Education Essentials: Safety

Laying learning’s foundation

What do students need to succeed?

Conventional answers include materials, methodology, technology, which are useful.

But the absolute must-haves are safety, agency and integration.

They are of particular significance to the gifted, neurodivergent and twice-exceptional (2E) community because these are students likely to be harmed (innocently or intentionally) by conventional educational settings and expectations.

Lessons from trauma studies

I recently read Judith Herman’s seminal 1992 book Trauma and Recovery. Her work is brilliant and incisive — among other things, she described and named complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) — but what struck me was the breadth of its potential application.

Herman argues there are three stages to recovery (as summarized by Orbey, 2023)

“Before anything else, trauma survivors must salvage a basic sense of safety (step one). Only afterward can they mourn what they have lost (step two) and resume some version of ordinary life (step three).”

A crucial part of the second step is reclaiming subjectivity, in the De Beauvoirian sense: survivors gain agency by processing their trauma, which allows them to stop fleeing memory in abject terror and regain their ability to act on their own behalf.

In the third step, survivors’ restored agency facilitates healthy relationships and community connections that surmount their previous shame and isolation.

From trauma to teaching

Everyone deserves safety, agency and social integration.

Nevertheless, as Bachtel and Fell (2022) observe:

“Gifted children are outliers—their brains and bodies process information and the world around them differently… the educational policy and legislative landscape in many countries focus on standards that oppress outliers.”

Explicit strategies to create and foster these essentials are urgent for gifted and 2E young people because they are more likely to experience classrooms and conventional education methods as traumatic.

Why safety?

A three-year study of more than 340,000 students across 700 schools in New York City found an unequivocal relationship between safety and student success.

Other studies, such as Hardie, et al. (2022) emphasize the importance of psychological safety in learning; it facilitates “interpersonal risks” such as communication, asking questions and “seeking feedback without fear of judgment.”

Gifted and 2E students are at greater risk of feeling psychologically unsafe due to their exceptionality, neurodivergent traits, related social and communication challenges, etc. Both 2E and gifted students tend to be highly sensitive, magnifying the impact of thoughtlessness, much less unkindness.

Creating safety

We educators have many tools and opportunities to create safe (or at least safer) learning environment.

Reflecting on my own practice, the core strategies can be summarized in three words:

Attend

What’s the one thing all humans want all the time?

Attention.

To be a learner is to be vulnerable; it is a role that is defined as someone who knows less and has less power in the situation. This means that the simple act of showing up in a class is a threat to psychological safety.

As teachers, we have the chance, and the duty, to create safety by paying attention to our students as they are, not as we wish them to be.

This means noticing when they are happy, tired, fidgety, distracted, quiet, etc. and then addressing their concerns so they can feel safe and calm.

Last week, one of my students seemed disengaged and restless. So I stopped mid-Google Slide and asked what was wrong.

She spent the next 15 minutes spilling her stresses and frustrations about exam schedules, parental expectations and school issues.

I listened. We talked about some concrete steps she could take to address the main concerns, then returned to the lesson topic.

Some might say those 15 minutes were wasted, but I disagree.

Her mind wasn’t with me, anyway. If I’d plowed ahead with my prepared lesson and questions, she might have responded automatically, but she wouldn’t have engaged. And she would have still been brooding over the other problems, so nothing would have been learned or addressed.

Adapt

Attention makes it possible to adapt lessons and situations to student needs.

Adapting to students needs makes them feel seen, and sets them up for success by offering tasks and challenges that are suitable for their level and goals.

One of my most delightful students has a dual autism/ADHD diagnosis and struggled mightily in public school. When we met, it was apparent he isn’t a box ticker. He is super-smart and likes to learn, but gets bored with rote activities.

Fine.

I quietly sidelined (most of) the set curriculum, identified the mission-critical content and reshaped it into activities that align with his special interests. Et voila. Happy student, happy parents, effective learning.

Affirm

While there are many ways to create safety in an educational setting, teachers cannot magic away students’ problems and challenges.

There will always be worries about friends, family, home life, the future, whatever, before which we are as helpless as they. In those situations, though, we can affirm their feelings, concerns and experiences.

Affirmation says, “you’re seen, heard and valued.”

It all comes back to attention: kids who don’t get enough positive attention will do about anything to get any attention.

Attending and adapting are non-verbal affirmations that you matter, someone cares.

Verbal affirmations reinforce safety and cultivate trust. Just saying, “that sounds tough, I’m sorry you’re going through that,” can be enough to shift a student’s mood and allow them to focus.

And if it doesn’t, so what.

True education isn’t about facts, questions or scores; it’s about connection, communication and cooperation: skills that, once mastered, allow anyone to learn anything anytime they wish.