Trauma-sensitive and trauma-informed schools are spreading around the country. But if they don’t start with how schools themselves can induce trauma, they won’t work.
The time had come. It was Dec. 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on the Montgomery public bus. This act led to Parks’ arrest, ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott and ushered in the new civil rights movement.
Instead of discussing current events only on Tuesdays or only in response to traumatic events, let’s help students use the curriculum to understand and act against current injustices.
Maribel Valdez Gonzalez is a Xicana educator and San Antonio-born daughter of Mexican immigrants with a goal to create academically and culturally engaging learning experiences through a culturally responsive framework that fosters empowerment, agency, and radical kindness. She is a STEMbyTAF Transformation Coach for Technology Access Foundation. She works directly with administrators and teachers to achieve educational justice for all students, especially Black and Brown students. Maribel partners with K–12 public schools as an instructional coach to shift pedagogy, transform curriculum using
My nana is laughing as she tells me one of her favorite childhood stories. As her cheeks lift into a smile, I can see the teenager who boldly told her teacher that threats to visit Nana’s parents about her behavior are ineffective. “You see,” she said, “they don’t speak any English.”