Page 141 - Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century

I begin teaching this material through story sharing. I share how I have lost relatives and loved ones to the disease. I open space to recognise that all of us have been impacted.
I share my intention for why it is important we think about this challenging and tough material. In their writings, conversations, reflections and student evaluations, students often highlight this humane approach to tackling challenging teaching materials as a highlight of my teaching.
‘What happened to you?’: Trauma-informed teaching and learning
... it is 3 September 2020 and I am woken up by a distraught message from one of
the postgraduate students that I am supervising. He is asking me for advice on how
to proceed on a particular case of his friend, who is being severely abused by her boyfriend ... he says he needs my advice because his friend was raped by the boyfriend and he threatened to kill her. My student’s tension lies in that ‘she doesn’t want to report him’, because she says that it is her fault that this happened to her ... she had tried to break up with him, and he would not accept her decision, threatening to lock her into the car boot, and proceeding to force himself on her ... She continues to blame herself, feeling that she has pushed him ‘over the edge’ for he is never like this. My student is concerned and fears for her life. I respond with sympathy and share how tough this position he finds himself in is. He had shared that he knows the parents of his friend. I share that his ability to respond is determined by the closeness of their relationship. If they are very close, I advise he alert the parents that she is in danger, without disclosing any personal information without her consent, especially that she was raped ... I advise he convince her to go to the clinic for post-exposure prophylaxis as well as ‘the morning-after pill’ ... I share that it’s clear from the texts he’s shared from her that she’s been ‘seduced’ into the abuse, and hence she seems to have internalised that it is her fault that he is abusing her ... he shares with me that ‘I feel like she feels she is indebted to this guy because he does everything for her, even the job she has she got because of him’ ... he confides: ‘what’s worrying me is that what if [he] kills her and I knew about this all along’ ... he ultimately settles to ‘keep tabs on her on a daily basis’, concluding that ‘I guess that’s all I can do...”
It is widely recognised that universities are microcosms of our larger social contexts. It is not surprising that my student is facing the very same issues that plague the larger South African social context. I could not find one year where our students were not confronted with issues of tragic deaths, rape and physical assault of one of their peers.
It is out of this routine trauma that I have incorporated ‘trauma-informed care’ into my teaching and learning practices. Perry and Winfrey (2021b) ask that we shift from deficit narratives of ‘what is wrong’ with our students and to ask ‘what happened to you’ that makes students and the young people in our classes sometimes act ‘off’. The experiences of long-term traumatic events impact young people’s physical and emotional health and result in various conditions such as anxiety, depression, stroke, heart disease and diabetes, among others that affect their functioning and academics (Perry & Winfrey 2021b).
In order to be trauma-informed as educators, trauma experts task us to focus on relationships and connections with the young people. It is not surprising how many students in their evaluations comment on my ‘ethic of care’ that transcends the classroom. Perry argues, ‘love, and loving caregiving, is the foundation of our development’ (Perry & Winfrey 2021a: 75). He continues that, ‘The pervasive misunderstanding of trauma-related behaviour has a profound effect on our educational, mental health, and juvenile justice systems’
(Perry & Winfrey 2021a: 92). Importantly, Perry shares that trauma does not only arise from spectacular events, but that humiliation and shaming so prevalent in education produce trauma.
Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching and Learning 2021
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