How Teachers See Trauma

Teachers see trauma every day. 

Sometimes, trauma turns in. It looks like a child crawling to a corner of the room, sucking her thumb and tugging her hair. Her blue eyes glaze and her face goes blank. This little girl has gone to a safe place, a place she goes to often. She’ll come back… when she’s ready. Then she’ll be bubbly and happy again, hugging her friends and skipping down the hall.

Sometimes, trauma comes out. It sounds like primal screams, over and over, as a girl rips student artwork off the hallway wall.  Once the wall is bare she picks up the papers and rips each one to shreds. Roaring, ripping, stomping. Again and again. She doesn’t stop until there is nothing left to rip. She has roared herself out. She collapses in tears.

Sometimes, trauma gets mean. A student spits in your face, menace in his eyes. He throws wild punches. He digs his nails deep into your forearm and rakes the skin off in angry red gouges.  He kicks wildly, catching you in the shin, the ribs, the knee. The words he screams are words no child should ever hear, let alone repeat.

Sometimes, trauma goes soft. It looks like a boy never asking for a thing- only giving. Hugs. Drawings. A Lego from his pocket. An acorn from the playground. His half-empty chocolate milk, in case she gets thirsty. He stands by his teacher, holding her hand, caressing the soft weave of her sweater sleeve. Soft, longing. Looking up to say "I wish you could be my mom."

Teachers see all this. They see this every day, sometimes over and over. Again and again.

Teachers' hearts break. They want to kick and punch, to rip and scream, to curl up and turn inward. Sometimes they cry themselves to sleep. Sometimes they toss and turn all night, unable to let go of worries. 

But in the morning, they get up. They come back. They try again. They see that trauma again, and they keep pushing through- loving them through it. Every day.