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I can't even count the number of times I've watched friends' and family members' facial expressions drop and felt a chilling silence upon mentioning various forms of mental illness.

These are open-minded people. They are willing to talk about politics, religion, drugs, and other controversial topics. But they withdraw when the topic of mental illness comes up.

I don't start these conversations to cause a ruckus. Instead, I want to honestly talk about the impact mental illness has on individuals and society as a whole. Our mental health system is dysfunctional and we need to address it head-on if we hope to change anything. This entails embracing mental health as an acceptable and appropriate subject.

Our Avoidance and Fear of Mental Illness

We hide from mental illness. We fear that talking about it will somehow make it worse.

You hear people say:

"He's so bipolar."

"I don't know 'the right things' to say so I try not to bring it up."

"She has issues."

"He just doesn't handle stress well."

These are the common sentiments peppered throughout our surface-level interactions. Because we approach it as taboo, misinformation and ignorance run rampant about depression, psychosis, anxiety, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, and other seriously painful disorders.
We are comfortable openly talking about many physical ailments, job stress, and natural disasters; but when it comes to internal distress, which we can't see or fully understand, we clam up.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 11% of Americans 12 years and older take antidepressant medications [1]. This doesn't even include the people on antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and anxiolytic medications.

To get a better idea of exactly what this looks like, picture this: you're at a football game with over 60,000 people in the stands. With this statistic in mind, this means over 6,500 of them are on medication for depression alone!

In comparison, the lifetime prevalence rate of breast cancer in women is 12% [2] and we have a month dedicated to loudly fundraising for the cause. We wear t-shirts and pink ribbons to raise awareness and you can't buy groceries without noticing the obvious magazine covers.

Compared to other diseases (such as breast cancer), mental illness has very few large, strong, or substantial public causes or organizations. Although September was Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and April is officially Stress Awareness Month, chances are high that unless you work in the mental health field or suicide or stress has personally impacted your life, you know very little about these important causes.

How the Stigma Hurts Us All

We are supposed to pretend that we don't have feelings, that we're all "fine". It's inevitable that each of us will experience suffering throughout our lives, yet as a society we bury our heads in the sand.

When we avoid this topic, we miss out on the opportunity to connect with each other. We don't have the chance to relate to one another regarding our shared universal human experience: emotional pain.

Many studies show that the brain experiences physical and emotional pain in similar areas. One study from the journal Psychological Science showed that Tylenol actually reduced pain from social rejection [3]. We don't hold it against someone when they writhe in pain after stubbing a toe; therefore it is not logical to judge someone for emotional pain either.

We can shift the paradigm around mental illness if we realize that it is a brain disorder. The brain (an organ!) is the central part of the human body. Depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia are chronic illnesses just as real and debilitating as diabetes, cancer, or ALS can be.

Mental illness gets worse when we don't talk about it. Fewer resources are available when we look away, and this only fuels the fires of shame.

It's hard to watch people suffer, but our own discomfort is not a good reason to avoid the problem. Silence only buries the self-deprecation deeper down into the mind of a person with a mental illness. The result of this repression is chronic discontentment, dulled enough to confuse even the most insightful of us.

Those who are ill-informed about manageable mental illness make incorrect assumptions and take harmful actions in response: My clients talk to their peers and colleagues about mental illness and their hours are arbitrarily cut at work, romantic partners prematurely end relationships, and family members dismiss their feelings as "crazy". This leaves them in the lurch, wondering why sharing only one small part of them drastically changed the other person's whole perspective.

However, talking more openly about mental illness not only makes change possible; it also significantly helps the healing process.

Examples include movements like the recent #itsoktotalk social media trend for men with depression and the suicide-awareness organization Project Semicolon. These groups facilitate conversation and increase camaraderie between those with and without mental illnesses.

People assume mental illness is somehow their own fault; but no one would purposefully struggle with the emotional roller coaster of bipolar disorder or consciously choose a clinically anxious outlook. People commonly yearn for ease, relief, and a sense of self-worth. That's all that underlies the label we place on any specific disorder: a desire for inner peace.

Anyone Can Suffer From Mental Illness

Therapists may also inadvertently perpetuate the myth that mental illness only plagues a select few unlucky individuals. With the understandable ambivalence surrounding self-disclosure, we may nonverbally provide the impression what we, as healthcare professionals, don't struggle with mental illness.

Some of my clients are therapists. I have a therapist. And my therapist shares insights he learned from his personal therapy. I can only imagine the therapy tree grows upward from there, and my therapy clients may have clients that are therapists, too.

I'm a psychologist, but this does not mean that I have everything figured out.

Throughout my teen years and college, I struggled with several major losses and chronic grief, clinical depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder. Rather than one day waking up and being "better", I spent (and continue to spend) years working hard in individual therapy, support groups, seeing psychiatrists and surrounding myself with supportive, health-minded people.

Over the years I consulted with a slew of healing professionals and personally benefited from the concrete results of seeking help. I learned a regimen of daily self-care activities and coping skills that I, too, still occasionally forget to use! I made painful and slow changes to my life and relationships.

Some of the members of my support network are also working through their own mental health obstacles. This does not make them any less effective or questionable as a positive influence in my life.

All demographics are susceptible to mental illness. Because it's genetic, stress-induced, and sometimes seemingly random, even the most outwardly functional members of society have mental health challenges.

My clients come from hugely varied backgrounds. Some appear to be doing well on the surface: they are successful CEOs, bankers, scientists, and upper-level managers, while others are straight-A high school students. Most would never dare show the world what they share with me because they are judged, demoted, dismissed, given unsolicited advice, and ridiculed when they do.
The hidden cases are sometimes the most dangerous.
When someone who is struggling with their mental health presents as high functioning, they don't feel like they can ask for the help they need. The people around them understandably expect a lot (without knowing it, we look for the status quo and ignore evidence that confirms otherwise), which pressures them to avoid professional guidance and support.

A client of mine recently shared her anxious thoughts with a select few friends and family members. Their responses included:

"Don't think that way!"

"Just calm down. It's not a big deal."

