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Hello fellow readers,
Jess has given permission for those of us that would like to to participate in a Google Meet once a week to discuss the book. A notetaker would be responsible for creating a post here on the padlet which contained the group's biggest takeaways from the week's reading and our names. I'm definitely a person that reflects about books better when talking than typing. If you'd like to form a group, please let me know if any of the proposed days/times works for you in the comments. Thank you! -Cindy

A. Tuesdays: 9-10
B. Wednesdays: 9-10
C. Tuesdays: 3-4
D. Wednesdays: 3-4
E. Other (offer suggestions)

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My first audio response on Padlet...working on it ;)..I'm enjoying this book!

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The first couple chapters have been interesting to follow along as the author learns more about childhood trauma. There is a big focus on how trauma affects the brain during early development, these negative traumatic events leave an imprint on the brain creating triggers that normally would not be something to cause stress or anxiety. The author notes that people who have experienced trauma need predictability and control to help them to feel safe in certain situations. This can be connected to how trauma is seen in a school environment, if we are able to provide predictable situations for our students we will likely see a decrease in unwanted behaviors.

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Question 1

First, I would like to say that I am really enjoying this book, which is quite a surprise.  I didn’t expect to like a book with such a heavy topic about children and trauma.  However, it is easy to read and his explanations of the case studies and the science are clear and understandable to this layperson.  As I read this book, I am immediately brought to specific students in my mind that I have had in the past. As I read and consider my past students, I cannot help but to critique myself and my interactions with them (and their families/guardians).  I have been reflecting on my ideas and actions as I read and considering what I need to do more of and less of.  I believe some of the students I have been thinking about I will service next year, so they have been my focus.  As I annotate my book (I got the book on Kindle), I am pulling out strategies and passages for specific students that I will incorporate into my teaching in the fall (on the kindle, it has been super easy to organize too) and will reflect on before school begins and throughout the year.

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I can relate to so much of the content I have read, thus far and see much deeper into myself, living as residual elements of my mother's experiences and memories of life with her mother and so on. Applying this reading to my students, I can better focus on what constructs are framing both of our responses and counter less productive actions with appropriate supports. Rising above all, I am seeing that building healthy relationships stimulate necessary neural connections and done so at specific biological stages, may be predictive of life altering outcomes. Purposeful choosing and shaping of interactions, must also include other professionals to network a well-balanced, resilient, permeating, positive toolbox of life strategies in our students. Reflection must also shape and reshape the ongoing relationships.

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Although it doesn't use the terms growth/fixed mindset, I feel like the author realized that how childhood trauma was viewed needed to be changed. He spoke of how children's experiences were not taken into account when looking at why a child was 'aggressive' or 'not attentive'. Kids would be OK, they're resilient. This fixed mindset would need to change drastically in order to begin helping children.

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The first few chapters of this book have definitely been very interesting. I think they touch upon triggers for anyone who has faced trauma in several ways. I think my biggest takeaway from reading this was that as teachers we do not always know the whole story or see the whole picture of what is going on or has gone on in a child's life outside of school. Although this something that I knew beforehand, I think it has been even more engrained in my brain after reading these first few chapters. Learning about Sandy especially made this statement true. In the book where it says, [f]or her these mundane and ordinary things had become evocative cues that kept her in a state of continual fear. This, of course, confused her foster parents and her teachers, who didn't know the details of what had happened to her and therefore often couldn't recognize what might be prompting her strange behavior" (p. 47). Without knowing her story, seeing how she was triggered by milk, silverware and doorbells could be really confusing, but after hearing her whole story it makes total sense. I think what this taught me was to remember that I may not know the whole story of each of my students and therefore if they are reacting strongly to certain things I need to keep that in mind and know that it might be related to a deeper underlying trauma that I know little or nothing about.

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The relationships we build with our students and their families could be a potential link to discovering as many triggers as we can when it comes to unexpecting behavior. There is almost always a "why" behind reactions to events. Stronger relationships could help us to ask questions of care givers about potential triggers and make more home/school connections in the lense of SEL work. It also made me consider my own triggers in student behavior. Why do I constantly have an internal reaction to the sound of a pencil hitting the floor? Is it too much to ask that students follow the no pencils in your hand request and then expect to be okay when six pencils hit the ground in the next 5 minutes? Well, in reflection, yes! It probably is too much to ask of those six children who need to fidget or move or squeeze a pencil! The work for this is on my side and I need to be more self-aware of what triggers me and how those triggers are not the fault of student misbehavior.

