Mindfulness and Students who have Experienced Trauma with Jennifer Knowles
In this episode we welcome back mindfulness coach Jennifer Knowles. We originally spoke with Jennifer in the fist season of this podcast about mindfulness in schools and she is back for a deeper dive as we discuss mindfulness specifically for students who have experienced trauma. With proper training and use mindfulness can be a truly powerful intervention for students.
Outline
Used properly mindfulness may help students who are experiencing discomfort or difficulty
Educators should also understand that working with youth who have experienced trauma also affects them
Mindfulness training is necessary before attempting with students
Links
David Treleaven author of Trauma Informed Mindfulness
Patricia Jennings author of Mindfulness for Teachers
Nadine Burke Harris TED Talk on trauma in children
Transcript
Scott Lee 0:03
Greetings, friends and colleagues. Welcome to the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast, a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. I am Scott Lee. I hope you're safe and well. In this episode, we welcome back Jennifer Knowles. We first spoke to Jennifer during the first season discussing mindfulness in schools. And today we go deeper, focusing on mindfulness in environments with students who have experienced trauma. Jennifer's the founding consultant at Mind Matters LLC, and she is also a row at representative for the Contentment Foundation. She has been a literacy coach, and an elementary teacher in Tennessee, Georgia and Zimbabwe. Our conversation was recorded live and outside to maintain safety. It was also raining,so you may hear raindrops occasionally in the background. We're here today with Jennifer Knowles. We're having a live conversation in person. Of course, we're doing it safely, we are outside. And what a beautiful day to be talking about mindfulness. We're outside on a screened in porch, with the rain in the background. So welcome back to the thoughtful teacher podcast. Jennifer,
Jennifer Knowles 1:29
thank you so much for having me again,
Scott Lee 1:32
it's been a couple of years. Since we talked last crazy, I know. And I know a couple of things have changed. So first off, tell us about some of the new things that you're doing.
Jennifer Knowles 1:44
Yeah, happy to do that. So I am still doing wellness programming, focusing on teachers, for the school district where I live. And we've built on that to start focusing more on lead teachers around this district and as well as leadership. And so it's been fun to start to build capacity of common language and common practices around well being and mindfulness in the same district where I've been working for this last several years. So that's one piece. The other is that I also now am proud to say that I work for a nonprofit organization called Contentment Foundation. They work internationally and nationally, they have a lovely learning platform that offers youth and adult centered well being curriculum. And like I said to schools, nationally, internationally, and I am a rollout representative for them, where I support schools and rolling out the curriculum.
Scott Lee 2:56
Okay, so they're just getting started with that project, then,
Jennifer Knowles 3:00
well, they've been around for a while, but the capacity in which they do this work has built and so yes, definitely a lot more momentum happening. They're a wonderful organization. They have wonderful resources, wonderful people, and I'm honored to be a part of it.
Scott Lee 3:17
Obviously, one of the big issues since the last time we talked COVID-19 was just hitting when that episode was released. When we recorded actually before COVID-19, we didn't know that that was coming. What are you hearing from teachers who've taught or us mindfulness? About changes or what they're finding helpful since COVID-19 started, or since the pandemic started?
Jennifer Knowles 3:44
Yes. So you know, it's funny, I hear a lot more from teachers about how mindfulness has helped them. More so than actually their classroom, students classroom culture, and how being able to manage emotions, practice self compassion, being able to recognize how hard the uncertainty was, and still is, and how the practices that were offered to them as well as our students have helped stay, keep them grounded in self compassion, grounded and self emotional checkins.
Scott Lee 4:29
So for those who might not have listened to the last episode, just tell us briefly what mindfulness is particularly in the school context and and what it does,
Jennifer Knowles 4:42
you know, for me, and my relationship to mindfulness. It's so multifaceted. That's one of the things that I love about mindfulness is that there's so many different ways that you can practice it structurally or in real time and ultimately, At its foundation, it's about practicing and learning how to pay attention to what's happening right here right now. And being able to learn how to do that, with non judgement, and self kindness and self compassion, being open to, and comfortable with discomfort, as well as being able to really lean into the joys of life.
