One challenge schools face when addressing trauma is the wide variety of adverse experiences that in turn result in a range of reactions. Some students might show anger or sadness, while others may suffer in ways not obvious.
“We really have to resist the temptation to fall into the kind of deficit thinking trap and ask, ‘What’s wrong with those kids?'” said Mark Tappan, a professor of education at Colby College, in Maine. “And instead, we really have to ask what’s happened in their life, in and out of school, that has contributed to how they’re acting in the classroom and in the school at large.”
