Resources by Richard Newton

Over the past few years, I’ve come to cherish the opportunity to observe others teach. Teaching my own courses, I don’t get the chance to do this as much as I would like, but it’s one of my favorite parts of the profession. I love a good lesson plan. I appreciate the confidence carried by teachers who know where they want to take a class. A detailed outline plotting the way one intends to lead students impresses me. I am that guy . . . the one that will start the slow-clap after witnessing an instructor’s smooth execution. Although these are the moments that make the highlight reel of best pedagogical practices, my sense is that effective teaching is truly on display when the plan falls short. It’s when the setting—whether a classroom, conference, presentation, or one-on-one discussion—presents detractions and the teacher must deal with them on the fly. When a traumatic event factors into the syllabus, we should take extra care to distinguish between distractions and detractions. Trauma can leave students raw, and we would be callous to begrudge the wandering or even hardening of the mind. Distraction can be a way of dealing with the circumstances. To me, detraction is a different story. It involves the active placement of obstacles to impede the learning agenda. This is when someone comes to loggerheads with the teacher and the lesson being taught. Detractions have to be dealt with or the class, and those on board with it, will flounder. Detractions also differ from disagreement. The contextual experience of trauma makes consensus near impossible. Although life would be easier were we all to agree, consensus is a bonus, not a condition. The problems that disagreements bring pale in the face of those caused by detractors who use disagreement to threaten the educational agency of those in the room. The HigherEd journalism beat and the academic blogosphere have chronicled the reasons why faculty might steer clear of engaging traumatic events in the classroom. There’s no reason to rehash those here. Nor will I repeat the ways this isn’t a choice in the same way for all people. But as the semester wraps up, and teachers get reflective (after recovering, of course), I thought I might share a few of the more subtle ways I’ve seen teachers deal with detraction on the fly. The moves were improvised, but my sense is that the tactics can be practiced. Put Out the Fire  If you teach long enough, you are bound to get someone intent on harming the people interested engaging your lesson. This sort of detractor is a flamethrower, using every chance to burn your lesson plan into cinders. Some do this for sport. Others have a bone to pick. You’ll never really know in the moment. Nor will they. Some teachers shut this down with decisive quickness, but if this isn’t a play available to you, then you need to keep in mind the physics of the situation. As much as we’re supposed to “reach one, each one,” the job is to teach those in the room. Obstacles to that teaching must be navigated, even when that obstacle is a student’s behavior. Left to their own devices, flamethrowers will combust, so how might you starve the fire? Don’t give the flamethrower the air of your attention. Choose to engage other people in the class by inviting only those who have not spoken with a chance to share. Or find one neutral-to-productive element in the flamethrower’s statement, interrupt with a restatement of the point, and redirect toward someone else. Ultimately your job is to win the room, not to throw flames with the heckler. If you get them on your side, you’ll have contained the flamethrower until it burns out. Disrupt the Momentum Detractors remind us just how much teaching relies on momentum. When everyone is agreeable and goes with the flow, teaching feels easy, or at least easier. At the same time though, we know that learning involves stress, pressure, and tension at the intersection of preconceived notions and the challenge of new information. Detractors keep us honest about this process, even though they’re not helping us bring the class to the desired educational destination. We can repurpose disruption, the detractor’s favorite tool, for the purpose of teaching. If you can tell that something has happened to stoke the detractor’s fire, call a class time out. You can hold a few moments of silence from the front of the room until you’re ready for class to resume. You can take a five-minute break, let people stretch, use the restroom, and leave the class for a moment. Some have implemented the latter to great avail. Putting the brakes on a class is a good way to marshal the favor of the group and disrupt the detractor’s plan. Take Notes  I began this post professing my love of the lesson plan. My affection has many facets. The written lesson plan gives the teacher a tangible record of intention. It is proof of what you wanted to happen and an explanation of what you were willing to do to manifest that wish. In these times a paper trail is never a bad idea. Lesson plans are living documents. Some people like to take notes on them after a class (and even during if they’re feeling dexterous) to note the changes as they come. I like having a record from which I can make sense of what occurred. It can help the next time one runs in a detractor. And in case the situation doesn’t go away, you have documentation to show how invested you were in making the class work. Detractors rarely can do the same. “Know when to Hold ‘em…Know when to fold ‘em.”  Finally, and this cannot be stressed enough, you might need to call it a day.  Excellent teaching doesn’t have a time quota. One certainly should not exceed an agreed upon time, but we so easily forget that there may be a virtue to ending a class early. Some teachers can gracefully introduce a prompt that class time is better spent leaving students to reflect on their own. When detractors are involved, participant energy can be depleted in an unusual manner. If there’s no more good to come from being together, then don’t stay together. Bring the class to a coda and resume at another time. These are just a few tactics worth keeping in your back pocket for the next time you encounter a detractor. If you have some to share, please do so in the comments section or on social media. The more, the merrier.

