Blog Post #10 Healing Centered Engagement Argument

The ways Healing Centered Engagement helps to overcome trauma.

In Shawn Grinwright’s Healing Centered Engagement, the argument is presented that Trauma-Informed Care (a form of trauma recovery that “encourages support and treatment to the whole person, rather than focusing on only treating individual symptoms or specific behaviors.”) is, despite its popularity in the modern day, a far more harmful method of trauma recovery than it is often credited for. 

Ginwright argues that Trauma-Informed Care fails to address the root of trauma, instead opting to focus on the aftermath of it, which leaves the opportunity for additional trauma or relapses from trauma wide open. Furthermore, Trauma-Informed Care can lead trauma survivors to victimize themselves and define themselves by their trauma, rather than grow from it. This is demonstrated in Ginwright’s recollection of a healing circle he led, wherein he attempted to lead participants through the steps of Trauma-Informed Care. During his explanation, he was stopped by a participant who told him that he was “more than what happened to him”.

Ginwright’s response to the weakness and failings of Trauma-Informed Care is Healing Centered Engagement, a new form of trauma recovery that “...views trauma not simply as an individual isolated experience, but rather highlights the ways in which trauma and healing are experienced collectively.” In other words, Healing Centered Engagement opts to focus on trauma survivor’s agency in the healing process, rather than how living with trauma will define them, and puts an emphasis on community, culture and self-identity as a means of developing your identity separate and overcoming of your trauma.

I find this approach to be very interesting, and would very much like to continue a discussion on it in class. I think the various benefits of Healing Centered Engagement are really cool, and I’d like to know if anyone who is comfortable sharing has any experience practicing it and how effective the method has been for them. I’ve been intrigued by what I’ve read about it, and intend to try practicing it in my own life.

Attached here is a hyperlink to an article on how to walk students through the steps of Healing Centered Engagement, and how to help them practice it in their daily lives.

Blog #9 Reflection on Past Blogs

Looking back on everything that we have studied and discussed over the course of the past semester, the things that I find continuously sticking out in my mind are the things that have since become noticeable in my everyday life. Working in a school (and a school open to students of many different cultural backgrounds, at that), I have been able to observe many of the different advantages and disadvantages demographics of students have in real time, and it has truly brought my ability to understand the readings to a new level. Likewise, the readings that reflect my real-life observations have given me insights on how to best aid and connect with students that I’d otherwise never bond with the way I have been able to. 

Richard Rodriguez’s Tongue Tied comes to mind as a prominent example here. In his writing, Rodriguez reflects on how his school treated English as a prominent and important language and Spanish as a taboo, altered his perception of his own languages, and left him to struggle with his cultural identity for a long time. This reading led me to think of my own kids from non-english speaking countries (ie. most of them, especially the Mexican boys I have who struggle with English) and how I’ve bonded with each of them. Since this reading, I’ve worked to make an effort to learn some (albeit very little in the grand scheme of things) basic Spanish, and have made an effort to show an interest in the culture. I watched the World Series with them, as they are big soccer fans, and it was a lot of fun. I’ve never even watched a soccer game before, and now I can name players!

Meanwhile, Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race discussed the segregation of students of different race and class through social division, and how that affects student’s perceptions of the world and different cultures. This reading helped me realize why I was struggling to connect with a student I had, a black boy from New York. Surely, it was difficult for the student to feel as though it was easy to connect with me, a white kid who grew up in Connecticut with authority over him, and until now I hadn’t stopped to think about this. Since reading this piece, I have made efforts to both make it clear that I am interested in bonding with my student and learning about his life, and given the student space so as to take off the stress and pressure that comes with being forced to bond with someone you have such a different experience from. I have also been working to take a look at my own unconscious biases and correct any assumptions I may have about other cultures.

Finally, our newest readings on gender laws and gender activism in Rhode Island have stuck with me pretty strongly. I am a genderqueer student, who has struggled with my own identity and other’s perceptions openly since middle school and privately for as long as I can remember. Though I have my reservations about everything now being discussed and protected under gender laws and activism (which may be caused by internalized hatred I have to re-examine, I’m not sure), it hits me pretty hard to know just how far we’ve come in such little time in terms of acceptance of student identity and self-expression on all levels. I believe this is a vitally important message to instill in students at a young age, and is key to ushering in an era of acceptance and identity exploration that my child will be able to enjoy freely.

The Argument of Woke Read Alouds: They, She, He Easy as ABC and Rhode Island Law

Visual Representation of the Spectrum of Gender Expression

In Woke Kindergarten’s video Woke Read Alouds: They, She, He Easy as ABC, the argument is presented to the audience that gender is a broad spectrum of different pronouns, dress choices, names and much more, and that every person's placement on this spectrum is to be respected and appreciated. It pushes to instill in students the values of exploring gender expression in its various facets, and accepting how that manifests for others. 

This argument is now supported by law, as shown in the Guidance for Rhode Island Schools on Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students Laws and Guidelines, put together in 2016. These laws and guidelines serve to ensure that people of all genders will receive equal opportunities; prohibiting discrimination against anyone based on sex or gender expression in places of employment or education. This is the culmination of the efforts taken by groups like Woke Kindergarten, who have established a sense of normalcy for these previously devalued forms of identity expression, and done the work to raise the voices that have taken the first major legal steps in ensuring quality for people of all sex and gender.

Though all of the topics we cover in class are for obvious reasons important, this one in particular I hold a bigger stake in as a genderqueer student. I’m grateful for the work done by both organizations like Woke Kindergarten who have taken the effort to raise awareness on and educate on the intricacies of unique gender expression, as well as the lawmakers who have pushed to codify laws protecting students and citizens of different identities from discrimination. However, I hold some reservations about what we are presenting as aspects of the genderqueer spectrum in resources such as Woke Kindergarten’s videos. In particular, the use of neo-pronouns (pronouns such as Zie/Zim, Tree/Treeself, etc.) are an “aspect” of gender expression that I’ve found has served more to romanticize the experience of not identifying with your birth gender, rather than actually soothe gender dysphoria and other symptoms of not fitting in with your assigned gender. This is a very nuanced topic, of course, and what I’ve written here is a simplification of the wider conversation, but it’s something that stuck in my mind while watching the video and I am interested in hearing takes from others about the subject (especially if you’re also genderqueer).

Hyperlink: Attached here is a link to another article discussing the importance of and concerns about conversations regarding gender identity with students.