Scott Lee 5:30
It's interesting that you mentioned discomfort. It reminds me of a conversation I was having a couple of weeks ago with somebody about the importance of discomfort in learning. Sometimes learning is not comfortable. And sometimes teachers have to discuss things or do things that may make students uncomfortable that that is part of what we do. Because I've been thinking about that a lot lately, when I was a new teacher, I learned that sometimes students have to be uncomfortable. But nobody ever taught me how to mitigate that, after it was done, mindfulness could be a very useful tool to put in the toolbox. Because sometimes learning can be uncomfortable. Would you agree with that
Jennifer Knowles 6:15
100%. And I think in the evolution of how I offer wellness and mindfulness, practices, resources, learning, I offer it Now with that being a big piece of my foundation in that we're learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, you know, part of mindfulness is about being present, like I said, and learning to be present with all of it. And so understanding that there is a wide range of things that happened in our experiences, and really just being able to remind everyone that being present isn't cupcakes and rainbows, and learning how to be with that and be kind towards ourselves and others, and training the mind to do that, when we're uncomfortable, you know, our mind, I love to talk about the brain, and introduce systems in the brain and introduce how our brain is actually set up and wired to keep us safe. And so a lot of our reactivity, a lot of our trying to get away from discomfort isn't necessarily something that's a personality thing, or something wrong with us. It's just what our brain does to keep us safe. And I think being able to understand that helps bring some more kindness to an openness to the practice, because it's not just what you're doing on a personal level, it's just a function of your body and mind. So our body and brain. And so I think that, when we are talking about discomfort, being able to understand that our brain just naturally gets away from that, and that if we can learn a skill set to lean in safely, and effectively into discomfort into emotions wrapped around discomfort, we are more able to be with it and possibly even let it go a little more easily. And excepted.
Scott Lee 8:19
I'm thinking about as we're talking, you know, you mentioned the importance of safety and being safe as something that I know from my own work with teachers, that oftentimes happens. On the other side, you mentioned being uncomfortable or times when kids may not feel safe. And we're talking more about emotional safety. You know, as you know, the you know, the brain development research is very clear. The brain reacts very similarly feels unsafe emotionally, just like it does, when it's unsafe physically, the physical reaction may be different, but what's going on in your brain is still you know, very much a situation of danger. The other part of discomfort and feeling unsafe for students is oftentimes as teachers, we don't intend for something that we do to necessarily be unsafe for a student. I ran into a problem like that just last week working with a group of teachers. Were a couple of teachers doing an activity that that I did not think would make them that uncomfortable, really created not a trauma but a feeling of discomfort. Would you also say that mindfulness practice in schools can help are in a classroom can help a teacher in that type of situation. You know, because there's a lot of times when we lose safety, that's unintended. And as a an educator, you're kind of surprised because you didn't expect that to happen, mindfulness would be helpful there as well, would it not?
Jennifer Knowles 10:05
It would. And I want to bring out a point that she made about your experience when working with teachers that you were surprised by the outcomes of a practice that you invited for them. I want to note that without any sort of trauma informed training, mindfulness on its own can sometimes trigger trauma, as opposed to actually helping soothe or heal from trauma. And so it's really important to have those mindfulness and trauma informed training or, or even trauma awareness, having those happen, side by side or in congruence with each other somehow. So that we can think about how we can leverage mindfulness, leverage the practice of it to reap the benefits over having a negative reaction or a triggering reaction to it. So I want to make that known that, you know, sometimes I've I've, even in my personal experience, I've had similar things happen where I am surprised by responses or reactions to my offerings, because people get very upset. And so I've had to learn in the evolution of my work, and what I offer to others, that choice is really important, acknowledging what safety can look like, even down to simple things like when I offer a mindful guided practice, I'll say, You're, you're welcome to close your eyes. Or if it feels safer to keep them open, just inviting to find a point of focus for your eyes. Something as simple as that. And inviting that choice can bring about that sense of safety. And, you know, I'm really intrigued by trauma informed mindfulness just based on my experience as an I want to be better for others. And what I offer. I've been reading a book by David treleaven, he talks about trauma informed mindfulness, the book is called trauma informed mindfulness. And what he talks about in there is that trauma is less about the event. And more about the impact physiologically, so giving another example to that, if I'm offering a breathing practice, and mindfulness to a group that I may not have really set up or become aware of the group I'm engaging in. And to be honest, at this point doesn't really matter to fully know because I think everyone has some level of trauma. So it might be safe to assume that trauma informed mindfulness is always a best practice. If I offer a breathing practice, and I invite stillness in the body, and I focus on the breath. And I'm not inviting choice there, I might need as the facilitator to be prepared that that's going to possibly trigger some people that I'm offering this to, because stillness, or breathing could be connected to an event that happened to someone, and then the physiological effects of that heartbeat, fast mind tight body, those things can happen and have the opposite effect.