I don’t recall ever meeting anyone who sought out their own trauma. Those most prepared for the causal event were still caught unawares. As I’ve said before, trauma insists on passivity. That’s why I am a bit weary of valorizing people who did the so-called right thing in the face of trauma. Should we honor the person’s resilient responses? Absolutely. Can we do so without reducing their story to a marketable remedy or idol for veneration? If we don’t, then we may end up down a slippery slope of objectification. We would do well to learn from people without making them an object lesson or essentializing an ability. It takes commitment to refrain from tokenizing those dealing with trauma. I see the struggle play out around the water cooler. Faculty are shooting the breeze in between classes. Small talk turns to a hot-button issue ripped from the headlines or the grapevine. Someone presses the point that the weighty issue should be brought up in the classroom. “But how?” another asks; the quickest solution, leave it to the most affected colleague to lead the way or do it all. They’re a natural fit, right? Crisis averted. Here’s the thing—no one’s a natural fit for dealing with trauma. The experience of trauma isn’t a virtue. It’s a burden. And when we add to it, we not only bring insult to injury but also a stumbling block to those committed to addressing it. I know. I know. In my last post, I emphasized how dealing with trauma isn’t always your problem. But struggling to face it isn’t a sign that it’s not your problem. Dealing with trauma in your classroom is hard. And no taught subject is a natural fit for addressing trauma because it stymies the active participation that learning requires. I think honoring this is worth a moment of reflection. Once you embrace that dealing with trauma isn’t a natural fit, what might you do when trauma finds its way into your class? I’ve found comparison to be a useful too. Comparison thrives in the reality that classification is where humans dwell. When you realize that nothing you do is going to ever solve the thing, you can begin to acknowledge the freedom at your disposal. Put differently, you can talk about the thing without talking about the thing. Here’s what I mean. First, name the trauma in a way appropriate to your learning setting. “Do no harm” is a good tact here. Surface the trauma to acknowledge the situation but do so without violating the trust, privacy, or boundaries that bind your learning community. For example, when a “bias-related incident” or climate-changing event happens on your campus, actually acknowledge that it happened. Second, name your desire for the teaching moment. Given the difficulty of this teaching task, I like to lower the bar . . . and then lower it again. I teach on religion and the politics of social difference. I’m not out here trying to bring world peace or end racism. I’m upfront with students that I intend to facilitate a substantive 15-week conversation without a body count. The same expectation holds true for even a single class session. Other than that, if students leave the session asking better questions, seeking sharper answers, or are more skillful in pursuing either given the topic, that is well. Maybe this philosophy won’t win you “Teacher of the Year,” but I do find that it helps me be present in the moment. Third, present something besides the trauma to discuss. This can be something you find relatively pertinent. It can be a historical example from your domain of expertise. It can be a piece of art or news story that keeps popping into your head. I don’t want to put limitations on this because nothing naturally fits. Just make sure that it meets the criteria of steps one and two. For me, I find it least helpful to compare similar type of incidents (e.g. blatant discrimination, sudden death of a community member, a major institutional change). Comparisons that are similar limit the potential of the activity because the similarities immediately standout as co-incidents. Instead, I might set up a comparison based upon what I see as similar power relationships (e.g. feeling of a lack of agency), eerily similar diction across vastly different contexts (e.g, Where else have people expressed an inability to breathe?), or in the case of images, artistic motifs. On this last, I used Romance paintings to help students process the arrest of artist-activist Bree Newsome after she pulled down a Confederate Flag from the South Carolina State House. Fourth, invite your students to reflect on the thing on paper. You can be so blunt as to ask, “Why am I showing you this?” I like to have students freely associate and hypothesize the comparison for themselves. I think this extends a grace in which students can relish in the messiness of the learning process without pretense or fear of reprisal. Fifth, share the grounds upon which you found your “something” comparable to the named trauma. Why is it that your selection is worth discussing? How do you see its relevance? Is it because of the subject matter or a social dynamic you recognize? Is there a historical connection? Retrace how you connected the dots. One connection will give you plenty to discuss. Sixth, give students an opportunity to reflect about the trauma on paper. You can see that we are now going through the steps backward. Seventh, ask what needs further reflection given the lessons learned from the comparison. Encourage these to be described openly—perhaps with one word. These can be shared aloud and recorded on the board. To maintain the “do no harm” ethos, remind them of your desire for this moment. Lastly, let the students go free to name the trauma (or not) as they choose. Also, give a sense of what comes next in the course schedule. This helps to situate the day’s class session within the rhythm of the course, inviting them to make further connections on their own. For all the steps listed here, this exercise appears more complicated than it is in execution. Take it as an attempt to strip down teaching-learning to the basics so that those involved can recall that there can be possibilities, connections, and community in the face of trauma.