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I think the author is a great example of having a growth mindset as this book aims to show his journey of learning about children with trauma. I am happy that it focuses on how he, even as a trained psychiatrist, keeps learning more and more from the children he sees, and therefore continues to grow as a physician. I feel like that is what this book will be for me...allow me the space and time to grow in learning about the field of trauma. In this storytelling, the author talks about other professionals having a fixed mindset in saying that children are resilient and will overcome trauma, while not thinking about ways to help children if they may not be as resilient as once thought.

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Question#2

The first chapter of this book was a prime illustration of a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset. Throughout the chapter, the author struggles to decide which path and direction is the best to take in order to treat Tina. Part of him feels as though he should stick to the traditional methods he was taught and had practiced previously (i.e. evaluating her symptoms objective and based solely on the DSM III), demonstrating a more fixed mindset approach. However, another part of him, the part that eventually wins, feels as though he needs to take a more organic/unconventional approach, seeing Tina for more than her symptoms, which demonstrates a growth-mindset approach to the situation. The author's second supervisor, Dr. Dyrud reinforces the author's growth mindset approach to the situation. Specifically, when the author guiltily admits to Dr. Dyrud he may have stepped out of bounds by driving Tina and her family home, Dr. Dyrud surprises the author by stating "'Great! We should do a home visit with all of our patients'" (13). This demonstrates that it is vital to have supportive people surrounding you when you are trying to foster a growth mindset.

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I thought of a growth mindset when reading about the authors' experience treating Tina. He was completely overwhelmed and at a loss for how to help her. The first supervisor he spoke with encouraged him to label her with a diagnosis based on her behaviors. If he had a fixed mindset, he probably would have diagnosed her and maybe prescribed medication. This may have decreased some of her behaviors but would not have gotten to the true root of how her trauma impacted her life. Instead, he demonstrated a growth mindset. Even though he did not have all of the answers (yet!), he spoke with another supervisor who encouraged him to find out more about her life.  He also continued to do more research into trauma and how it affects the brain. He did not allow his mindset to hold him back from learning and growing as a psychologist. Even though the chapter with Tina left her still struggling with the effects of her trauma, I predict Dr. Perry's growth mindset will continue to help him throughout the book.

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This book was recommended to me during the foster care classes I was taking and I am so glad that it was recommended for PD too!  During the first few chapters the author describes various triggers. I think it is important to understand the child's behavior is happening for a reason. It is very easy in a large class to forget that a child's behavior is happening for a reason. Communication with parents/ caregivers and other teachers is something that can be very beneficial when working with children with trauma.

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After reading the first couple of chapters, it was clear that the author was able to better support and help his patients because he understood the importance of having a growth mindset. I think it is important as teachers, to have a growth mindset and to teach our students to have this mindset as well. In the case of Tina, it would have been easier for the author to accept the advice of his first supervisor, but he continued to seek input from others and challenge himself. If he had a fixed mindset he would have been content and not pushed himself to embrace the challenge and have that desire to learn. As a teacher, we need to continually develop a growth mindset. I am looking forward to reading more about about trauma, the brain and the importance of developing relationships.

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After reading the first two chapters and learning about how a child responds to triggers, it made me think about how important our relationships are with our students, specifically those that have experienced trauma. Predictability in the classroom through the use of routines, but also in how we respond to each students' behavior may directly impact how they communicate their response to us. The author notes that "the impact of trauma and the frequent misinterpretation of its symptoms, revealed itself in the fact that nearly every one of them had some kind of diagnosis related to attention and conduct problems" (pg.51).
The author also notes that "in classroom settings, disassociation and hyperarousal responses look remarkably like ADD, hyperactivity and ODD" (pg.51) due to the fact that it serves as a remnant of a response to a traumatic experience. As educators, I think it's important to get to know our students on a personal level in order to establish trust and form  strong relationships, if we are to truly help them learn and develop confidence in the classroom.

