Trauma-informed Teaching Practice and Refugee Children: A Hopeful Reflection on Welcoming Our New Neighbours to Canadian Schools
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/bctj.v2i1.268Keywords:
Refugees, Syrian Refugees, Teaching English as an Additional Language, Literacy, Trauma-informed Teaching PracticeAbstract
Given the Canadian government’s focus on refugee resettlement in light of global crises, many schools are receiving increased enrolment of students who have experienced the trauma associated with living in, and fleeing from, regions experiencing armed conflict. As well as the effects of complex trauma, children from these backgrounds will likely have experienced disrupted schooling during the migration process (e.g. in refugee camps), and as a consequence lack literacy in their first language. The authors assert that given the numbers of such students entering Canadian classrooms, it is important that educators have at least some knowledge of trauma-informed teaching practice. Illustrated through the journal entries of a student teacher, the implementation of Blaustein & Kinniburgh’s (2010) ARC Framework is described, as applied in one Canadian high school, in a classroom of newly-arrived refugees from war-torn countries. The effect of trauma on key areas of attachment, self-regulation, and developmental competence are considered, alongside illustrations of classroom intervention strategies. While acknowledging the challenges inherent in trauma-informed teaching practice, the article encourages a move away from a deficit perspective on children from refugee backgrounds, toward one of hope, befitting the resiliency such children bring to their new country.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (see below) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
The BC TEAL Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.