I’ve been in higher education just long enough to warrant a sense of déjà vu. My lips and tongue stretch in a pattern too familiar for comfort. My ears know the buzz of silence that follows the words now oft spoken. Despite the lack of novelty, every time I’m shook; the surprise never fails—the call, the response-- they stir every time. It goes down like this. I’m sitting with a colleague or a student. Sometimes I’m on a panel or giving a workshop. Maybe I’m standing before a mirror. Whoever is across from me begins to tell me about some crisis happening at their institution and how much it is weighing on them and those they care about and how they’re trying to find the solution. And then I say the thing that catches them off guard. It’s the same thing that catches me off guard, even though it shouldn’t. “Maybe it’s not your job.” Then there’s the silence, the loud, unmistakable silence when thought gives way to understanding. In my contributions to this series on “Teaching and Traumatic Events,” I’ve tried to offer preparatory resources for those educators seeking to rise to the occasion. What needs to be said though is that it’s not always your job to do anything. You don’t have to unfurl a rapid response protocol, roll out a diversity initiative, lead the revolution, or assert what no one else has confessed. I don’t know your situation. But, teacher-to-teacher, I’m pretty sure that “fixing” isn’t in your job description. I’ve tried to speak pretty generally about trauma in terms of its various meanings. But to clarify, I will call out the stressors that can precede the compulsion to fix. Why must you be the one to lead the charge? Sometimes the reasons simply aren’t good, but the voices peddling them are insistent. Here are few reasons for you to remember why “maybe it’s not your job.” “It directly effects ‘people like you.’” This line of thinking betrays a Horatio Alger/bootstraps myth to hardship. Because an event or circumstance impacts you, your efforts to rectify the situation can lead to glory. What doesn’t get mentioned is that those efforts can make you more vulnerable to the pain and suffering that will keep you from doing your actual job. In my opinion, you’ve just been given an opportunity to inquire what the institution is going to do to equip you to do your job effectively given the trauma’s impact on employees. This isn’t selfish. This is contractual. “Your expertise is a natural fit.” I think this line, perhaps more than any other, is a disenfranchising play, especially for those in religious studies and theological education. It assumes that some subject domains, by nature, lend themselves to relevance. Were this the case, then why not send a link or bibliography to those in need and check on them in the morning? Our expertise is in the connections we make between critical observations, creative analysis, and methodical application. None of that work is natural. No one comes to that without practice, training, and focus. And even if you find that you have the first two, your job description likely doesn’t afford the third one—especially if you’re teaching. If anything, your expert opinion may lead you to recommend that the concerned locate someone who can do the requested task better than you. Reluctance on their part to do so speaks volumes about their take on you and the trauma at hand. “People look to you for . . . “ This may be true, but take some time to ask why. Early in my teaching career, a friend shared some great advice. She said that you can’t develop a good teaching strategy without understanding how your students see you. Often students fall back on socialized models to inform their interaction with professors (for better, and too frequently, for worse). Even when encountering the same instructional situation, we each might choose different teaching tactics because she, as a petite, African American woman, would be read differently than I would as a large, African American man. Amado Padilla put such readings in institutional terms when discussing the “cultural taxation” carried by faculty of color paid in undue burdens of service—especially on issues of diversity and inclusion. Some people benignly and naively will use any resemblance you bear to a stamp-worthy activist to make the devastating assumption that you should take up a similar mantle. That choice is on you. The institutional responsibility for that burden is not. “You’re effective.” Just because you are good at a task doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be, nor does it mean you should do the task. You have a job to do and if that task is not part of it, that task can keep you from it. We never occupy one role or responsibility, but when I come across students inclined to activism, I remind them that ultimately their job in higher education is to graduate. As faculty, I wonder whether we remind each other about what we are here to do. I’m not going to presume to know what that is for each of you, but I don’t think your effectiveness at a task should be an excuse for others’ lack thereof. People love to opine about the shortcomings of teachers. Press them on their rationale and you quickly realize they think we’re here to be tutors, social workers, counselors, and campus security. To paraphrase Michael Jordan’s words to a rising generation of basketball players, maybe we make this education thing look easy. Or maybe too many are using us as an excuse. Let’s not let them use trauma to do so.