"Why are you so worried? Everything is going to be fine."

While these reactions came from a caring place, they were not particularly helpful. All she really wanted was for someone to acknowledge how much pain she was feeling, to know that she was hurting and see her desperation to feel better.

That recognition has the power to noticeably reduce painful emotions. If she felt truly heard, she would also know her confidant cared and understood the experience of intense emotional discomfort.

On the other hand, there are people willing to speak openly about internal struggles. The problem is they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Despite being open to these conversations, they might still ask someone to keep it "between them" once they venture outside of the smaller conversation into a group setting.

The idea that personal struggles lead to obvious personal growth pervades our everyday lives, yet we continue to ignore it in this context. Despite the fact that we can't always prioritize both physical and mental health simultaneously, they are equally important. Anyone who tells you otherwise is missing information or just plain confused.
Mental illness is an explanation for behavior, personal limitations, and inner processes. It is not an excuse. It is not a weakness.
By openly discussing our own struggles with mental illness, we can dispel the myth that we are immune to pain. If we welcome the conversation, we inspire hope in each other by showing our loved ones there is a way through the agony - together.

References

[1] Pratt, L. A., PhD, Brody, D. J., MPH, & Gu, Q., MD PhD. (2011, October). Antidepressant Use in Persons Aged 12 and Over: United States, 2005-2008. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db76.htm[2] U.S. Breast Cancer Statistics. (2016, June 23). Retrieved from http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/understand_bc/statistics[3] DeWall, C. N., MacDonald, G., Webster, G. D., Masten, C. L., Baumeister, R. F., Powell, C., . . . Eisenberger, N. I. (2010, June 14). Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain: Behavioral and Neural Evidence. Psychological Science, 21(7), July 2010, 931-937. doi:10.1177/0956797610374741

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Mental Illness Stigma: A Therapist's Perspective

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I can't even count the number of times I've watched friends' and family members' facial expressions drop and felt a chilling silence upon mentioning various forms of mental illness. These are open-minded people. They are willing to talk about politics, religion, drugs, and other controversial topics.

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CLOSE

Students who attend Mooretown Elementary School in Shreveport have typically been expelled from other schools within Caddo Parish, with more than 85 percent of those students dismissed for battery against a teacher.

But once children enroll at Mooretown they tend to stay, said Principal Shelia Gladney. That's because their teachers understand how trauma - and particularly "adverse childhood experiences," or ACES - can change children.

In 2015, Mooretown Elementary became the state's only elementary level pilot program for trauma informed care, a framework that attempts to treat children's trauma rather than solely discipline bad behavior. The school has permission from the state's Department of Exceptional Education to create a nine-week social skills curriculum as well as to designate two classrooms for work with children with severe emotional or behavioral problems.

"They come here and they bring their behaviors, but we understand there is more to the child than these behaviors," Gladney said. "Before I even heard about ACES, I thought there was a reason these kids were acting out."

The teachers at Mooretown are part of a growing number of professionals who have come to believe that what happens to children when they are young can alter their outcomes and quality of life later if caring adults don't intervene in appropriate ways.

Awareness about the need for a trauma-informed care framework has recently taken root in northwest Louisiana, with both academic achievement gains and positive behavior changes for the children involved.

How trauma impacts a child's brain

The term adverse childhood experiences refers to any situation that negatively affects a child. ACES can include the death of a loved pet, frequent moves, watching parents fight or physical or sexual abuse or neglect.

The term was coined in a two-year study that discovered a strong correlation between negative experiences in childhood and later negative outcomes for adults. The study suggests that the more ACES a child has, the more likely the child will be to succumb to adult problems such as addiction, substance abuse, self-harm, unemployment or incarceration.

That's because trauma "rewires" the brain, said Caddo Parish Juvenile Services Administrator Clay Walker.

Walker, who is one of four professionals trained in ACES in north Louisiana, said those who understand how early trauma affects the brain can help troubled children overcome the mental barriers erected by negative experiences.

"When we meet them at 15, their brain development is different than the norm," Walker said. "But it doesn't mean that it's permanent. You can teach the child how to know when they are angry. You can rewire the brain."

A classroom door at Mooretown Elementary School (Photo: Lex Talamo)

Gladney said many students who come to Mooretown act out by knocking school work off their desks or crying when they enter the school. Some students hit staff members.

But rather than turn to suspensions or expulsions, the school employs several specially trained staff members to work with the disruptive students. Through a combination of social skills training and a staff-to-student ratio of 4 to 1 for students with severe misbehavior, staff can slowly turn around a student's behaviors - and academic achievement.

Gladney chose to have her staff trained in ACES after attending a training session herself. The training opened her eyes to the impacts of trauma and the need for a different approach for her students.

In that session, the trainer described a young student who would "go crazy" when her teacher flipped on the classroom lights after the class finished watching a video. The teacher later discovered that the young girl had repeatedly been molested by a family member and had learned to associate lights coming on with the abuse.

"The brain had been triggered to that other experience, and the child was in drive for what might happen next," Gladney said. "What I also got out of the training is that if a child is completely different one day from the next, we know something is most likely going on."

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Mooretown Elementary is a pilot school for bringing trauma informed care to students. Principal Shelia Gladney and Marco French, an adviser at the school ,are spearheading a program that is seeing better results that other schools. (Photo: Douglas Collier/The Times)

Dr. Joseph Bocchini, chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at LSU Health, said the No. 1 generator of alternative childhood experiences is poverty, which for many families and children means frequent moves, homelessness, food insecurity, neglect or unstable family relationships.

All of these factors make the child's experience insecure, Bocchini said.

"Strong families and support build resilience in children, he said. "A child not in a family with healthy relationships may not be able to handle stressful situations in the same way other children in strong families can."

RELATED: Local schools working to turn the tide of suspensions, expulsions

More than 153,000 children statewide live in extreme poverty, according to 2015 data from Kids Count. Almost a third of children living in poverty,are age 5 or younger.

In her office at Mooretown, Gladney keeps a behavior chart for each child who frequently visits her office. Children receive green dots for good behavior, and red dots for discipline problems.

