Teaching the Traumatised

Everybody has felt how a headache affects the ability to think straight. Perhaps you have even felt how much energy and mental effort a bad injury or long term illness demand of you. If you have had the unpleasant experience of being bullied you know it will be on your mind months and years. If you had a death in the family, sudden or otherwise, you may have experienced how this can consume your waking and sleeping hours. I think most can relate to these different events as different levels of life's unpleasant surprises that are acknowledged to impact on our ability to get though the day and not least – to learn.  

                                                                                              
Image: demotivationalposters

But what if you are a student and you grew up with an alcoholic parent? What if the your partner beats and threatens you regularly? What if you are a survivor of rape or systematic abuse? What if the thought of suicide is crossing your mind regularly?

If we are not accepting that these kinds of trauma are sure to affect the long term ability to learn, we are ignoring what may be the single most important reason why some students cannot function (Chen et al. 2006, Knox 2010, Basch 2011a, Basch 2011b, Coohey et al. 2011, Karande and Kuril 2011, Krishnakumar et al. 2011, Makrill and Hesse 2011, Afifi et al. 2012, Snyder et al. 2013, Swanston et al. 2013)! Failing to respond when being exposed to individuals caught in such abuse would not only be to fail as teachers, but also as human beings.

In January 2013 I participated in the international conference “Higher Education – Higher Level Learning?” in Tallinn with national and internationally renowned experts in educational development. There was not one word on the importance of social issues in affecting learning outcomes. So, not being an expert, I raised the question myself – several times. In all forums, it was considered important – and that it should be addressed. 

At least I was confirmed that my wonder was justified. But the silence on the matter was deafening.  

Image: Arizona Department of Public Safety

In other institutions, like the military, a stable person is recognized as being of importance for the success of the mission, unit, and the function of the organ as a whole. I was once told that the elite forces in Denmark, and elsewhere, are expected to “clean up” at home before going on a mission. This means that you go home and solve your private problems: settle arguments, say your goodbyes, get issues out in the open, discussed, and closed. A person on a military mission with issues at home is considered unable to function optimally and may be a serious liability to the whole group.

Young persons entering the military and academia are about the same age – but it is not my impression the young adults are helped in academia to address these imperative skills for success.

I currently teach veterinary students in Estonia. So, if I look at my classroom of 100 apparently normal students as a statistical representation of Estonia the group would roughly contain the following:

- around 17 of the females would have been physically attacked by the person they have chosen as partner within the last year (Laanpere et al. 2012). The numbers for males being attacked are unavailable, but likely similar.

- around 4 of the females would have been exposed to sexual violence (rape or attempt of rape) within the last year (Laanpere et al. 2012). The numbers for males are unavailable.

- as the European country with most alcohol-related deaths, many of the students would either have experience with alcoholism themselves or in their network (EUROSTAT, 2013).

- One would have HIV/AIDS (Laisaar et al. 2012)

- With the second highest age adjusted suicide rate in Europe, at least one is likely to have considered suicide or know a person in their network that did commit suicide (Schneider et al. 2009, EUROSTAT 2013). 

- Currently ranking third place in homicides in Europe, there is also a chance of a person having lost somebody to violence (EUROSTAT, 2013).

Or in other words, several of my students are likely to carry some kind of severe trauma that no human should have to endure. Should I as a teacher be aware of that when evaluating my student’s performance or just chase the thought out of my head as somebody else's problem?

Image: triplehelixblog.com

The problems is, that if it is somebody else’s problem in Estonia, finding that person who will actually do something is very hard; at least to my personal intensive experience on the subject. And those persons I have been in contact with have a very high acceptance towards violence (“that is just how it is”), and a much looser view on upholding the country’s laws that I used to think were instated to protect people from harm.  

There is a strong rhetoric from many governments that we need to educate skilled young people with our educational system. My point is: is that possible without addressing the crushing social issues openly and actively in an effort to reshape the culture from its current status of silently accepting abuse? How fragile is your country if you build it on ignoring broken people and only pay lip service to your laws?

