Julie Williams

I think it's important that we look at our own biases as we enter learning communities. Grouping students into categories based on gender or other physical characteristics becomes problematic, at best. It takes a ton of self-awareness to consider each student individually - and after so many years of teaching - to see them as a new face with new ideas.

Reply to Marvin Smith's post: I think this post is about the opposite of what we're going for here. Grouping students by gender into categories isn't individualizing instruction.

I started the pandemic in China as I worked at an international school there. It is only by having established PLC's that the school where I worked was able to maintain and complete its practice. Staff and students were distributed around the globe, in multiple time zones, and we were all grappling. However, by having this group established, we were able to pull together and to address the needs of our students and families. I believe this is the possibility embedded in believing staff is a learning community, and not simply a group of poeple who share contract days. There… >>>

I believe the biggest factors to success in PLC's are the belief in collaboration and transparency in dialogue. It's also important to focus on what's working as we tend to look at what doesn't work very often in education. Further, making the work time feel like extra moments with colleagues is also highly valuable. The sense of having 'one more thing' to do weighs heavily in educational culture. This also supports trauma informed approaches to education as discussions of self-care can be woven into the fabric of meetings periodically as well. 

I'm still grappling with how this might work in my current context. Yet I guess I'm better to speculate my next professional situation. I hope to be in a position with a group of dreamers who still believe in educating students and enjoying the trade. My favorite PLC times have involved wildly innovative ideas and means of implementing them. These have generally created a venue for embracing student difference in approching projects and community events that allow all members to contribute. In the world of CTE, it seems open houses, public demonstrations, classes where students teach peers and community members,… >>>

I was involved in the ground floor of PLC's many years ago. It appears they have come a distance. Unfortunately, in my current setting, the need to control staff supercedes the desire to use our perspectives and qualifications. Hence, collaboration is a bit of a difficulty. 

I appreciate the discussion of the importance of building rapport with students. I don't think it matters if it's students with PTSD or TBI, but all students deserve to know us and to be appreciated by us. That is the foundation upon which learning communities are developed. It's not simply a matter of transmitting knowledge, but creating a positive learning experience.

I'm curious about the diagnosis of students at an early age with PTSD. In a different training I attended recently, it was discussed that the label may be premature for students and families to accept - let alone accommodate. If students are in retraumatizing enviornments, realizing they have limited options may be less valuable than assisting them in being resilient. I'm curious the process for the diagnostic.

I hadn't seen the compare/ contrast approach to PTSD and TBI. I'd seen them separately, and this made their differences more apparent. It also seemed to give a bit of an enroad to connection - particularly with the TBI affected. PTSD seems to need more support than most of us can provide in a public school setting. However, the potential for suicide seems to be the biggest consideration.

I've worked with students in residential treatment and other educational settings for numerous years. While PTSD is easily acquired, its resolution isn't simple. I remain frustrated by the tendency for some individuals who grapple with their trauma to be very comfortable with a victim identity. As I read the part of the discussion of family responses to traumatized members and PTSD, I immediately came to a place of reinforcement of a current situation with a former student whose family of origin sees the person as 'broken' and therefore the individual characterizes themself as 'crippled' - despite therapy, despite medication, despite… >>>