The charts also help Gladney identify when a child might be acting out because of an underlying reason. On an August afternoon, Gladney pointed to a row of green dots for a student that was suddenly interrupted by two red dots on the same day.

"I remember that on that day, a new student entered the classroom," Gladney said. "This child didn't like having to share the teacher with another child."

Gladney said that she doesn't have a "magic wand" and that the school has tried many different techniques. But Gladney said she knows trauma-informed care works because her students "want to come to school" and they have improved both academically and behaviorally.

A quote from Nelson Mandela at Mooretown Elementary School. (Photo: Lex Talamo)

The beginning of a movement

Marco French, one of Mooretown's social skills and academic support staff, said understanding trauma has helped many staff members to become more understanding and forgiving.

"The teachers are starting to understand that the child is not bad, that there are underlying factors," French said. "I personally don't believe there is such a thing as a bad child. My heart has always been with the children who act out, because those are the ones who need someone who cares about them."

Louisiana is the seventh state in the nation to adopt ACES training. The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals held a three-day conference and trained 28 professionals in the framework of trauma-informed care.

Spokeswoman Samantha Faulkner said the original group of ACE educators gave 120 presentations and trained nearly 3,000 professionals statewide in the past year. Twelve of those presentations occurred in the Shreveport-Bossier area, for a total of more than 580 individuals trained in the trauma-informed care framework.

Walker said Shreveport's population is prone to having high ACE scores because of high poverty.

"We have tried with a more punitive model of suspensions, expulsions, arrests and incarceration. While that does something for public safety, it does nothing to stop abuse and neglect," Walker said. "We need more ACE trainers and more communities to see and hear about it."

A poster on the wall of Mooretown Elementary School (Photo: Lex Talamo)

RELATED: Can't find affordable child care? You're not alone

Learning about ACES also has made Walker question several current practices, such as barring students with bad conduct grades from going on field trips. Walker said outside excursions would allow "teachable moments" for staff to help misbehaving students learn to act appropriately in public.

"Because our policies are not ACES informed, they don't get to go. They don't get de-escalated. They become angry adolescents," Walker said. "If we just give them an F in conduct and kick them out, we can't complain about violence in the community, because we saw it when they were 6, and we didn't stop it."

Faulkner said the Louisiana Department of Health plans to train more ACE educators. Earlier in the year, Caddo Parish Superintendent Lamar Goree also gave the greenlight for all Caddo Parish principals to request ACES training for staff.

"Trauma-informed care actually came out of conversations with many of our community members on ways we can continue to bring community resources into our schools to improve the lives of students," Goree wrote in an email. "We can only, many times, imagine the tragedies and untold nightmares some of our children deal with."

Goree said that the pilot program at Mooretown is still in its "infancy" and that he's reviewing student successes to see if the program should be expanded to other schools.

"We have not made this mandatory at this time, but are actively studying the results at schools that choose to implement the program," Goree said. "Schools have the ability to request the training be provided, and we sincerely hope they do."
For More Information
To schedule a presentation or connect with a Trauma-Informed Care Educator near you, contact Ana Bales, Project Coordinator, at (504) 568-7706 or Ana.Bales@la.gov.

Read or Share this story: https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2016/10/23/treating-trauma-could-improve-disruptive-school-behavior-study-says/91693252/

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Treating trauma could improve disruptive school behavior, study says

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CLOSE Students who attend Mooretown Elementary School in Shreveport have typically been expelled from other schools within Caddo Parish, with more than 85 percent of those students dismissed for battery against a teacher. But once children enroll at Mooretown they tend to stay, said Principal Shelia Gladney.

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Being Aware of Cultural Differences

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In a diverse classroom, we could imagine a student whose learning identity is passive until adult-directed, who has a low tolerance for errors, who expects to learn brick by brick, and who is not proactive about posing questions (either to the teacher or within him- or herself). How would that student look to us in our classroom? Maybe as a "slow learner" who has "special needs"?

Each student, then, brings personal preferences, likes and dislikes, a cultural learning frame, background knowledge, and feelings about being a student in their "bag" of autobiographical memory. In diverse settings, some or many of these factors may be mismatched to our teacher frame. When we see difference in any of these areas, a long-term process of dialogue and mediation is necessary to help students learn new ways of thinking, feeling, believing, and acting in a classroom setting.
Teaching Points: Struggling Students and the Cultural Roots of Autobiographical Memory
There are a number of things we can do to help bridge and minimize the "achievement gap" effects of cultural differences in autobiographical memory.
Dialogue Around Purpose and Meaning
As we have noted throughout this book, one of the key issues in orienting our memory systems to academic learning is whether we find meaning and value in the object of learning. As this pertains to autobiographical memory, we shouldn't assume that all our students share the same orientation to ways of thinking, using language, or school practices. Our willingness to ask and answer questions, or our proficiency in using descriptive language-in fact, nearly all uses of language and engagement in learning interactions-is a combination of both cultural and personal styles. When we see that students struggle to perform or produce language in the way or at the level we expect, rather than just assuming that they are misbehaving, inattentive, or a slow learner, we can engage students in a discussion about purpose, meaning, and value of what we're asking them to learn, and see where it takes us.

For example, say a student has a very difficult time writing much detail in descriptive writing. Asking him what he thinks the value of description is (if any) in reading and writing would be a good first step. Then, extending the conversation to giving the reasons that in school, and in life, learning how to describe well is a good skill to have would be a next step. Finally, we could break down what good description is and model what it looks like. And, of course, this student will also probably require a lot of vocabulary instruction.
Help Students Understand the Whats, Hows, and Whys of Our Classroom
Nearly every activity, way of using language, and way of thinking in a classroom is cultural. Different cultural groups go about organizing accepted processes of learning in different ways, according to their own cultural beliefs, traditions, and practices. Sociolinguist James Gee speaks about how every group is governed by explicit and implicit cultural norms, and a classroom is a great example of this. When we are members of the dominant group, we are aware of the implicit norms of that context, which includes the content and the language of interactions. But when we are "outsiders," we often cannot see those elements of interaction that are not made explicit. As cultural sites of learning by definition, classrooms enact a particular set of cultural norms. By definition, student diversity within our classroom means that some students will be aware of the implicit cultural norms of our classroom, but others will not unless they are explicitly shown what they are.