I am sick and saddened to my core every time I hear about a child witnessing their parent beat or kill the other, or themselves getting beaten or tortured! I hear some teachers and social service workers almost casually play it down to a “the child also have problems at home and have good days and bad days in school”. It has appeared to be impossible to make psychiatrists, psychotherapists or social services even blink when repeatedly asking if they have considered domestic violence in such a case (I have personal experience of this).   

I was presented with an interesting viewpoint when writing this article. Perhaps education is also a welcome escape to persons who carry a trauma! Schools and university may be a place where they get a feeling of worth to counter a feeling of less-worth that may be imposed by abusive peers or self-inflicted. Or, education may be a physical escape option in life from a secret treadmill of violence. These points may very likely be the case for some individuals. On the flip-side, then are very tough educations, like the veterinary education I am involved with. The pressure of high expectations could amount to an enormous personal stress from both personal and educational life.

TED: Pearl Arredondo: My story, from gangland daughter to star teacher

Improving on the situation will take decades, perhaps generations – certainly longer if we do not address this problem openly.

I can accept that there are finite resources to address the many problems of a country and specifically education. What I personally cannot accept is the silence that allows the problems to continue generation after generation and impair personal development and the society as a whole.

TED: Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley

Various traumatic experiences are a natural part of life whether inflicted or naturally occurring. Being silent about the life-long trauma students may experience, such as violence, is also stigmatizing them – even if they are far from alone with their problems. In such an environment, the survivors have to endure two types of attackers: the actual person attacking them and those who cover for the attacker with the silence. In my personal experience, the latter is the one that I find the hardest to accept.

If you are a teacher I urge you to be brave enough to talk about the importance of a stable and violence-free social environment as a perquisite for successful learning. I hope this can be done without falling into the rhetoric’s of only accepting conservative family concepts (a good background can be many things) or accept labeling people as non-fitting as self-explanatory for learning difficulties - which may cause more damage than good if placing these above the need of the persons in question.

Good luck working on your morals and your courage!

More food for thoughts:

Estonian Ombudsman for Children

    

WAVE Country report 2012, REALITY CHECK ON DATA COLLECTION AND EUROPEAN SERVICES FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE, A Right for Protection and Support?

Industry Interest in Science or Science Interest in Industry?

Birute Miskiniene from the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Research spoke to me and a group of university heads and education coordinators of the Baltic States yesterday (BOVA University). We were there to comment on the future strategy of collaboration of higher education between the Baltic States.
Miskiniene spoke about the future and the policy of education in Lithuania. She highlighted in bold and repeated over and over again was that universities and scientists had to be find a connection to the industry in every way (teaching, research, Ph.D.-students...)! The retorics was no longer a polite encouragement, but for once a specific political finger on the sore spot.

We see that everywhere now - it is being forced down on the education. But when listening to this (there was no oppotunity of asking questions) the feeling of dispair turned to optimism when I turned things on their head. I will explain.

The case in a nutshell:
Politicians and industry point of view.
They want bangs for their bucks! They thus think the best strategy is to combine academic work with industry in a total makeover of the academic world. The responsebility is put on the academic world as an obligation to feed the industry with useful products and tailored students for positions in the industry. I would say the logic makes sense practically a long way, if the academic world only produced engineers (and engineers are very useful people I think).

Academics point of view
Academics want to do science! Science is not product engineering! It is discovery! It is partly intuitive and spring from the freedom of pursuing ideas and understanding in depth! Bold risky ideas - test - fail/succeed. At best, science is a discipline guided by moral and ethics - and this often does not harmonize with dancing to the pipe of industry. The forced model makes it more difficult to pursue basic understanding of say the intestinal system of an animal, because they can only get money for drug design and testing by collaboration with the industry. The intellectual property rights is another tragedy of this shotgun marriage that further paralyze important information from benefiting people on a wider scale.   

