Parents Archives -

Lessons from Harriet

The Interrupter - Your Write to Education - November 11, 2019

What struck me right away in the movie Harriet – don’t worry this is not a spoiler alert – was what we know from recorded history and that is the distance between Dorchester, Maryland, and the Pennsylvania State Line – the distance between slavery and freedom – was a mere 100 miles. What seemed a long distance to Harriet, the expanse between slavery and freedom, today can be obtained in a 1.5 hour car ride. Others that had the opportunity to go, people that Harriet wanted to take, they chose what they knew, they chose to stay enslaved – same distance, but they wouldn’t go. What is the lie or limiting belief that causes someone to stay enslaved?

I remember my friend Nashon Walker of Transform Mandate and RISE Sports sharing with me about the red line that separated “the hood” from other communities and neighborhoods – a dividing line, the red line, that said DON’T GO PAST HERE. He said you knew where it was and if you crossed over it, you could be arrested. He shared that as a little boy he knew that leaving the sidewalk to cross the street, staying in the line or stepping over the line, could be the difference between slavery and freedom. Since then, Nashon has stepped over many a red line. In his lifetime, he will take 100’s of 1000’s of youth across the red line. In some cases, it may be figuratively or it may be across the red dividing line on a basketball court where he supports and highlights students in their pursuit of a collegiate scholarship. He has committed his life to taking other people to freedom.

I think of another friend, Hakeem Subair, Co-Founder of One Million Teachers, for him the distance between slavery and freedom is represented by a technology platform that allows teachers in Sub Saharan Africa to access education and training that before they may not have had access. This education and training giving them entry to a whole new world. The work of his hands, represented by a global interconnected network is currently recognized in over 12 African countries and he and his team are just getting started. He has committed his life to taking other people to freedom.

Lastly, I think of myself, much lighter skin than Harriet; Nashon, or Hakeem, for that matter, still representing the ability to, with the sound of my voice or the stroke of my pen, to shed a light on and expose the darkness and danger of unaddressed childhood trauma. The inability to share your story and have your pain recognized translates as unworthiness and disregard, all culminating into a life not truly lived, rather a false persona propped up by any means necessary. I have committed my life to taking other people to freedom.

Harriet’s determination, and faith in God modeled for us begs the question, how can we experience freedom, whatever that looks like for you and I, and then not have the courage to share it with someone else? In Brene’ Brown’s book Daring Greatly she says, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.” Harriet made herself vulnerable to a myriad of things, not the least was the risking of her life, to ensure she and others experienced freedom. Being something and feeling something are different. Do you think Harriet was not scared? Of course, she was, but more than scared she was determined. She said “I got a ‘made-up’ mind”. What about you? What about me? What is the limiting belief we have or need to overcome? What will we do about it? Who will we take with us?

Dr. Ivy Bonk

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FOR SELF-REFLECTION/JOURNAL WRITING/DISCUSSION

(NOTE: Teachers can modify and use for a cross-curricular social-emotional learning and writing activity.)

In your journal or notebook, consider the following statements or questions.

What does it mean?

Courage to me means (fill in the blank).

What does it look like?

What might courage look like….

when a friend or classmate is being bullied or made to feel less than?
when you are in a class or situation and there is something you don’t understand?
when you need to have a difficult or uncomfortable conversation with someone?
when everybody else wants to do something that you don’t want to do?
when you are faced with a new challenge?

How does exercising courage make me feel? (Share specific example.)

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Dr. Ivy Bonk is President (Educational Psychologist/Consultant) of Every Child Whole, LLC.  She is author of The Day Trauma Came to Class, architect of The Lost Child Theory.

THE INTERRUPTER | Your Write to Education | July 2018

Bringing Independence to the Classroom

As we celebrate July 4^th, Independence Day, a day typically filled with cookouts, fireworks, parades, and honor of past sacrifices made, my thoughts are drawn to the 1,000’s of classrooms filled with students seeking their own personal independence. Unfortunately, due to the interruption of trauma in childhood, they have become dependent on the maladaptive responses they have acquired in order to mitigate, compensate, cope and survive the impact of the adversity dealt them.

Dysregulated and on alert, they show up in classrooms attempting to navigate unseen barriers so that they can be present and in a position ready to learn. However, too often times, rather than ensure students are cognitively positioning and possess the regulated state optimal for receiving, our first response is to take an assessment to see if the student’s ability to present certain indicators align with our preset list of standards. Standards many times that serve to hold up a system in need of repair. We have to be cognizant of the contradiction experienced by our well-funded research and findings and our daily, in-classroom practice.

If you wince at all at the sound of trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive, I would caution you. I remember one of the participants in our pilot of The Day Trauma Came to Classasking “aren’t the things shared not things we should be doing with all students?”,to which I answered “yes, absolutely”, I have also been challenged with the idea of “this is not what I signed up for”, which for the child’s sake is concerning. To me, that would be like wanting to be a heart doctor as long as all your patients’ hearts worked fine, but saying “wait, hold up” once they start having heart attacks. The bottom line is this, we need to learn to care and love each other, our students, through and in spite of the bruises of adversity. To think that there are any of us who have not been exposed to some degree would be remiss.

So…within the context of the classroom and the instruction therein, what does the road to independence look like? And, to make sure we are clear and working from the same frame of reference, when I think of independence, I think of a comment made to Steve Harvey by Oprah Winfrey when he was touring her LA office. She said, “It’s the fact that you rose to the moment, to the highest part of yourself, that’s what I’m really proud of.” I have to believe, I choose to believe, that if you are called to education, to the nurturing and building up of children, this is what you think of independence as well. We want all of our students to rise to the highest part of themselves.

The Day Trauma Came to Class, available online July 6, will help to provide the blueprint for creating trauma-informed schools. Building the foundations, empathizing and understanding situations and contexts that enable us to navigate barriers erected from trauma’s impact, all for the purpose of engaging students in the best part of themselves.

If you want to learn more about customizing a blueprint for your trauma-informed school, email support@everychildwhole.com.

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Dr. Ivy Bonk is President (Educational Psychologist/Consultant) of IMAGINAL Education Group. She is author of The Day Trauma Came to Class, architect of The Lost Child Theory, and Bridge Builder and Collaborator at MyTraumaInformedSchool, IMAGINAL’s resource and training site.