The Science of Trauma

In an instant, a traumatic event can alter the chemistry of the human brain. The response to stress releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is known as the stress hormone and it triggers our brain into the "fight or flight" mode. This chemical has literally kept our species alive as our ancestors needed it to know how to respond in a life-threatening situation. As environmental factors threatened our survival, we adapted and learned from the chemical responses of our brains. We learned how to avoid the event, and we lived on and passed that information to our offspring.

A lot of science has emerged in the past few years that tells us (especially educators) how responses to trauma at a young age can impair a person's cognitive functions. Today, our students are not met with the same traumas that our ancestors faced. We are not fighting off a cave bear for survival. Instead, young people today face different, and more prolonged traumas that consistently increase the level of cortisol in their bodies. High levels of cortisol can lead to irritability, emotional instability, or depression. If those symptoms seem familiar to you, you're starting to make the connection. 

This week I pointed out the connection that many of our recent student suspensions have to the traumatic death of a former student. The sometimes violent reactions that these students display can be traced to their own inability to cope with questions that they do not have answers to and feelings about the event that they do not understand. Those emotions around the traumatic event are magnified in their homes and in their neighborhoods by others who are experiencing the same feelings. That environment keeps the levels of cortisol elevated and perpetuates the problem. This is the biological reason that we are seeing the actions that have been happening over the past couple of weeks. 

So what do you do to fight a normal biological response? The answer lies not just in biology, but also in sociology. Biologically, our bodies want to heal and will attempt to sleep. Other times, we can't stay still and need to release energy. (Do either of these sound familiar?) Our bodies can also regulate cortisol with other hormones like endorphins and oxytocin that make us feel better. Endorphins can come from laughing and oxytocin comes from feeling loved or belonging. These hormones make us feel safe again and happy.

If you've stuck with me through the science of the last four paragraphs, then I'll give you the moral of the story. To fix kids who have been exposed to repeated trauma, you have to love them. And when they do bad things that isn't always easy. We want to be upset as well because we are responding to stress. But darkness doesn't put an end to darkness, light does that. And loving a student doesn't mean avoiding consequences or lowering expectations, it means loving them hard enough to hold them to it and expecting more from them because you do. All kids in our environment are impacted in different ways, and right now, the best weapon that we have at our disposal is to love them. We all deserve it.