ll discuss a little bit about trauma (to make sure we share a common definition), explore the effects of toxic stress on developing brains (so we understand the biology of this phenomenon), and share the elements of a Culture of Safety (so we are clear about how we can help our students be OK with their not-OK experiences).

We cannot stop the trauma from happening. However, we can do quite a bit to create an environment that is safe, predictable, and consistent for our students – no matter what their backgrounds, experiences, trauma histories, or conditions may be. We can control the controllables: our attitudes, our beliefs, our thoughts, our passion, our words, our expectations, and our actions. And not surprisingly, those can have a monumental impact on our young people’s lives…and school performance.

Pete Hall and Kristin Souers will be giving a keynote presentation at the Leading for Learning Summit.