If we sense that somehow a student's autobiographical memories are mismatched to our expectations (the explicit and implicit norms of our classroom), rather than reactively assume anything negative about their personality, motivation, or intelligence, we can take a reflective, questioning stance: "What do I not yet understand about my student that led to this performance/communication breakdown, and/or what does the student not yet understand about the implicit norms of my classroom?" One aspect of this is trying to educate ourselves about our students' backgrounds and explicitly address any areas of mismatch that we find. We can also try to be proactive, surveying students' interests when starting with a new class. We could give students reflective writing tasks that ask them about their past experiences at school or about their knowledge of a particular subject.
Excerpted from Memory at Work in the Classroom (pp 178-181), by Francis Bailey and Ken Pransky, Alexandria, VA: ASCD. © 2014 by ASCD. Reprinted with permission. Learn more about ASCD at www.ascd.org.

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How Awareness of Cultural Differences Can Help Underachieving Students

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In a diverse classroom, we could imagine a student whose learning identity is passive until adult-directed, who has a low tolerance for errors, who expects to learn brick by brick, and who is not proactive about posing questions (either to the teacher or within him- or herself).

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School attendance

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It hasn't made every kid show up, but Principal Gunn says it's working.

Chronic absence - defined as missing more than 10 percent of the school year (or just two days a month) - is one of the most destructive forces in a child's education. Yet more than 6 million students in the U.S. miss three weeks or more of school each year.

Research shows that such students are way more likely to fall behind and, eventually, drop out. Addressing the problem goes way beyond skipping school - a mix of truancy entangled with illnesses and family problems.

Getting kids to school is especially important at the beginning of the year. One study, from Baltimore, found that about half of students who missed two to four days in September went on to miss about a month of school for the whole year.
Identify the kids who aren't there
The most important thing a school can do is figure out which students aren't at their desks.

A few years ago, the Grand Rapids, Mich., school district undertook a big data project to identify kids who were chronically absent.

The data mining showed a big problem: Of 17,000 kids in the district, nearly 7,000 were missing a month or more of school a year. District officials were super transparent about the numbers - they put 8-foot poster boards in every school, so folks could see if their numbers improved.

This highly visible information on chronic absence helped schools and community organizations step in to start addressing why kids were missing.
Outreach
Experts say an important component of any attendance program is talking to the adults at home. Parents understand that attendance is important, but when you get down to specifics - like how many days kids can or should miss - there are a lot of misconceptions. New research from the Ad Council found that nearly half of parents thought it was OK to miss three or more days of school a month, but experts say missing that many days is harmful to student achievement.

Another widely cited factor in improving attendance: Parents and students need to feel comfortable. I visited a school in Baltimore where the principal stands outside every morning - rain, shine, snow - and greets every kid and parent. They've seen attendance numbers shoot up.

The interesting thing that happened in St. Louis, at Gibson Elementary, is that when the school opened up for parents to wash clothes, those adults became more engaged. Parents could wander around the school, meet staff and get comfortable with the building.

"It was an unintended consequence. They saw we cared," Principal Gunn says.

Experts point to mentors as one of the most successful strategies: Pairing kids who are chronically absent with an adult in the community - a college student, a firefighter, a teacher.

So, washing machines may be a good idea at Gibson Elementary.

But it may not work everywhere. Research suggests that, in order to improve attendance long-term, schools should use many strategies together. Strategies that will get everyone involved: parents, community partners, teachers and principals, and the students.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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How Clean Clothes Can Help Kids with Chronic Absences at School

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It hasn't made every kid show up, but Principal Gunn says it's working. Chronic absence - defined as missing more than 10 percent of the school year (or just two days a month) - is one of the most destructive forces in a child's education. Yet more than 6 million students in the U.S.

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"The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it."
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Panhttp

Many students have never experienced success and as a result they have no reason to believe that success is possible. Instead of working toward being successful, they often entertain themselves with driving the teacher crazy by harassing other students. When I was teaching in an alternative education school in California, I had many students like this.

From a workshop, I learned a method of discussing outcomes and rewarding students with frequent positive post cards when they had a small victory. Instead of focusing on the grade, have them discuss what their parents will feel if they brought home a successful report card or how would theyfeel if they could make their parents proud. Positive feeling is a strong motivator.

First, students must believe they are capableof succeeding. Many students never realized that this was possible, but if the teacher takes baby steps, the teacher can sell "the idea of success" to them. Like Peter Pan, a teacher has to help students believe that success is possible and then give them the skills to succeed. The younger they experience success, the more likely it will continue.

#2 Confer With Each Child Individually

"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have." ― Margaret Mead

Students perform for other people that they care about. They care about people who care about them. As a result, if a teacher takes time to discover what difficulties a child might be facing and what needs the child has, that child is much more likely to perform.

For example, a young man, Randy, was sent by his parents to a parochial school to improve his academic performance, but Randy didn't want to be separated from his friends, so he created havoc at the school hoping to be returned to his friends at his former school. If his teacher had taken the time to talk to him and help him make the transition into a new peer group, the school and Randy could have had a successful experience.

Even if the teacher stands in the hall between class changes and interacts with students, a great deal of information can be gained. Simply speaking to each student cordially when passing in the hall can increase the likelihood that they will be more successful in the classroom. Students need to learn to set small goals and large goals to be successful in school and life. Having frequent individual conferences with student enables the teacher to direct the student in creating and adjusting goals while reassuring the student that an adult cares about his/her success. Remember some students have parents who do not have the time or the knowledge to have these types of interactions with their child.

#3 Establish Classroom Procedures

"Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing... layout, processes, and procedures." ― Tom Peters

Students with learning disabilities or are on the autistic spectrum are more successful when they know what to expect each day in a classroom. As a result it is a good idea to establish a set of procedures.