Scott Lee 13:32
You I only want to mention this, because it's on my mind, because this happened to me. And it was not a mindfulness exercise that I was doing with this group, how the intent and how it worked out, you know, in my case, because I was about to show a video that was disturbing. And so I had a on your feet activity with this faculty to try and lead them into a heavy film, and the lead in turned out to be what triggered somebody. And so you I'm glad you mentioned the point about choice, because I did make a slight mistake in that usually, I do remind everybody before and on your feet activity about, you know, if you need to opt out, and I didn't do that because I was more worried about the next activity. And you know, it reminds me that as a teacher, you know, we sometimes forget how important every single choice we make is and that everybody around us is not always at the same place that we are and issues of trauma and loss and safety are different for everybody. And leads us into something that I wanted to discuss a little bit to adverse childhood experiences. You know, a lot of times every teacher has student who have experienced trauma? Now we know that that just has to be because of aces studies and things like that. And aces is just adverse childhood events. But I was thinking about that recently because Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who's now the Surgeon General for California, she's one of the pioneers in the ACES work and starting to use it in medical practice. She was trying to figure out, Okay, what do we do to help mitigate adverse events, adverse experiences that people have had traumatic experiences. And her comment was, I was skeptical at first. But after reading the literature, we instituted mindfulness practices as part of the treatment protocol for toxic stress. Now she's talking about in a clinical situation, but she also in an article in Edutopia recently was encouraging mindfulness practices in schools for the same reason. First off, she mentioned that she was skeptical of mindfulness practice. How do you deal with skeptical skepticism from people about using mindfulness?
Jennifer Knowles 16:16
So I definitely like to acknowledge when it doesn't happen often? Or if it does, people are usually quiet about it. We're still working around vulnerability as a leadership skill as a courage skill. And so have to assume based on questions or comments that that that might be feedback coming from a place of skepticism. And I always invite that we, we are always skeptical of things unfamiliar, right. So on the flip of the coin of that, you know, uncertainty brings about opportunity. So I also invite that. So normalizing that it's normal to feel unsure about something that you don't know about, especially something like mindfulness. In my experience, working with teachers working with adults, sometimes I think there is an assumption about being a certain type of person to be worthy of a practice, like mindfulness, that a calm person, or a collected person, is the worthy person. And I'm here to say, That's absolutely not true. We are all worthy of self love, and self care, emotional awareness, practicing presence, we're all worthy of it. And it's okay that it has to be something that we can learn explicitly. I think the idea of being skeptical is a very normal thing. And the way that I also manage that is that I think we've kind of touched on this already, but it's always an invitation. It's always a choice. And I often say, if I'm doing a session, for example, with teachers, I'll say, I'm about to lead a practice, you are always in choice, I will always give options, but I recognize that we all are coming from a different place. So I want to offer that autonomy. And if you choose to opt out, my only request is to observe and be a witness to what's happening, rather. So checking into the practice, from an observational standpoint, rather than checking out because you're not interested. Checking out might look like looking at your phone, while other people are practicing checking out might look like I'm going to start thinking about my to do list. And that is all normal. And just inviting, like an awareness of the choices that we make, and really taking that opportunity to practice embodiment of integrity, embodiment of being open, which we ask our youth to do a lot as well when we teach them. So that would be my response to that.
Scott Lee 18:55
So right now there's such an awareness, particularly following the pandemic, or as we're still in a pandemic, there's such an awareness of trauma, and how that's affecting students and learning. What is it that educators need to know about mindfulness? And how that works with students who've experienced trauma?
Jennifer Knowles 19:18
Well, I first want to acknowledge that kids with trauma when you work with them directly day in and day out. You sometimes as teachers as educators, get secondhand trauma. And so I want to acknowledge as I answer that question, that when, or if there's an interest to explore this more trauma and mindfulness, as a professional, and on a personal level, just to remember to be kind and gentle with your exploration kind and gentle with yourself at the core of everything when we learn something new special. If it feels uncomfortable, and certain, just remembering that it all feels better when we're consistently being kind and gentle with ourselves. So I want to say that, then a couple of things come to mind. One in particular that I've had experience with recently, that just is really important to me. And so I want to offer it up. And you kind of touched on intention, you know that your intention when working and, and giving that offering to teachers, was coming from a beautiful place. And so the invitation is just to think about intent versus impact. So our intention can come from a good place, or intention could be wholehearted and kind. And the impact might not be in connection with our intention. And so just thinking metacognitively ahead of time before inviting something, that you're really not sure the outcome, what the outcome will be, maybe exploring and visualizing and reflecting upon intent versus impact. And can you see outcomes that might arise and how you can prepare for those step points. The second thing that I want to offer up is being able to gently and safely and kindly learn how to recognize trauma, and to be able to respond to it. So what mindfulness practices can do for us on a personal level, is it helps build our resilience, our recognition, that when something challenging comes and faces in front of us, we don't always have to be reactionary, we can learn how to be responsive over reactionary. And when we do that, we're more flexible, we're able to pivot more constructively and effectively and safely. And so recognizing trauma and being responsive to it comes with experience comes with time, not just learning about it through a book, or a podcast, or a class. And so again, that fundamental layer of being kind to yourself, and recognizing that there are no mistakes, there's just lessons. And the last thing that I want to really touch on as a as an actionable thing that I feel really strongly about specially working with youth is creating opportunities for them to know that they are empowered to communicate what's going on for them on the inside. I think that comes with trust and time. But empowering feedback really helps us as teachers, as lead learners, alongside our youth that we teach. Without their empowered feedback. It's very challenging for us to know what does and does not work for the people in front of us. And that changes every year, right? You know, so again, flexibility is huge. But empowering feedback, or empowered feedback is so important. But that only comes if we create that culture of Hey, of choice of Hey, I, I want to hear you talk to me, having restorative circles, or just even circle time for share built around social emotional cons, concepts or topics, or just like a, let's do an emotional check in here's some emotion words, pick one, and then talk about it. Or you can pass again, that choice. So I think I just want to add in that empowered feedback is really important, and only happens if we invite it regularly, consistently and explicitly.