But why is it scientists and the university has to chase industrial collaborators and funds? Why not the other way around?

The more I thought about this the crazier this seemed. I will here boldly claim that:

It is the industry and politicians lack of imagination and will to seek opportunities that stops them from taking advantage of basic research already being done - and there for the taking!

What am I talking about? Example:
Let us say I make a basic study of the most basic form of epidemiology: estimating how common a virus is in a population. Let us say I find it in 20% of the population where it cause illness in a modest 0.2% of the population. Especially children and immunocompromised people would be in danger. What could industry and politicians do with that knowledge if the really wished to make use of it?

• Diagnostic Laboratories - development of accurate methods to detect the disease and sell the diagnostics
• Doctors - Possibility to detect disease, avoid some deaths and reduce the days people have to be sick
• Population - More people diagnosed, treated, surviving, and prevented from infections = more working people.
• Politics - Showing awareness to health of the population. Meeting future international demands before they arrive (lowering costs for fast implementation).
• Food industry - If the food is transmitted by food, and they connect to voluntary control programs, or see the need to begin them (with government perhaps) to be able to safely export products that can transmit the disease. 
• Medical industry - higher sale of products for treatment of disease. New markets.
• Tourism - Documentation of a disease decline or raise is important to what people will eat or trust in the country. Avoiding getting a bad reputation for being a disease hub on the map by being proactive and giving accurate advice.
• Journalism - Misinterpretation of scientific information and misguiding the public (sorry, I really think these people do a lot of harm) - or perhaps in the future it may be possible: to educate the public soberly about relevant preventive measures.
• Insurance companies - Who are in the risk group? Does it influence work performance, death, personal risks?
• Schools and nurseries - how to prevent spread and detect symptoms before an outbreak.  
• Lawyers - well they are basically everywhere from rights, safety regulations, politics regulations, contracts etc.
• and so on...

Any of these examples of groups that could and would benefit from just looking into what universities are actually doing already in the name of science only requires a phone call from the group to the scientist saying: "Hey, we can use what you wrote in your article what would it cost to explore/present/write on aspect X?"
 
In my head, industry is there to know how ideas are sell-able and have to be pro-active. Scientists should (continue) to test ideas and concentrate on expanding their insight in depth in areas that would otherwise remain uncharted. Not the other way around.

Science based science based education (and work)

Recently my exposure to studies about how education, work, ideas, and a successful life seems to work studied by serious and recognized researchers, seems to me to collide head on with the basic university concept many in that field are currently dwelling in.

Most higher educations got it written down in their vision somewhere that the education should be "science based". For those not in this kind of environment that means teaching should continuously be up to date and backed up by relevant research. Scientists are also encouraged to be "inter-disciplinary" to "network" (especially to the industrial sector) and be goal orientated. Especially the last has become thé driver for what you are worth as a scientist or teacher and in many universities and release a bag of money every time a benchmark is met or a student graduate. Teachers have to measure and weigh every step the student takes to satisfy somebody in the administration.

But we are supposed to be guided by culminated scientific efforts to continuously excel our academic sanctuaries, right?

So, how come studies by people like Sugata Mitra can show education without teachers can work very well. That groups can be liquid and that less computers (sharing) increases learning?
I tested Prof. Mitras ideas in 3 groups of 4th year veterinary students last year. After a series of practical lectures on parasitology I told them "You got 1 hour to solve the problem: what is the 20% that causes 80% of parasitic problems in modern livestock farming? You can use any means of help, ask anybody, look anywhere, but you must work in groups. You can however change groups as you like." Most students acted like they were on a treasure hunt and were moving around on the campus a lot. And the discussions we had afterwards were amazing!

Daniel Pink gave me another blow to what I thought was acknowledged throughout the academic system: the classic carrot on a stick. Apparently if you actually study the science performed the last few decades the connection between incentive and cognitive skills shows the carrot on a stick basically makes you "dummer". The motivation for original ideas and performing them faster do not come from getting a reward!

