Schools That Heal

What would a school look like if it was designed with mental health in mind? Too many public schools look and feel like prisons, designed out of fear of vandalism and truancy. But we know that nurturing environments are better for learning. Access to nature, big classroom windows, and open campuses consistently reduce stress, anxiety, disorderly conduct, and crime, and improve academic performance. Backed by decades of research, Schools That Heal showcases clear and compelling ways--from furniture to classroom improvements to whole campus renovations--to make supportive learning environments for our children and teenagers. With invaluable advice for school administrators, public health experts, teachers, and parents Schools That Heal is a call to action and a practical resource to create nurturing and inspiring schools for all children.

“Lesley Koplow’s well-examined truths uncover an image of intimacy between teacher and child sorely needed in our schools. Her ‘emotionally responsive’ teacher is the pivot for a classroom community that visibly supports and honors it’s members in the great variety of their lives. ‘What stands in the way?’ is the question Ms. Koplow courageously answers.” —Vivian Gussin Paley, author of In Mrs. Tulley’s Room: A Childcare Portrait In a world where children are beset by violence and stress, Lesley Koplow provides educators with clear, level-headed advice on how to construct therapeutic learning environments for all children. This is a book about integrating preventive mental health practice into public schools (preschool through grade 5). Koplow, a psychotherapist, discusses the mandate for violence prevention and offers an intervention framework for teachers, administrators, and school-based clinicians who want to improve the emotional climate in their school. This important and timely volume: Helps educators read the signs of distress or problematic social/emotional development as they are likely to manifest themselves in the school setting.Introduces a practice model that calls for strengthened teacher-child connections.Addresses, in separate chapters, the roles of the teacher, principal, and school-based clinician, providing guidance and effective strategies for each.Demonstrates that interventions can be done effectively by existing school personnel.Describes a project to facilitate teacher gathering of psycho-social history that can be used to inform constructive curricular practice.Poses compelling questions for policymakers, including concerns about the effect that the current focus on standards and test scores is having on the emotional tone of schools.Includes a chapter addressing what we’ve learned from the recent tragic events of September 11th in New York City.

Providing school-based mental health providers with the necessary tools to help intervene on behalf of students struggling to overcome trauma, this volume features engaging case studies and an overview of evidence-based interventions.

It is essential for all schools to integrate trauma-informed care into practice as children, parents, and teachers live with the threat of COVID-19. In her new book, Lesley Koplow explores the Emotionally Responsive Practice (ERP) approach designed to support children and teachers’ emotional well-being in the public-school setting. ERP encourages school staff to look at children through the lens of child development, as well as through the lens of their life experiences, in order to help them resolve foundational social and emotional milestones. Unlike many SEL programs, ERP asks adults to consider the ways that educational philosophy and school climate impact emotional, social, and cognitive outcomes for young children. This timely resource offers teachers, school leaders, and school-based clinicians a vision and blueprint for engaging in relationship-based, trauma-informed practice in early childhood and elementary school grades. Book Features: A timely sequel to the author’s groundbreaking text, Unsmiling Faces: How Preschools Can Heal, Second Edition. Explores the need for meaningful curriculum as a component of a healing school environment.Provides a unifying language to help teachers, school leaders, and school social workers to work across disciplines.Includes specific examples of classroom processes and practices that support the emotional well-being of young children.

In an educational milieu in which standards and accountability hold sway, schools can become places of stress, marginalization, and isolation instead of learning communities that nurture a sense of meaning and purpose. In Ensouling Our Schools, author Jennifer Katz weaves together methods of creating schools that engender mental, spiritual, and emotional health while developing intellectual thought and critical analysis. Kevin Lamoureux contributes his expertise regarding Indigenous approaches to mental and spiritual health that benefit all students and address the TRC Calls to Action.

In this follow-up to her bestseller, Trauma-Sensitive Schools, Susan Craig provides secondary school teachers and administrators with a trauma-sensitive approach to instruction that will improve students’ achievement. The text provides an overview of the effects of three types of trauma on adolescent development: early childhood adversity, community violence, and systemic inequities. Book Features: Provides an overview of the effects of three types of trauma on adolescent development: early childhood adversity, community violence, and systemic inequities.Links the effects of trauma on students’ cognitive development to educational reform efforts.Integrates research on adolescents’ neurodevelopment and current educational best practices.Builds the capacity of education professionals to successfully manage the behavior of adolescents with symptoms of complex developmental trauma. ?Susan Craig’s book provides the scientific evidence and the reasons why it is so critical that schools take this new path in serving our students.? ?From the Foreword by Jim Sporleder, principal profiled in the documentary Paper Tigers ?A uniquely comprehensive and accessible resource for all educators and school administrators.? ?Eric Rossen, National Association of School Psychologists ?An in-depth look into the impact of trauma on the adolescent brain along with ideas about how educators can support student learning. This is an essential book for any secondary educator or administrator.? ?Sara Daniel, director of clinical services, SaintA, Milwaukee, WI

In her book Teaching to Diversity, Dr. Jennifer Katz synthesizes the research, and 16 years experience of teaching in inclusive classrooms and schools, to provide answers to several questions: How do I make inclusion work for ALL students? What are the foundational best practices of a truly inclusive learning community? How does one create such a community? The author pulls together, in an organized way, a three-block model of universal design for learning (UDL) and suggests a step-by-step approach for implementing it. This framework includes: Block One, Social and Emotional Learning: details ways to build compassionate learning communities (K-12) in which all students feel safe and valued, and develop a positive self-concept, sense of belonging, and respect for diverse others. Block Two, Inclusive Instructional Practice: includes a framework for planning units from K-12, and explains instructional and management practices for teaching, assessing, grading, and reporting in UDL Classrooms. Block Three, Systems and Structures: suggests strategies for creating inclusive learning communities, and explores ways in which resource teachers, student services personnel, and school administrators can support and create socially and academically inclusive schools and classrooms. The three-block model of UDL can empower educators with the knowledge, skills, and confidence required to teach diverse learners in the same classroom--including those who have previously been excluded. Ultimately, it is about creating classrooms and schools that heal by teaching to the heart, mind, and spirit of every student.

Situating the African American learning experience within the stream of historic enslavement and hundreds of years of institutionalized racism, this timely book introduces antiracist foundations for teaching in the 21st century. The authors take a holistic approach that uses Afrocentricity to identify and address critical omissions and distortions in school curricula. Drawing on empirical findings from a high-performing 100% African American school, they identify what teachers and students recognize as successful features of the schools’ approach, including a unique learning environment, support systems, spiritual affirmations, evidences of Black education, a reframing of Afrocentricity, and education that promotes positive Black identity. This much-needed book demonstrates the healing power of education; provides evidence of social, emotional, and psychological transformation within the learning experience; and frames education as a tool for liberation. Book Features: Offers a clear chronological analysis of Black education in the United States and across the Diaspora.Includes the perceptions and experiences of students and teachers at a successful Afrocentric school. Provides the tools needed to teach multicultural histories in an antiracist way.Examines the benefits of Afrocentric curricula and the role of corrective history in promoting positive Black identity. Explores the intersections of precolonial history, student achievement, and Afrocentric education.