Perception is among the first points of impact in a traumatic event. How we see ourselves, the world, and our options can radically change. Sometimes our perception alters our reality. Sometimes our new reality necessitates a change in our perception. Either way, the world doesn’t seem the same when trauma happens. Reckoning with that is a lot to ask of anyone. And it often feels like you are just “one” in the struggle. Usually, this is the moment in professional development discussions when a workshop facilitator says something like, “But you’re not alone. You have a community right there beside you fighting the good fight. You have allies.” There are a lot of different kinds of trauma, but I am not familiar with any that does a roll call to double check that all allies are present and accounted for. Trauma takes names, and it asks questions later. I think this is why I’ve grown weary of the ally metaphor. Allyship too often (1) emphasizes the election of the ally at the expense of the subject’s involuntary trauma and (2) accommodates conditions in which would-be supporters can exit when that is not a universal luxury. Speaking from the context of American foreign policy, it’s really quite easy to see the fickle potential of the ally metaphor. Allyship can be good. But when you’re in the struggle, the last thing you need is for your chorus to become a soliloquy or, maybe worse, a teachable moment. I think it’s good for teachers to ask the conditions upon which they build allegiances. Maybe it’s the introvert in me, but if I’m going to have a squad, I want mine to be filled with accomplices—people beside me committed to dealing with a situation despite the good, bad, and ugly consequences of doing so. As I write this, I’m in a place of transition. I’m about to embark on an exciting new chapter in my career, leaving behind a wonderful institution where I’ve spent four years teaching, advising, mentoring, problem-solving, and enduring. Over the past few days I’ve been reflecting on how I did it. I remember learning from social media how a college-bound Michael Brown was murdered a few days before the school year that I started. I was wrestling with the ramifications of teaching from my own body in a sundown town. At the same time, I was reconsidering my scheduled curricular offerings to better help a predominantly white institution be part of the solution rather than the problem. Some described these efforts as troublemaking and agitating. Let’s be real—some described me as troublemaking and agitating. When you become a problem you sometimes get a clearer picture of who’s with you. For me, it was a loose network of chaplains, librarians, department assistants, fellow professors, and administrators. These were the few upon whom I could count on for collegial care and collaboration. Through their diversity I’ve been able to tease out some common threads that made them squad-worthy. Maybe you’ll find these criteria helpful as you find your own squad. (1) They assume the rewards and risks in your common initiatives. Suffering doesn’t pay, but it does sell. The former can keep many from supporting you while the latter will bring them flocking. Squad-worthy colleagues understand this but value your work by a different metric. They acknowledge your humanity, your initiative, and your circumstances, and they ante up accordingly.  This investment can come at a loss to them, but it’s worth it because they value you and your work. (2) You complement and supplement each other’s gifts. Successful networks have a solid understanding of what the different nodes offer to the work of the whole. My college makes great use of inventories like the Clifton StrengthsFinder to help units understand how individuals work and how they can work together. In my experience, trauma doesn’t wait for you to have a good day or for you to be at your best. This is why having people who understand how to synergize with you is worth its weight in gold. (3) We acknowledge the power dynamics and respect our limitations. If you go back to those listed in my squad, you will probably recognize that they span the higher educational social hierarchy. For this to work, members should recognize the stratification at play. Rewards and reprimands are diffused unevenly, so how does one mitigate that reality? What do you do to bring equity to the exchange? And are they willing to act likewise? (4) Privacy is honored and expected. Your individual agency is sacrosanct. The squad doesn’t need to know everything. Boundaries are encouraged. Having clear expectations is essential in fruitful relationships. Once, some colleagues and I were kicking around these ideas, and we determined that some of our allies weren’t really accomplices. One trauma or another had tested their resolve too much. That doesn’t mean relationships need to be jettisoned. It’s a reminder that squads must be built. These are just a few of the ways you can be proactive about building a squad that lasts.