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Growth Mindset -
I think the idea of a growth mindset can be applied to this book if we think about how we can work with children who have suffered traumatic experiences. The children described so far have all had anxiety, attention issues, and behavioral problems, and someone might think that they would not be able to help someone who had so many issues at school. Luckily, the author saw positive gains in students who he worked with after providing a predictable environment and giving control to his patients. Even giving students more choice when possible could help them feel more in control of parts of their lives. The author talked about how most of these children came from homes where there was a lot of chaos and crises, and the families were just responding to things that happened to them. Giving some predictability and control to these children could help them to start to see life differently.

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I have really enjoyed reading this book and learning from Dr. Bruce Perry's stories and his way of integrating what he has learned about the brain and the impact of trauma through individual stories of children with whom he worked. There are so many things that have stood out to me while reading this book that will impact my teaching going forward. When particularly thinking about triggers, one of my key take aways is that we may not know a student's full story and understand what are triggers for the student and why they are triggers, but we can get curious about students' stories and support all students by creating patterned, repetitive, predictable, and safe environments for students, since "if the incoming information is initially unfamiliar, new, or strange, the brain instantly begins a stress response" (Perry 48). I think considering how to establish trusting relationships and predictable routines for students in whatever schooling model schools will follow in the fall will be critical to supporting all students, especially those who have experienced trauma and chronic stress.

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After reading chapters 1 and 2, I was able to put some pieces together for former students. I wish I had read this book a couple years ago. I have had two students who have had trauma in their lives and I can see how their behavior in the classroom showed me that.

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I think the idea of a growth mindset comes up so frequently in the book. (I admit, I finished it rather quickly...it was too good to stop reading). However, thinking back to the beginning of the book, I actually found the author, Dr. Bruce Perry, to exhibit a growth mindset. When he started off this life/career journey, he admits right away in the chapter about Tina that he really had no idea where to begin and what to do. He seemingly broke all kinds of "rules" including driving the family home. But, he didn't just throw in the towel and say "I can't do this, this job isn't for me". He asked for help, he failed and tried again, he researched, etc. Even though he doesn't explicitly say - I had a growth mindset so I did x,y, and z - it is very much implied throughout the text. If he did not have this growth mindset approach to his work, he likely wouldn't have been so successful.

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This book has been amazing to read. I literally have to peel myself away from it to answer questions my kids ask me!!
The author described really well how trauma changes the neurological structures themselves. When working with students, this really makes me think more about how we need to look beyond the surface behavior to the circumstances as much as we are able or at least be aware that there is more to the behavior than we can see. I picture an iceberg where we don't see a complete picture all the time but we know its there and we are cautious and watch what and how we say and respond to the behaviors we see. This will help with our relationship and help the child more than simply addressing the behavior we see!

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Question 1
I am really enjoying this book, and so glad I chose it. When reading about Tina's story, it made me think of how often children/adolescents are mis-diagnosed, and many are given an ADHD diagnosis when it is really trauma. It also made me think of myself, and how I sometimes don't agree with others feelings on why a child is acting the way they are, and think it is something more than what we see. I think we all need to try get get a full picture of the child, not just what we see on the surface.

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I really enjoyed reading this book! I really resonated with the way that the author spoke about triggers that children and adults have. In the past year, I had worked with and observed a child who had a significant reaction to hearing a specific phonetic sound in isolation. She would either get angry and start to scream or break down and cry. Not knowing much about her background, it was difficult to know if this was due to her disability or if there was a trauma that had occurred. As the year progressed, we felt strongly that there had been a traumatic event that the student had been through that was the source of her reactions, and learned some information that helped to confirm that. As I read the first two chapters, I thought of this student often (she has since left the school). It is a reminder that people around us all have different life experiences that they have been through, and it ultimately molds them into the person they are. We shouldn't rush to judge a student without understanding their history and the "why" of their behavior.

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The author demonstrates having a growth mindset in the stories that he tells based on real experiences. He is the expert in the field but there is always more tot learn and study. It is clear he believes in having a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset because he is constantly reflecting on his practices and how he can help to understand people and their behaviors and that it may seem like a behavior is occurring for no reason there is most like a reason even if it is triggered by a previous event.