When students are confronted with changing classroom procedures, they often become apprehensive and even aggressive. If they know that each day, they will need a book, a notebook and a pen or pencil, they are more likely to bring them. If they know that each class begins with certain activity: silent reading, an interactive debate, or a problem to solve, they waste less time getting down to the business of education.

These procedures can be set to music, timed and my even involve movement. I know of one teacher who had "line leaders" pass out materials while dancing to rock music. I know another teacher who passed out treasure maps to students as they entered the room. Her students had to find the answers to a quiz by searching the room for clues. I know another who gave a daily quiz on the work from the previous day. Repetition of the same pattern is the key to success.
Final Thoughts
There are many methods that can be used to reconnect students to their education. Don't give up on them. The best method is to discuss with other teachers a tactic that they might be using that might work on that particular students. Each child is an individual, so there is no one method that works on all of them.

For example I had one student who wanted to drop out of high school and get a job. I brought the classified ads to class and sat while he looked at prices of apartments, cars and I made him aware of the price of food, utilities, gas and insurance. When he added it all together, he decided to complete his education and try to find a job that paid more than minimum wage. Years later, I encountered the young man who was married with children living in a nice home in the suburbs. He thanked me because that small exercise had helped him understand the importance of completing a trade school education and learning a trade that he enjoyed.

Motivating the unmotivated: it can happen.

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"The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it." ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Panhttp Many students have never experienced success and as a result they have no reason to believe that success is possible.

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Jensen, who's a neuroscientist and was a single mother of two boys who are now in their 20s, wrote The Teenage Brain to explore the science of how the brain grows - and why teenagers can be especially impulsive, moody and not very good at responsible decision-making.

"We have a natural insulation ... called myelin," she says. "It's a fat, and it takes time. Cells have to build myelin, and they grow it around the outside of these tracks, and that takes years."

This insulation process starts in the back of the brain and heads toward the front. Brains aren't fully mature until people are in their early 20s, possibly late 20s and maybe even beyond, Jensen says.

"The last place to be connected - to be fully myelinated - is the front of your brain," Jensen says. "And what's in the front? Your prefrontal cortex and your frontal cortex. These are areas where we have insight, empathy, these executive functions such as impulse control, risk-taking behavior."

This research also explains why teenagers can be especially susceptible to addictions - including drugs, alcohol, smoking and digital devices.

Interview Highlights
On why teenagers are more prone to addiction
Addiction is actually a form of learning. ... What happens in addiction is there's also repeated exposure, except it's to a substance and it's not in the part of the brain we use for learning - it's in the reward-seeking area of your brain. ... It's happening in the same way that learning stimulates and enhances a synapse. Substances do the same thing. They build a reward circuit around that substance to a much stronger, harder, longer addiction.

Just like learning a fact is more efficient, sadly, addiction is more efficient in the adolescent brain. That is an important fact for an adolescent to know about themselves - that they can get addicted faster.

It also is a way to debunk the myth, by the way, that, "Oh, teens are resilient, they'll be fine. He can just go off and drink or do this or that. They'll bounce back." Actually, it's quite the contrary. The effects of substances are more permanent on the teen brain. They have more deleterious effects and can be more toxic to the teen than the adult.
On the effects of binge drinking and marijuana on the teenage brain
Binge drinking can actually kill brain cells in the adolescent brain where it does not to the same extent in the adult brain. So for the same amount of alcohol, you can actually have brain damage - permanent brain damage - in an adolescent for the same blood alcohol level that may cause bad sedation in the adult, but not actual brain damage. ...

Because they have more plasticity, more substrate, a lot of these drugs of abuse are going to lock onto more targets in [adolescents'] brains than in an adult, for instance. We have natural cannabinoids, they're called, in the brain. We have kind of a natural substance that actually locks onto receptors on brain cells. It has, for the most part, a more dampening sedative effect. So when you actually ingest or smoke or get cannabis into your bloodstream, it does get into the brain and it goes to these same targets.

It turns out that these targets actually block the process of learning and memory so that you have an impairment of being able to lay down new memories. What's interesting is not only does the teen brain have more space for the cannabis to actually land, if you will, it actually stays there longer. It locks on longer than in the adult brain. ... For instance, if they were to get high over a weekend, the effects may be still there on Thursday and Friday later that week. An adult wouldn't have that same long-term effect.
On marijuana's effect on IQ
People who are chronic marijuana users between 13 and 17, people who [use daily or frequently] for a period of time, like a year plus, have shown to have decreased verbal IQ, and their functional MRIs look different when they're imaged during a task. There's been a permanent change in their brains as a result of this that they may not ever be able to recover.

It is a fascinating fact that I uncovered going through the literature around adolescence is our IQs are still malleable into the teen years. I know that I remember thinking and being brought up with, "Well, you have that IQ test that was done in grade school with some standardized process, and that's your number, you've got it for life - whatever that number is, that's who you are."

It turns out that's not true at all. During the teen years, approximately a third of the people stayed the same, a third actually increased their IQ, and a third decreased their IQ. We don't know a lot about exactly what makes your IQ go up and down - the study is still ongoing - but we do know some things that make your IQ go down, and that is chronic pot-smoking.
On teenagers' access to constant stimuli
We, as humans, are very novelty-seeking. We are built to seek novelty and want to acquire new stimuli. So, when you think about it, our social media is just a wealth of new stimuli that you can access at all times. The problem with the adolescent is that they may not have the insider judgment, because their frontal lobes aren't completely online yet, to know when to stop. To know when to say, "This is not a safe piece of information for me to look at. If I go and look at this atrocious violent video, it may stick with me for the rest of my life - this image - and this may not be a good thing to be carrying with me." They are unaware of when to gate themselves.
On not allowing teenagers to have their cellphones at night
It may or may not be enforceable. I think the point is that when they're trying to go to sleep - to have this incredibly alluring opportunity to network socially or be stimulated by a computer or a cellphone really disrupts sleep patterns. Again, it's also not great to have multiple channels of stimulation while you're trying to memorize for a test the next day, for instance.

