What is Trauma? (Level 1)
Back to: The Trauma-Informed Music Classroom, Part 1
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
What do we mean by “trauma?”
Recent estimates show that around 35 million children in the United States are currently living with childhood trauma. And, amazingly, 70% of adults living in the United States have experienced some kind of trauma, either in childhood or adulthood. That’s around 223.4 million people.
But what IS trauma? What CAUSES trauma?
In general, trauma is a psychological or emotional response to an event or an experience that is deeply distressing or disturbing.
What is important to remember is that anything can be traumatic. What is deeply distressing or disturbing for one person can be quite benign for another. What often makes the difference is how many traumas we have recently gone through, what stressors are currently happening on top of the trauma, and even if we’ve gotten enough sleep or enough to eat.
Trauma-informed teaching invites us to be curious. It invites us to change the question from “what is wrong with you?” to “what happened to you?” And for us, and our students, this can change everything.
Watch the video below for a great explanation of trauma by Dr. Tori Olds.
Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.