Students impacted by trauma may learn differently due to effects on cognitive performance and the brain that cause low executive functioning, poor self-regulation skills, and memory and visual-learning impairments, causing them to perform poorly in school [1,2,3,4]. The National Institute of Mental Health [5] defines a child’s trauma experience as “emotionally painful, shocking, stressful, and sometimes life-threatening”. When students experience such changes affecting the students’ ability, teachers may face teaching difficulties [6]. Additionally, trauma-impacted students may behave differently [5,6,7]. Thus, classroom management becomes an issue in that teachers need to be equipped with trauma-informed practices and social emotional learning (SEL) curricula [6,7,8,9]. When teachers misinterpret trauma symptoms as behavioral problems, their response to students is often harmful to the learning process [6, 10, 11]. Student behavioral problems and teachers’ assumptions have led to high teacher turnover rates and unproductive environments in which extremely stressed teachers work with highly stressed students [12,13,14].
Mental health conditions related to trauma among American children are a concern, particularly because of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to collective trauma [15, 16]. Collective trauma occurs when a traumatic event is experienced by an entire society, leaves lasting memories impacting future generations [17] and includes world health crises such as COVID-19. Although children can receive trauma treatment through therapy and medical care, they often do not due to a lack of parental awareness and opportunity [18]. Schools can become cornerstones for children’s wellbeing, as children spend much of their time in the school setting [19]. Through schools, mental health becomes much more accessible, and children are more likely to receive the help they need [19]. As educators become the first to reach these children, teachers are placed in the healing process's foreground [19]. However, if teachers are not equipped to understand these children’s trauma-inflicted behaviors, then these students may not get the help that they need and may suffer academically.
The research problem addressed in this study was the negative impact of trauma on student learning outcomes, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several articles emphasized the need for trauma informed practices and connections in the classroom with the increase of trauma among students, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic [6, 7, 20, 21]. A study exploring needs of students with past trauma in the classroom, acknowledges that this is becoming the daily undertaking of teachers and identifies required teacher efficacy in the areas of social emotional learning to support these at-risk students [22]. Research indicates that teachers need to engage students in social emotional learning by establishing safe environments and building relationships, which requires time and understanding of students as well as programs [22]. It has also been found that building relationships with students requires a relational perspective of interpersonal communication between teacher and student, rather than self-reflection by teachers, and that this perspective can be the focus of any teacher [23]. Yet, research shows that teachers who prioritize building relationships with their students and teaching them social emotional skills find the work challenging without the availability of trauma-informed trainings [20]. While there is some research addressing the need for bonding activities in the classroom that help build teacher student relationships during COVID-19 [20, 22, 23], they do not specifically address how to do these relationship building activities in online classrooms, such as the use of community circles and mindfulness. This study informs teachers about community circles and mindfulness to build teacher-student relationships and attempted to change teacher perceptions of the possibilities of their use to help alleviate trauma symptoms in the online classroom.
Underlying factors affecting the underperformance of trauma-impacted students
The factors related to and potential underlying causes for the underperformance of trauma-impacted students were framed in Bronfenbrenner’s [24] ecological systems theory (EST). EST posits that individuals interact within five environmental systems: the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem [25]. The five EST layers contain the core of a student’s environment, and this study focuses on the microsystem, exosystem, and chronosystem. In the microsystem, family and teachers influence children. Once children start school, teachers become an important part of the microsystem, as they work daily with children, generally at least five days per week. Among the many significant underlying causes in the microsystem, teachers can be a primary factor in the educational outcome of students who have encountered trauma [26,27,28]. Studies have consistently found a positive correlation between warm, supportive teachers and trauma-impacted students’ success [26, 29, 30]. Warm relationships, in which there is trust between teachers and students, are positively associated with school adaptation, while teacher–student relationships dominated by conflict are negatively associated with school adaptation [26].
Students may face circumstances entirely out of their control and unrelated to them. This environmental layer in a student’s life is the exosystem. Factors in this layer interact with microsystem factors, apart from the student, to impact the student’s development. For example, school policies and budgeting decisions can impact a teacher’s mindset, which can affect how a student is taught. Milkie and Warner [27] found that the lack of material resources is related to students’ mental health. When teachers feel that they do not have the resources to help students with greater needs, such teachers may give up and be less engaged in helping their students. On the other hand, opposite student outcomes were found for teachers who receive support in helping their students [27]. Teachers who have positive influences in their lives showed a relation to positive student outcomes in a qualitative phenomenological study in which teachers were trained in positive psychology strategies [31]. When teachers had supportive strategies, they reflected on being more calm and able to commit to more one-on-one time with students [31], which could help build teacher–student relationships. Teachers reported more positive outcomes for their students, as they were calmer in the classroom, more engaged, and completed more work [31]. This study showed that teacher training could positively influence teachers, and school administrations should consider professional development (PD) for teacher wellbeing, which may more often than not be overlooked and leave teachers feeling unsupported.
Life-impacting events such as natural disasters, divorce, or even traumatic human-made disaster experiences such as school shootings are considered chronosystem factors. Chronosystem factors change the environment in which a person lives as well as the behaviors or nature of a person, weaving themselves into the other layers of the person’s life [25]. This study's time frame is in 2020, under the impacts of COVID-19. The school in which the study was conducted was under school closure mandates and carrying out distance learning [32, 33]. The majority of the student population in the school live in poverty. These children are expected to be more disadvantaged due to school closures because they relied on the school for meals and their home environments may not have been conducive to learning at home [33]. The COVID-19 school closures and resultant distance-learning circumstances meant that the learning gap among low-income students might be enlarged. COVID-19 was a factor that changed the environment in which students lived, with guidelines for social distancing and health precautions. In addition to the learning disruption that this large societal circumstance may have presented, it also posed a sense of threat and danger, impacting the students socially and emotionally. These life-threatening feelings and thoughts can have lengthy impacts [34]. Children living through tragic societal situations should not be overlooked because the danger is real to them. If educators remained untrained on the after-effects of such large-scale impacts on the chronosystem, student learning is likely to suffer due to misunderstandings and the lack of appropriate support [34].
