10:15 – 11:30 AM | Virtual
Abstract: Supported by a Hedrick Program Grant for Teaching Innovation, this project aims to use interdisciplinary pedagogical methods to create a model for engaging with students who have experienced trauma. Recent research reveals that at least two-thirds of students on college campuses have experienced trauma (Read et al. 2011), and it is reported that in West Virginia, 55.9% of adults have faced at least one adverse childhood experience during their lives (ACEs Coalition of WV 2018).
The project draws on the power of texts to serve as vehicles of catharsis for people who have experienced trauma. The methodology thus relies on critical and reflexive discussion of a central text as a means by which trauma experiencers can productively process their experiences in a safe and constructive environment. Specifically, we and our collaborators integrated texts from culturally, linguistically, and temporally distant settings with reflexive writing and discussion about these texts and personal experiences to support the goals of trauma-informed pedagogy, which include creating “supportive learning spaces that breed healthy collaboration between both students and professor and a critical and self-reflective analysis of larger structures that impact us at the institutional level down to the individual level” (Whynacht et al. 2018:151), creating new meaning for students’ trauma events (Steele & Raider 2001), and fostering empowerment among students (Steele and Machiodi 2012:19). This project is thus designed to develop teaching strategies whereby students can productively process their traumatic experiences through pedagogical methods that do not address their trauma directly. Moreover, this project aims to provide techniques for students to work through traumatic experiences in educational settings that are distinct from contexts of psychological intervention, especially given that the classroom could be the most stable space in a trauma-affected student’s world (Perry 2006).
This panel will address the results of implementing this methodology in three learning contexts: 1) a training program in which veteran discussion leaders were taught methods for leading discussions of humanities texts among other veterans, 2) public discussion groups in which veteran discussion leaders led reading discussions with groups of veterans from the community, and 3) four courses in criminal justice, humanities, and history, respectively, in which both veteran discussion leaders and project instructors implemented trauma-based discussions and assignments. The panel will include discussions from the instructors of these courses, in which they will share specific trauma-based pedagogies used in their courses. We will also hear from students and veterans about their experiences in the courses and the discussion groups. Lastly, the panel leaders will present the results of survey data measuring project outcomes. The project has revealed that discussion among peers about texts distant in time and place from readers’ own experiences, coupled with reflexive writing exercises such as journaling, are fruitful methods for helping learners cope with trauma experiences.
Facilitators: Robin Riner (Associate Professor, Sociology & Anthropology); Christina Franzen (Associate Professor, Classics)
Session Format: Virtual