Using Trauma Informed Teaching in a Math Classroom

Every student who walks into our classroom has a past. They have various experiences and family dynamics. It is our job to teach them, however, we cannot effectively do this without knowing the whole student. Sometimes, we hear from other teachers, “He is a bad kid", “Good luck with her", or "They are a handful". What is the reasoning behind the child’s actions? P Why is this student the way he/she is? Many students have a “regular” childhood; normal ups and downs of childhood. However, some students are not this lucky and are coming into our classroom with tragic pasts. We have students in our classroom who are victims of all forms of abuse (sexual, physical, mental), students who have been homeless or are currently homeless, students who have lost a parent, students with a parent incarcerated, and the list goes on. Students carry these burdens with them every day, and have a difficult time throughout the day focusing on learning. 

Using Trauma Informed Teaching Strategies in our classrooms allows us to meet the child where they are, support them as a whole person, and teach them the math content required. 

Here are the Six Principles of creating a trauma informed classroom:

1. Prioritize Students Feeling Safe

   • Classroom Routines - students feel safer when they know what to expect each day. Upcoming  transitions, the schedule, and  expectations should be consistent. 

   • Soft Starts - Using soft starts, like  journaling, allows students to start the school day feeling strong. Then, you can ease into the math concepts of the day. 

   • Avoid Shaming - Students need to feel confident in your classroom. Avoid calling students out or making a big deal out of mistakes. We want them to build confidence, not be scared to answer! 

     
     

Why? Students who have experienced trauma will overreact to stress or expected failure. Therefore, we want to minimize the possibility so they can focus on the math content.

2. Normalize Struggle & Build a Growth Mindset 

   • Teaching students that growth is important in all walks of life helps them be stronger.

   • Model making mistakes when doing group lessons. Point out the mistakes you've made, whether they were real mistakes or mistakes you made on purpose.  

   • When students make mistakes, say things like “Mistakes help us learn”, “That’s what erasers are for”, or “We all make mistakes, just try again”. 

   • All problems can be solved multiple ways. Teach students a variety of ways to solve their math problems so they have options. 

     
     

Why? When we reform the idea of struggle to a healthy part of learning, we can help our students rebuild their confidence in math, as well as other areas of life.

3. Embed Student Choice

   • Now that we have shown different strategies for solving problems, let students choose the ones they want to use. This allows them choice in showing their thinking and still proving they know (or don't know) the concept. 

   • One of my favorite student choice areas during our active engagement/ Math 360 time is: Students are given leveled questions. These will range from easy, but still matching the standard, to more challenging problems. Then they get to choose which they want to try. 

   • Reflection is also a healthy part of student choice and trauma informed teaching. Students need time to think and reflect on the work they did. Guiding questions and sentence stems are great ways to get them thinking, as well as teaching them how to reflect on their own.

     
     

Why? When students are given the power of choice, it gives them a sense of control which trauma often strips away.

4. Build Relationships

   • Greeting students as they come in and saying goodbye at the end of the day quickly strengthens your student-teacher relationship. All students want to be seen. This quick and easy routine makes students feel part of the class. 

   • Collaboration in math centers, small groups, and games allow students to build healthy peer relationships. Many times students of trauma have trust issues and making new friends is difficult. These group activities allow students to work with new people and start building trust.

   • Make sure to ask students how they feel, not just if they understand the concept. We want our students to know we care about them as a whole student, not just their test scores.

     
     

Why? Making connections to other people (teachers and classmates) is a buffer to the trauma they have faced. Students learn better when they feel safe and cared for. 

5. De-escalate Math Anxiety Proactively 

   • Calm down tools help students regulate their emotions. Trauma often makes students have outbursts and when they get frustrated or angry, it is difficult for them to calm down and rejoin. 

   • Introducing breathing techniques and grounding strategies will help students not only in the classroom but also in all areas of life. These are some of the simplest tools with the least amount of prep.

   • Quiet work zones are also super helpful for students who need the quiet space and prefer to work alone. Noise cancelling headphones can also help students drown out the noise so they can focus. 

   • Instead of using timed math tests to show fluency, use fluency games and one on one assessment. Multiplication facts are one of the biggest topics in math that have a timed test. For these, I tell students to try their best but I do not tell them the time limit. Instead I cut them off after the time limit, when most students are done and I just say we have to move on. 

     
     

Why? Math anxiety often mirrors trauma response. Students often truly have elevated heart rate, avoidance, and they freeze or shut down. We want to be proactive so students never reach this point.

6.  Classroom Environment  

   • Just as we said routines are very important, we must have clear and visible classroom expectations. This way, students can reference them at any time for a gentle reminder. 

   • Visuals and sentence stems help students feel confident when communicating. This can be written communication or verbal communication.

   • Try to reduce clutter and overstimulation around the classroom and with visuals. Creating full anchor charts may look cute, but if there is too much going on in it, students can struggle to use them effectively.

     
     

Why? Traumatized brains struggle with processing and focus, therefore, simplifying input helps student regulation. 

Making changes to the way you teach and your entire classroom is NOT something that is going to happen over night. However, it can happen over time in order to benefit all students. I suggest you start with one principle at a time and once you have a hand at it, then move onto the next.