Where do the good ideas come from? According to Steven Berlin Johnson good ideas come from groups with different backgrounds letting ideas have sex. Again - liquid networks. In his studies he credit the enlightenment to first coffee houses around 1650 where people could replace the dulling traditional beer-drinking with mental stimuli like coffee and tea in a mixed community of backgrounds. In short: the coffee table! Inter-disciplinary projects sprung from those tables.
If you ever been to a conference or a symposium, you probably know the real brainstorming is done in the breaks between presentations juggling you cup and papers. In my work place our best chance of a cup of coffee with colleagues is a small (newly renovated) room without windows, currently filled with plant seeds from some research group. My kids kinder garden have a more successful coffee club (no pun)! Where we are now basically everybody is isolated to their own room with their own ideas, and coffee.

And where do we normally get our own good ideas to share with others? At our work? No - everywhere but there apparently. According to Jason Fried we work much more intensively when not at work - mainly because we are not constantly disturbed by more or (frequently) less important interruptions that is to fill a work day. One of the great traps of the traditional work place is not how well or efficiently you can use your skills, but whether you fill a certain gap in time with your presence. But to be frank - does it really matter how much or when you work if what you do is really good?

Because, what makes us happy? According to Nic Marks groups research on what increasing well-being and happiness list the top 5 things: connecting (social relationships), being active (use body), taking time to take notice (be aware), keep learning (be curios), and to give (generosity).
Oddly enough it seems to support the other things written above. And it gets really curious when adding National Geographic writer Dan Buettners groups studies on what gives a long life: eat wisely (only 80% full, lots of plant), move (nudge yourself into physical activeness, less conveniences), have the right outlook (slow down, ikigai - find a sense of purpose), connect (family first, right tribe - don't surround yourself with negative people).

Many of the things that makes us happy and live long seems to overlap - and also move into what seems to work (tested) also in a work place like an university.

It makes you wonder if we couldn't do it better doesn't it?
 

Further reading

Educational Blocks - Amazing what We do not Know

In my highschool advanced physics class of my final year, I asked my physics teacher while working with thermodynamics: "Aren't there a device that can make electricity of heat (explaining that I did not mean heating something, but heat itself)?" I never forget the look on my teaches face, I could see he struggled with himself to put his words in a way where he would not wound me in my ignorance (I liked my physics teacher, he is a good person). He told me kindly that if anyone would ever invent such a device they would be filthy rich. I naturally interperted this answer as a "no".

It is not until now, during my investigations for this blog, I know that this device were invented years earlier than my question to my teacher. This device was developed by Dennis Lee and his team and went into production in 1984 originally ass a low temperature phase change system (any weather) for producing heat. It was named The Alternative and is one of the technologies that actaully came into production and use in USA, and as it claimed. It was a little later that is device was discovered to produce energy as well with some modifications involving a modified Sterling engine, originally invented by Dr Robert Stirling in 1816. The device however went out of production in a competitive struggle with athoroties and cooperations that I will let the reader investigate themselves, since it is hard to present it objectivly. Read for yourselves (1, 2) about this product. The short story is that the inventor had to go to jail for selling the device on some very odd charges (if any).

As I wrote previously, my teacher and others teachers, have a lot of responsebility in molding our minds to be able to believe in greater advances. I am certain they do not do it intentionally. But I also had an opposite statement, to the skeptism I got in school, from a professor in the university, that opened my eyes again. When I asked him supportive questions to the class that had ended, he suprisingly said "we don't know!" I was in the begining of my studies and professors were like small gods of knowledge - how could they not know? I was curious and asked him to speculate. To this he replied: "It is amazing what we scientists do not know! That is what makes it so fun!" I can only wish more scientists, teachers and people were like him. If we do not know, it does not mean it can not exist - just that we have not discovered why it can work!