Scott Lee 23:39
You mentioned restorative practice, and which has also been been a big topic recently. And one of the things that I coach teachers on is that you need to have some level of training. Before you just start, you know, just because you do circles in your classroom does not necessarily mean you're doing restorative practice that you do need some training before you start implementing restorative interventions in the in a classroom or in a school. And I would assume that using mindfulness techniques would be the same. Am I correct that you should have some level some training before you implement mindfulness within your classroom and or school? Is that correct?
Jennifer Knowles 24:32
Yes. And I think that, you know, we can look at this from a generalized standpoint to, again, not making mindfulness seem so ethereal and different from any other things that you offer, people that you lead or teach in that training is always important. And so yes, I do feel like it's important to even embody mindfulness when you don't maybe know a lot about it. And the way to do that is to slow down and take stock, and have a stronger understanding a stronger practice of yourself. Because, you know, one of the things that I think maybe does make mindfulness as a skill to be learned or a way of life to be learned, or practice to be learned, or all three, that it's starts with you. So I can, I can learn how to teach a certain program in academics. And then I can turn around and give it back without embodying all the things that I need to teach. because fundamentally, it's already there something that we don't have a lot of experience with is a skill set for how to be with our emotions, a skill set, how to how to be present, training the mind to do those things. And it starts with you. And when you are the lead learner embodies the skills that mindfulness can offer. It is more organically and authentically received by those that you offer it to. And so a couple of places that I really like, you know, an enjoy, and have experienced myself, one being a book, mindfulness for teachers by Patricia Jennings, I find that still to be relevant to this day, she was published a while back, and it's still relevant to this day. And then mindful schools is a program, an organization that offers courses, and not just courses on fundamentals of mindfulness, or teaching mindfulness in classrooms, offers, communication courses, mindful communication courses, offers self compassion course. So lots of layers and choice in how you want to engage and be with mindfulness as a self practice, to then share with others, starts with you. All those offerings start with you,
Scott Lee 26:54
getting more professional development as you go along, and learning and building your own professional toolbox. Before just trying and implement something. Once again, thank you so much, Jennifer, I've enjoyed our time speaking together.
Jennifer Knowles 27:13
Course. And I want to say one more thing to you, teachers that are listening out there anyone who's listening, you don't have to just be a teacher, anyone who works with children, I think that, you know, I tell everyone, I work with that. And particularly teachers in this context that you are, in my opinion, the most important person in the room. I love and believe that youth are our future. And I enjoy teaching them and they are important. And I think that you as their leaders are more important. So you know, offering all of this to people out there because you deserve to be well. You are enough as you are and then elevating that is just all the more beautiful and consistently being kind to ourselves about all of it. So just want to offer that little wrap up for you
Scott Lee 28:01
The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we help schools and youth organizations implement high quality, holistic and equitable interventions, please visit our website at www.oncoursesolutions.net. We also encourage you to join us and support supporting Kay-Blada Recycling. Find out more about their work empowering the people of Haiti at www.kay-blada.com. This has been episode three of the 2021 fall season. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about it either in person or using social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on the podcast app you use. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is hosted and produced by R. Scott Lee who retains copyright. We encourage diverse opinions. However, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners or underwriters. Guests are never compensated for appearance, nor do guests pay to appear. Transcripts are available following podcast publication at our website, thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com Sponsorship opportunities or other inquiries may be made at the "Contact Us" page at our website thoughtfulteacherpodcast.com. Please follow the thoughtful teacher podcast on twitter @drrscottlee and on facebook at facebook.com-thoughtful-teacher-podcast
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