Trauma is like a mirror that we don’t want to look into. It captures us at our worst angles. It accentuates what we want minimized and overlooks what we wish to be prominent. In trauma, we see projected the unwanted aspects of our realities in such a startling way that we forget everything over which we might have control. Sometimes we don’t have control over a lot. And if we are lucky, we are graced with a reminder that less can be more. To be clear, I don’t mean to make asceticism a virtue. Rather, I want to honor the irrelevant revelation where many on the brink find humor and solace—the fleeting thought of how “it could be worse.” On the flip side of that sentiment is an appreciation for the chance to no longer take what one has for granted. It is this latter posture that I think we teachers should become more accustomed to inhabit. If you follow me on social media, then you know that half of my best pedagogy comes from lessons learned while parenting. As I write, my six-year-old is wrestling in his first tournament. Kid Newton loves the sport. I like that he loves it. But the anxiety in the gym is as airborne as the body odor. And as these children face off, I can read the look in their faces. They are not scared of each other. They are afraid of their own limitations. Throughout this tournament, I have seen a lot of different coaching styles. I don’t have the foggiest idea about wrestling technique, yet I do know enough about teaching-learning to see what isn’t working. And the number one way to fail seems to be throwing a lot of new information at a student/athlete in the midst of a stressful situation. This results in a lot of takedowns, tears, and tantrums. I’ve also picked up some practices that seem to work on the mat, if not in the classroom. When trauma finds your students, consider having them do the following: Breathe. At a Wabash consultation, my colleague Dr. Melanie Harris would frequently lead my cohort in a few moments of collective breathing before we dove into the topic of the day. This may have been the single greatest takeaway from these intensive professional development experiences. In just a few silent moments of respiration, I found assurance that I had survived the previous moment and could be present in the current one. My mind stopped wandering to the future. My thoughts stopped dwelling on the past. So when I sense that my students are stressed or at dis-ease, I push pause on whatever we are doing and have us breathe. When we reenter into the activity, we are so much more prepared for what may come. Have space to be heard, read, and seen. Just like athletes need to breathe, people in trauma need a moment to vent. This doesn’t necessarily involve conspicuous expression, but perhaps just a moment to acknowledge what one has observed can go a long way. If I have a sense that we are in the middle of a traumatic moment, I like to start punctually but give students a chance to release their thoughts within the formal classroom time. This gives them license to work through preoccupation rather than be consumed by the trauma occupying them. Sometimes I just quickly name the event and have students free-write individually as they see fit. Other times I announce that we’ll take three minutes to talk about (or not) whatever they think needs to be discussed. In this situation, I move to the side of the classroom so that students can relate to each other as peers instead of to me as their instructor. When we move to our next activity, students seem to be calmer and more collected. Relax in their strengths. The traumatic moment can be a teachable moment, but not for skill acquisition. This is not the time to trot out radically new content. Instead, consider how you can bring out the things students know. What are the things that have been practiced, drilled, and rehearsed? Giving students a chance to bring these out will orient them toward the “more” ahead. Leaving a little room for free association or creative application can even bring a little hope in the midst of despair. As students rise to the occasion of just one task, they can remember that they have risen before and will rise again. None of these activities are novel. In fact, if you incorporate them into your regular teaching practices, they’ll be that much more effective in moments of testing. At the end of the day, the challenge isn’t ending the trauma. It is dealing with it. Just remember that you, in fact, do have the tools to begin doing so.

