My students are working on solving physics word problems systematically. This is one of the most frustrating (for the students) assignments I give them, but a valuable one because it’s essentially end game for every assignment they will see for the rest of the year.
I give my students class time to work on the assignment so I can circulate and help them. A handful of my students, mostly in my on-level classes, give up and stop trying but don’t ask for help. (This is one of the reasons I circulate and check in with all of them.) When I talk with them, it turns out that many of them have been chastised for asking questions (often by parents/family members), and are afraid to ask for help.
In thinking about my students over the years, it occurs to me that a lot of students seem to get leveled based on their trauma response. Common trauma responses are fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Students who fawn seem to often end up in honors classes. Students who freeze seem to be more likely to end up in on-level classes, and students who fight or flee seem to end up in lower-level classes.
This makes a certain amount of sense. Students with a “fight” response often end up in trouble. If they cause a disruption, common consequences include calling them out or chastising them in front of the class, separating them from other students, serving detentions after school, or in some cases being removed from the classroom. While each of these has the desired effect of removing the disruption so the other students can learn, it also has the undesired effect of excluding the misbehaving student from class activities or causing resentment that dissuades the student from participating. Often, this resentment results in the student becoming unwilling to do classwork. All of these outcomes prevent the student from learning, which slows progress, resulting in the student being placed in a low-level, low-expectation class.
Responding productively to students with a “fight” response requires the ability to de-escalate them in a way that does not cause resentment. This is much easier said than done. Some students will resist attempts at de-escalation, making it challenging for even the most well-intentioned teacher. Teachers also have a limited amount of time to deal with disruptions when there are 20-30 other students whose learning has been placed on hold until the situation is dealt with. Issuing a consequence means sacrificing the one student on behalf of the rest of the class, which many educators consider an acceptable trade-off, but after several teachers over several years have made the same trade-off, the sacrifice ends up being the student’s future, not just their grade in one class.
Students with a “flight” response are the ones who respond to situations they find frightening by running to their guidance counselor, social worker, therapist, the nurse’s office, or sometimes another teacher whom they are comfortable with. As with the “fight” students, “flight” students miss out on critical activities that are designed to teach them the concepts and skills that they need. These students end up in classes of a lower level than they are likely capable of.
Responding productively to students with a “flight” response usually requires meeting and talking with the student in a low-pressure setting, such as after school or in a social worker’s office with the social worker also present. This can be time-consuming, and it can take a lot of time and effort to get the student to a headspace that keeps them in the classroom, but when even one teacher does so, it can create a positive feedback loop in which the student is more receptive to talking with other teachers.
Students with a “freeze” response remain in the classroom and benefit from direct instruction and class discussions, especially when they can listen without the expectation of being “cold-called”. However, at the first sign of difficulty, many of them “freeze”. When this happens, rather than asking the teacher for help, they quietly get out something to distract them, which might be homework for another class, a book, or their phones. They do everything they can to avoid being noticed, hoping class will end before they have to face the teacher questioning them about their progress. “Freeze” students often end up in a class that is a level below what they would otherwise be capable of.
Often, students with a “freeze” response respond positively to reassurances that it is safe to ask questions, and a promise that the teacher will proactively check in with them out of a desire to help them to be successful. This is what I did with the students I described in the introduction to this post. After I checked in with them personally and gave them the help that they needed on the classwork, I asked quietly and in a friendly manner whether someone or something in their lives had made them afraid to ask questions (to which they sheepishly responded in the affirmative). I responded that it is always safe to ask me questions, and I made a promise to them that knowing that asking questions is hard for them, I would try to check in with them more frequently. In exchanged, I asked them to promise to try to ask for help when they are struggling.
The “fawn” response is a more recent addition to “fight, flight or freeze”. Students with a “fawn” response are teacher-pleasers, who try to do everything the authority figure asks or might appreciate. These students participate heavily in class discussions, usually trying to guess what the teacher wants to hear. During independent or group work, they ask a lot of questions, both because of their need for reassurance and because the teacher shows appreciation for being asked. All of these behaviors result in their learning the content more fully and thoroughly, which means students with a “fawn” response are more likely to end up in honors and AP® classes.
While it’s tempting to think that there is nothing wrong with a “fawn” response, as “fawn” students usually do well in school, fawning behavior is usually indicative of an unhealthy dependence on the approval of others. A helpful response by teachers is to try to cultivate more independence in these students. In the short-term, praising them for their independence can be effective, because it creates a positive feedback loop, using their own fawning behavior as a way to reduce that behavior and their dependence on it.
Obviously, this categorization is not true for all students. Students are leveled based on estimates of what they are capable of, and much of the time these estimates are accurate and the students are appropriately placed. However, I think it is worth considering whether there might be a trauma response that affected how the students were leveled, and if so, how to implement an intervention to help the student.
