DML2015 Ignite Talk - Leora Wolf Prusan
0"What happens to teachers when their students are killed due to gang/gun-related violence? How do educators cope and build resilience? What kinds of supports do educators need from one another, from their administration, and from the district?
According to the Center for Disease Control 2013 report, gun violence is the third leading cause of death for youth between the ages 10-24. In Oakland, California, a young person has a 50/50 chance of either experiencing a bullet or going to college. How does this phenomenon impact teachers?
We are paying more and more attention to the impact of chronic community violence on youth. The dialogue in our communities and schools is shifting towards being trauma-informed and aware. Additionally, national attention towards episodes of school violence and gun-related school shootings has also increased.
However the experiences of schools situated in complex, on-going violence continue to be disenfranchised and unheard. Even more so, the educator experience of grappling with students experiencing on-going violence and student-death is less understood and discussed.
This talk discusses the challenges of student death (specifically, gang/gun related---secondary (seen or heard) and tertiary (learning of) student violent gang-related death.) on the teaching, counseling and school leadership practice and what supports educators need to maintain personal and professional health. Based on the first-ever study of 146 urban high school teachers' experience with student violent death, this talk brings to light a conversation point shared by many teachers but discussed and addressed by few.
Audience members will be introduced to seminal research. By engaging in inquiry around what impact educators report experiencing and by creating a space to speak honestly, authentically and bravely about how the death of students and student trauma impacts teachers, we create the opportunity to support educators equitably, justly, and right righteous care.
Each student killed by gang violence demands the same attention, and each educator in the young person’s school community deserves to teach in a culture of radical concern and care.
The hope is to present and construct tools and practices with and for educators to cope and grow through their primary or secondary experiences with student death and community violence. The intention is for the talk, space-holding, and community dialogue to be healing and transformative.
This is a social justice issue at its core: the talk challenges the culture of violence by surfacing counter-narratives of educators, by arming those who support our youth to receive attention and support.
About Leora Wolf-Prusan: Leora is a student support & school climate research associate at WestED; her doctoral research examined the impact of gang/gun related death on urban high school teachers. While a heavy issue, Leora brings light and a sense of urgency to the center of the conversation, allowing audience members to feel inspired by the resilience and strength of educators who carry these experiences and strategies for which we can advocate to make system-level improvement in our school systems. She is a skilled presenter, facilitator, and public speaker."