We can define the syllabus with precision, but our best-laid plans are subject to the moments when life simply happens. Questions arise. Frustrations are felt. And the sages on the stage better have something to show for all their high-falutin’ learning. At least this is how I feel when teaching in the midst of traumatic events. I can usually triage the syllabus—shuffling assignments around to give space to the moment. I even know well enough to leave room for the inevitable crisis within my course planning. But what do you actually do when you’re in front of students who have come to class just as raw as you? There’s no media bulletin that will solve the problem. Trauma doesn’t care about public relations. There’s no master lecture that will bring a master solution. Trauma doesn’t leave room for satisfying answers. But I’m here to tell you that all is not lost. Every Christmas break, I go home to Houston. My most recent trip was the first time I had been since Hurricane Harvey. And in the days following my return to Pennsylvania, friends wanted to know what I saw. I didn’t have much to respond with except for the watchwords of the human story. We rebuild. We heal. We grow. We learn.   This is what we do in the face of natural disaster. It too is what we can do in the face of psychosocial trauma. But it’s going to take some time. Unfortunately, I have found myself in the position of consulting a number of institutions enduring the perpetration of prejudicial affronts, most frequently concerning rampant sexism, homophobia, and racism. The biggest mistake I see is the grab for a big fix or antidote to make the situation go away. I have to explain that trauma is an immediate crisis that takes hold of us for the long haul, so our job is to equip our communities to rebuild, heal, grow, and learn as best as we can manage, moment by moment, day by day. For teachers, this means reminding ourselves and our students that the more we know, the better we can manage the crisis before us. When life happens, I tell myself to adhere to the following protocol step by step. Gather your composure. Find your footing even in the midst of your insecurity. Claim your own humanity—the right to feel, the right to hurt, the right to grieve. Eat nutrient-rich foods. Drink plenty of water. Meditate, do jumping jacks, practice yoga, or walk around the block. Your first step is to regain your sense of self. Reconnect. Take a moment to let a trusted colleague or companion know that you’re about to go into the fray. You have a community. A simple text message or phone call can remind you that you’re not alone. Lower the bar. When it’s go time, your job today is to “be you” and “do you” with the students. This will equip them with the confidence to do the same. Before you know it, you will fall back into the role of teacher. They will fall back into the role of student. And you’ll together develop a new stasis. Preach what you have practiced. Have your students take a few minutes to do a version of what you have just done. Lead them in a moment of silence or even a quick stretch-break. Let people grab a drink of water and return to class. Let them check in with each other as they trickle back into the room. Your acknowledgment of their humanity will go a long way in garnering the trust you’ll need for the day. Teach the moment. Present what you understand about the situation and contextualize it in light of what you know as teacher-scholar. Then take a few moments to show how you’re learning. In so doing, you’ll remind students that they are not the sum of their emotions. They are also learners with skills and proficiencies to help them grapple with the day beyond what they could have done prior to class. It also solidifies a basis for community-building amidst the new state of affairs. From here, you have a “we” with which to work. Come together around a whiteboard and make a list of questions that you all want to pursue as a class. Name the resources you might consult in the coming days in your search for more information. Excavate your syllabus to see not whether there’s anything of use, but what can be used in the moments ahead. Better questions lead to better possibilities. The work you have put in—together— will bear fruit in the days to come. I know now what else to ask for in the midst of trauma. But until then, use the learning process as a vehicle to position yourselves in renewed strength and community.

Richard Newton Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Elizabethtown College When I signed up to teach the Bible and Race in the USA, I didn’t know that my students would be able to live stream the lynching of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. No one told me that modern courtrooms would accept a testimony from one who could liken Michael Brown to a demon. And did I mention that my undergraduate seminar was divided evenly along the color line—three white students with two black students and myself? Colleagues at my new school were excited and nervous for me. No one knew...