So I think I would restate that and say, especially when they're trying to go to sleep, to really try to suggest that they don't go under the sheets and have their cellphone on and be tweeting people.

First of all, the artificial light can affect your brain; it decreases some chemicals in your brain that help promote sleep, such as melatonin, so we know that artificial light is not good for the brain. That's why I think there have been studies that show that reading books with a regular warm light doesn't disrupt sleep to the extent that using a Kindle does.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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Why Teens Are Impulsive, Addiction-Prone And Should Protect Their Brains

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Jensen, who's a neuroscientist and was a single mother of two boys who are now in their 20s, wrote The Teenage Brain to explore the science of how the brain grows - and why teenagers can be especially impulsive, moody and not very good at responsible decision-making. "We have a natural insulation ...

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Student Anxiet

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Every morning, Mia and Chris tape a red or a green piece of paper to their front door. It's a signal for their son's bus driver. Green, pick him up. Red, keep driving.

On this morning, at 6, it's not looking good.

Mia and Chris climb the stairs and gently try to wake Jared, their 16-year-old. They've brought him breakfast and his medication:

"You don't want to get up?" Mia asks Jared.

"No."

"How is your head?"

"It hurts."

"Just go for a little while? It's only a half day," Chris tries to coax his son.

"No."
'Being Chased By A Lion'
Everyone feels anxious once in awhile: dry mouth, sweaty palms, a pounding heart. In fact, anxiety is the most common mental health disorder. But for some kids out there, like Jared, anxiety is such a debilitating condition that they may not even make it to school.

Jared hasn't been in three weeks. The day before, Mia says, she pushed him so hard that he retreated into a fetal position. To protect their privacy, we aren't using the family's last name.

It wasn't always this way, Chris and Mia say. When Jared was younger he was a straight-A student, a perfectionist. Then at 13, he was hospitalized for a simple appendectomy.

"This fear of going back to school and having to make up all this work. He was really, really upset with himself," says Mia. "He kept having stomach cramps, which in hindsight was related to anxiety."

Mia and Chris admit they didn't see his anxiety for what it was.

They felt increasingly helpless. Their gentle, funny son was refusing to go to school. They tried everything: cajoling, carrying him to the bus stop, even calling the police.

Since then, Jared's been through a lot. He was diagnosed with severe anxiety and has been through therapy, hospitalizations and different medications.

"Anxiety feels no different if you're being chased by a lion or you have to go to school," says Erin Berman, a clinical psychologist with the National Institute of Mental Health.

Some grow out of it; others don't.

"They may look like they're not doing their homework, they're not paying attention," she says about these anxious children. But, "their mind is thinking about all the things that are scary."
Jared On His Anxiety
Jared has good days and bad days. He says, even on a good day, the hard part about anxiety is the choices he has to make, staring first thing in the morning.

"What am I going to eat? I might be cranky if I eat cereal, the wrong type of cereal. And if I eat the wrong type of cereal maybe I won't be able to taste the milk."

Jared says the constant noise in his head is unrelenting and exhausting.

"You think back, 'Oh, I shouldn't have eaten that cereal and now I'm cranky because of this. Why am I talking to people? I'm probably making them feel like I'm a bad person and I'm not a bad person.' "

But the worst part? Crawling under the blankets, he says, doesn't make that noise go away.

"At the end of the day when you think back to all those choices you didn't make and that you decided to stay home you realize, 'Oh, that wasn't the right choice either.' "
Jared's School
When Jared's parents do post that green piece of paper and he does make it to school, it's to a very special one. It's a program in Northern Virginia called Aspire, specifically geared to students with severe anxiety.

Sharita Marshall is a social worker in the program. Today, there's a new student enrolling and Marshall is showing him a secluded back entrance students can use that leads straight into the classroom.

"You can just knock right here on one of these windows like this," she taps a couple of times on the glass. "Then walk around and Ms. Bottle will let you in," she explains.

Ms. Bottle, Rose Bottle, runs Aspire. She says being able to come in the back of the school is just one way the school accommodates students with severe anxiety.

Students can also come into class after the bell so they don't bump into other students. Teachers are told not to make eye contact or to greet Aspire students in the hallways.

Inside this classroom, windows are covered with an opaque film so no one can peer in.

And the desks are partitioned so some students can't see the person beside them. "I have a couple kids who really prefer that separated space," says Bottle.

Most of the 17 students in this program have missed more than six months of school before coming here. They take online courses so they can work by themselves, at their own pace. And there are also several therapists and social workers who work with the students, like Sharita Marshall.

"During the day I keep my basketball hoop here," she motions over to a small basketball hoop. "Sometimes, with some of the boys it's a lot easier for them to talk with the basketball so they're able to, you know, not look at me," Marshall says.

She also uses a form of exposure therapy - it may start in the parking lot.

"Mom or dad may just sit with the kid in the car for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and then they leave. And they do that for a week. Or maybe two weeks," she explains.

From there, maybe they come into the front office for a few minutes, "then a conference room, then a classroom."

It's expensive though. The Fairfax district spends on average just under $14,000 for each of its students. The Aspire program? About twice that.

It's not a straight line to recovery, though, and that's something Jared's parents, Chris and Mia, know all too well.

This morning their other children are heading off to school.

"Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad."

But Jared is still in his room. Mia and Chris have taped a large red piece of paper outside their front door. The bus driver won't stop.

Tomorrow, maybe, things will be different.

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For Kids, Anxiety About School Can Feel Like 'Being Chased By A Lion'

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Every morning, Mia and Chris tape a red or a green piece of paper to their front door. It's a signal for their son's bus driver. Green, pick him up. Red, keep driving. On this morning, at 6, it's not looking good. Mia and Chris climb the stairs and gently try to wake Jared, their 16-year-old.

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Classroom accommodations for executive function challenges

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What types of accommodations can help students who struggle with executive function? Explore these classroom accommodations for executive function challenges. Download and print a list of supports.