While all layers of EST define the student, the focus of this study was on the microsystem, exosystem, and chronosystem. These layers of EST were chosen to focus on because research indicated that teacher-student relationships were important in the student learning process, particularly for students who experienced trauma [20, 22, 27, 35, 36]. It was also obvious that there were traumatic impacts that can interfere with student learning during COVID-19 [5, 15]. It appeared to be important to address teacher perceptions about SEL and trauma among students under these circumstances. This study does not directly address the macrosystem and mesosystem because they are not within the scope of the study. However, as the layers of the EST framework are interrelated, the values and cultures within the school which fall in the macrosystem were affected as SEL tools ware implemented in the school and teacher perceptions about these tools evolved. Likewise, the factors in the mesosystem were impacted as well, however, it was outside the scope of this study.
Addressing Chronosystem-related trauma in the classroom
This study focused on teacher–student relationships in the microsystem and teacher perceptions in the exosystem to address the concerns of traumatic stress from the chronosystem. The study addresses the boundaries of online learning on teacher–student relationships and the traumatic impacts that can interfere with student learning during COVID-19. The objective is to improve student outcomes related to grades and behaviors by improving teacher perceptions and teacher–student relationships through teacher training.
Teacher professional development
Several researchers have studied teachers’ perceptions about trauma and their abilities to help trauma-impacted students, which involve educating teachers on the neuroscience of trauma [37,38,39]. Understanding the neurobiology of youth who have undergone trauma is essential for those individuals providing care and services to this vulnerable, at-risk population [40]. Teachers have more empathy for observed behaviors when they receive trauma awareness PD and understand the reasons behind student behaviors [39]. When teachers respond with empathy, they are more likely to positively react to and work through the situation, which causes students to feel that they are cared for and results in better relationships between teachers and students [39]. Providing teacher PD on trauma awareness and the outcomes of trauma effectively supports teacher–student relationships, which is evident in studies that pioneered trauma-informed school movements [38, 39]. As 18 teachers in Melbourne, Australia in government schools started to understand how students were affected by trauma, they were motivated to adjust to student needs and shift their teaching methods [37]. This finding facilitated a greater understanding between teachers and students, and students felt more secure learning from their teachers as the students felt understood [37].
Relationship between mindfulness and trauma in the classroom
The relationship between mindfulness and trauma has become central for many studies because “mindfulness is a protective factor against the development of trauma-related psychopathology” [41]. This finding means that students who may face adverse experiences that can cause emotional wounds or trauma can be protected if they practice mindfulness. As the qualities of mindfulness practice are related to children’s “increased awareness and acceptance of their responses to threatening stimuli after exposure to trauma,” it may decrease the degree of PTSD symptoms when a person is subjected to trauma [41], therefore mindfulness may be an effective source of trauma prevention in schools.
Recently, researchers considered whether mindfulness could reduce psychological trauma among children and adolescents after a hurricane [41]. The results indicated a negative relationship between students who used mindfulness strategies and trauma symptoms that were externalized and internalized [41]. Perceived life threats and internalizing symptoms were also lower among students who indicated more mindfulness attributes [41]. The results of this study contribute to the value of mindfulness in helping students exposed to trauma. The effectiveness of teaching mindfulness to students can also be seen in student academic performance [42]. Eight teachers from the United States and Australia teaching mindfulness in their classrooms indicated that they thought when students were taught mindfulness it not only improved academic outcomes, but simultaneously boosted overall wellness [42]. Mindfulness can help to regulate and reduce anxiety, creating the foundation for students to have better relationships. It is a practical way for youth to self-regulate and build resiliency.
Community circles help to reduce trauma in the classroom
Building safe connections to help with mindfulness endeavors may be easier if community circles are incorporated to ensure a safe place for students to share their thoughts and experiences while building character and strong student–teacher relationships [43, 44]. Classroom community circles constitute a practice of sitting in a circle with the classroom community while a teacher facilitates safe and engaging conversations [43]. The practice is expected to improve communication and understanding among classroom members, thus enhancing relationships. Silverman and Mee [45] found that community circles in a middle school classroom helped to reduce conflict and led students to feel that they were in a safe environment. A safe environment is a key part of helping students with trauma to reduce their hypervigilance and improve their ability to focus on relevant tasks. Similar results were found in a semirandom controlled trial, in which children in the experimental condition felt safer in the classroom than did children in the control condition, which is important for traumatized children [44]. Elementary school children can relate better to each other, which helps with communication [44]. A study that examined the use of community circles in high schools found that the interaction creates opportunities for teachers and students to become acquainted with each other and gain a sense of community [46]. The study also found that teachers built more positive connections with students from different backgrounds and groups when the teachers used community circles [46]. Therefore, the use of community circles is promising for building teacher–student relationships and providing a safe environment in which students can express themselves. A school community circle is defined by a safe place to have discussions where all students and teachers can see each other’s faces and students can build their community with mutually agreed upon rules and expectations [43, 44]. Therefore, even though not in person, it is quite feasible to conduct a community circle online as all members in an online classroom can see each other’s faces and the teacher can have set expectations, such as to keep cameras on.