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The dog days of summer are upon us; now is the time when all the other activities have run out. Whether you're a parent looking to entertain bored, overheated children, or a teacher already brainstorming ways to break down the four walls of your classroom in the fall, how about taking a virtual field trip? As edtech writer Audrey Watters argues, real-life field trips offer enriching experiences that virtual ones can't, but resources are not always available for in-person trips. Besides -- virtual trips can take you places that wouldn't be logistically possible in the real world. I've gathered a playlist of videos to inspire your own virtual adventures!

Video Playlist: Virtual Field Trips

Watch the first video below, or watch the whole playlist on YouTube.

1. Expeditions: Take Your Students To Places a School Bus Can't (01:35)
Google Expeditions was the talk of the ISTE conference this summer; soon, teachers will be able to get pilot kits that include a set of inexpensive Google Cardboard viewers and a tablet with an app that will send a synchronized virtual reality experience to every student in the classroom -- even without an internet connection. Learn more here.

2. Living(Room) Global: Morocco | Adventures in Learning (04:17)
A virtual field trip doesn't have to be totally digital. PBS Parents shows us how mixing tangible real-life experiences with a bit of online research can yield rich and wonderful adventures.

3. N.Y. Teacher Takes Students on a Virtual Trip to Learn Realities of Refugee Life (07:58)
Beyond fun and games, virtual field trips can also help young people build empathy for their counterparts around the world. At a high school in the Bronx, PBS NewsHour and LearningMatters cover a very unusual project that brings the experiences of Iraqi refugees closer to home.

4. Skype in the Classroom Takes Students on the Ultimate Field Trip (05:12)
Skype is an excellent tool for connecting kids to the world beyond the classroom; find free virtual exploration lessons created by a host of partners at the Skype in the Classroom website for educators.

5. Inspiring a New Generation of Adventurers (02:40)
Dave and Amy Freeman have been going on expeditions together for many years, and through their company Wilderness Classroom, they bring tens of thousands of students along with them, virtually. Their next trip starts September 23rd; sign up here!

6. Virtual Field Trip - Amazon Rainforest (09:14)
Virtual Field Trips produces a number of slideshows about different destinations. You can subscribe for a nominal fee to their website to access them all, or check out the four free slideshows they offer on their YouTube channel.

7. Create A Virtual Field Trip Video
Take it to the next level by filming your own virtual field trip next time you're in an interesting locale. Even better, have your students make their own virtual field trip videos of your hometown to share with kids in faraway places!

More Resources for Exploring Virtually

Virtual field trips can be as simple as taking an online 360-degree tour of a museum, or as complex as a fully immersive multimedia unit that teaches about the culture, history, and geography of a faraway place -- plus everything in between. The key is finding ways to spark curiosity and make learning come alive. There are so many organizations and websites providing this kind of content for free -- I've shared just a few collections below. Chime in with your favorites in the comments!

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5-Minute Film Festival: Virtual Field Trips

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The dog days of summer are upon us; now is the time when all the other activities have run out. Whether you're a parent looking to entertain bored, overheated children, or a teacher already brainstorming ways to break down the four walls of your classroom in the fall, how about taking a virtual field trip?

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Trauma

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"We are asking students to change a belief system without changing the situation around them."

The first time I heard a preschooler explaining a classmate's disruptive behavior, I was surprised at how adult her 4-year-old voice sounded.

Her classmate "doesn't know how to sit still and listen," she said to me, while I sat at the snack table with them. He couldn't learn because he couldn't follow directions, she explained, as if she had recently completed a behavioral assessment on him.

Months before either of these children would start kindergarten, they had formed judgments about who was smart and capable of learning and who was not. They had absorbed ideas on why some students wrote their names neatly and others broke crayons.

More From The Education Writers Association

This precocious little girl talked about her classmate matter-of-factly and without any malice in a classroom where the teachers were well-trained and supportive of a diverse student body that was racially and economically mixed.

What the little girl didn't know about her classmate was that his family life was chaotic, without consistent routines or caregivers. He had suffered some traumas at home, which showed in his behavior at school.

This young boy's ability to learn wasn't going to be transformed by a change in his mindset. He needed significant changes in his home life.

I was reminded of this conversation during a recent presentation by Tyrone C. Howard on how student culture affects learning. Howard, the associate dean for equity and inclusion at UCLA, provided a reality check to the heavy investment in skills such as grit that might help more students succeed.

"We are asking students to change a belief system without changing the situation around them," he said. It can be irresponsible and unfair to talk about grit without talking about structural challenges, he said, referring to the recent interest in interventions tied to the concepts of grit and perseverance.

So, what are those challenges? If a hypothetical classroom of 30 children was based on current demographics in the United States, this is how the students in that classroom would live: Seven would live in poverty; 11 would be non-white; six wouldn't speak English as a first language; six wouldn't be reared by their biological parents; one would be homeless; and six would be victims of abuse.

Howard said exposure to trauma has a profound impact on cognitive development and academic outcomes, and schools and teachers are woefully unprepared to contend with these realities. Children dealing with traumatic situations should not been seen as pathological, he argued. Instead, educators need to recognize the resilience they are showing already. The instruments and surveys that have been used to measure social-emotional skills such as persistence and grit have not taken into account these factors, Howard said.

He questioned the tools used to collect data that suggest poor students and students of color do not have as high a degree of grit as middle-class and white peers.

The transformative potential in growth mindsets and social-emotional skills such as grit may be more applicable to students whose basic needs are already met. When asking the question of why some children succeed in school and others don't, he said the educators and administrators tend to overestimate the power of the person and underestimate the power of the situation.

Howard also provided two ways of considering the distractions that may affect a student's success in school. Prompts typically used to gauge a student's persistence or grit include: "New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones," "I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one," and "Setbacks don't discourage me." Students are often asked to respond to using a four-point scale. But what about the prompts that are more concerned with daily struggles a student may face? "I always have bus fare to get to school." "Whenever I get sick, I am able to go to a doctor." "I have at least one teacher who cares about me." Howard argues for an academic climate that is as mindful of the prompts in the second category as much as those in the first.

Schools can do a better job of talking about the extent to which student trauma exists, teaching children coping mechanisms, and providing mental-health services. The conversation about growth mindsets has to happen in a social and cultural context, he said, because cultural, institutional, and historical forces have an effect on individuals.

I've wondered if the young boy whose preschool classmate dismissed him as unable to learn will encounter elementary-school teachers who will be able to convince him otherwise.

Related Video
This post appears courtesy of E ducation Writers Association .
Professors, engineers, and journalists look ahead to the next century in education.

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Why Understanding Student Trauma is More Important Than Teaching 'Grit'

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"We are asking students to change a belief system without changing the situation around them."

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Category - Free Printables Page 1 - We Are Teachers

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Find Free Printables resources on We Are Teachers - Page 1 of 17

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For Ross Roberts, it was a lack of resources that drove him from the classroom. For Danielle Painton, it was too much emphasis on testing. For Sergio Gonzalez, it was a nasty political environment.

Welcome to the U.S. teaching force, where the "I'm outta here" rate is an estimated 8 percent a year - twice that of high-performing countries like Finland or Singapore. And that 8 percent is a lot higher than other professions.

The teaching force is "a leaky bucket, losing hundreds of thousands of teachers each year - the majority of them before retirement age," says a recent report from the Learning Policy Institute.

Why are so many teachers leaving?

There are, of course, many reasons both personal and professional.

Let's start with money. While teachers don't get into the profession for the dough, money is a factor. Beginning teachers make about 20 percent less than college graduates in other fields.

But overall, teachers and researchers say, educators want a bigger voice in school policies and plans. Many feel left out of key discussions.

"Working conditions are even more important for keeping people in once they've made the choice to teach," says Linda Darling-Hammond, the president of the Learning Policy Institute.

Another key factor is preparation.

"Teachers who are well prepared leave at more than two times lower rates than teachers who are not fully prepared," Darling-Hammond says.

So what can we learn from teachers who've left? We asked four of them to give us their reasons:

Robert Lutjens 39, is a former middle school science teacher in Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston.

"It sounds a little bit dramatic, but part of it was I was not allowed to fail students," he says. "There was a phrase that kept going around that I heard from administrators: 'We need to make sure they succeed, we need to guarantee their success.' Which was code for: 'They need to pass.' "

Lutjens says he just couldn't support passing students if they weren't learning the material. In addition, he says, the paperwork that came with the job was ludicrous, burdensome and plentiful: "I felt that I had a lot of not very effective hoops to jump through."

What would have helped him stay?

"There's not a simple solution," he says. "I would like to see more of an emphasis on - rather than passing - to have an emphasis on actually learning. The culture of the campus would have had to have a vast overhaul."

Lutjens now works as a pastor at St. John's Lutheran Church in Wharton, Texas.

Danielle Painton, 34, is a former elementary school teacher from Pennsylvania.

When she landed a full-time teaching job right out of college, Painton counted herself lucky. But after a decade at a public elementary school near Lancaster, she called it quits.

Education has become test-and-data obsessed, she says: "The schools are being run a little bit more like on a business model of constantly collecting data and then (that's) driving all of our decisions."

It's a shift, she says, that eroded emphasis on the craft of teaching and seeing students as individuals.

"I can't see that kid who walks through my door - who didn't have breakfast or whose parents just got divorced - and think that his number on his latest test is the most important thing about that child on that day," she told us.

Painton remembers a fourth-grade girl who, in the middle of a weeklong bout of testing, put her head down on her desk.

"I said, 'Are you OK?' " Painton recalls. "And she said, 'Mrs. Painton, this just isn't fun anymore.' "

That stuck.

"It was haunting me," she says. "I just kept hearing: This isn't fun anymore, this isn't fun anymore. And these are kids."

Ross Roberts, 33, is a former high school special education teacher in eastern Tennessee.

"Get this," Roberts says. "I was teaching a reading class and I had no books to read!"

Roberts spent three years teaching special education in Jonesborough, Tenn., before he decided to leave and become a financial adviser.

"If things were different in education, honestly, I would still be there," he says from his office at Northwestern Mutual in Knoxville.

A combination of factors led to his departure, but one of the primary reasons, he says, was the frustration of not having essential resources. He says he regularly had to rely on the Internet for reading material. He eventually worked up some grant money and donations to get books for his class.

Roberts says it was stressful and annoying that teachers were often expected to pay for major supplies out of their own pockets - on a salary that doesn't allow much wiggle room.

"I didn't feel I had that capacity," he says, "and there's a bit of guilt that comes along with that."

Administration and leadership also make "a huge difference," Roberts notes. After he left, he says, a new director stepped into his former district who was focused on making sure that technology and materials got into classrooms.

"It really all boils down to the level of support that you get," he says. "To have that support coming from the top, it just makes your job easier."

Sergio Gonzalez, 29, is a former dual-language middle school teacher in Wisconsin.

Gonzalez taught in Madison's first dual-language program - meaning that he taught science and language arts in both Spanish and English to students in grades 6-8.

"It was draining but extremely rewarding," he remembers.

He'd always wanted to be a teacher. He hadn't even considered another career, he says, until Gov. Scott Walker proposed Act 10 in 2011, a controversial budget measure that was widely perceived as an attack on the power of teachers unions.

The act - and the massive demonstrations by teachers that followed - created a toxic political climate and left many educators feeling alienated.

"The environment for public education in Wisconsin was changing," Gonzalez says.

While most parents were supportive, he says, there was definitely pushback. He remembers that on the day he returned to school, one parent gave him the middle finger as she drove away.

"I knew that if I stuck around I was going to get bitter, and I was not going to be a good teacher," he says. "But I can't emphasize enough how, ever since I was a kid, my goal was to be a public school teacher. And that opportunity seemed to be taken away from me."
Mayra Linares contributed to this report.

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What Are The Main Reasons Teachers Call It Quits?

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For Ross Roberts, it was a lack of resources that drove him from the classroom. For Danielle Painton, it was too much emphasis on testing. For Sergio Gonzalez, it was a nasty political environment. Welcome to the U.S.