How do you shift shame?

A kind of magic happens when we learn about why we are acting as we are, when we understand how fight, flight and freeze shape our engagement with life and learning, when we make new meaning of our actions and non-actions. Then we can see that we are not wrong, not damaged goods—that we do make sense, some kind of sense—even if we must excavate a little to find out what’s behind our actions. For many years now I have been arguing that the most central, most basic aspect of addressing the impacts of violence on learning is simply to acknowledge it, to name it, to stop evading and avoiding. Recognizing that we were the ones who made meaning of our experiences, opens the possibility to shift those meanings, and this can be life-changing.

More silences are being broken now, movements for change are coalescing, insisting on recognition. Idle No More, Black Lives Matter, #metoo, #never again, #nomoresilence, and more, there is so much powerful organizing in response to too many violences. Recently random acts of violence with vehicles have shattered the complacency of my city. Violence is visible beyond the communities most affected, and this begins the process of shifting shame: not just me, not my fault, but an all too common experience.

In education we need more of that acknowledgement, accurate naming, visibility. Fight, flight, freeze, and their roles in protecting us in the face of danger may be almost obvious now, but how much have things changed in response to that knowledge? Too often the challenge to learn is still met with judgment or diagnosis, labels of disability and disorder. For young people teachers and parents often impose “consequences” for troublesome behaviour without acknowledging the role played by automatic reactions to threat. When students can’t learn, are absent, or not paying attention, simply don’t seem to be trying or working hard enough, the harsh judgments continue unabated. Schools and other educational venues don’t change quickly or easily.

Too often there is a sense that in the aftermath of violence we are broken, need fixing, and only an expert can do this. But here at learningandviolence.net our stance is different; we believe in the brilliance of our brains, the wisdom of our survival strategies, and hold radical respect for the ways we have negotiated our pasts. We believe that what is broken is our society, and our school systems. Survivors of violence in any of its insidious or overt forms are the canaries in the mines, alerting us to a pervasive problem. It is not students who have barriers to learning, but schools and colleges that erect road blocks through their most ordinary practices.

With the new version of the site we are getting ready for the next phase of working to increase awareness, and move the conversations forward every way we can. We plan to push back against the silence that erases attempts to pay attention, not only to toxic levels of violence and anxiety in the presence or aftermath of intolerable experiences, but also to the long-term impacts on learning, health, and our capacity to change. We know that curiosity, connection and a conscious awareness of how the brain works in response to difficult circumstances can help us identify our own old patterns shaped by fear, and that when we turn towards them with gentleness, and with support, then anything is possible.

It was that need to reach people far and wide, to change perspectives on learning difficulties, that motivated me to begin the learningandviolence.net website more than 10 years ago, to draw in so many others who created such wonderful innovative material. Now I’m excited again as we launch a new version. I can see now how many more people we might be able to reach, as we open it up, make the ideas more accessible and searchable. I’m imagining the people who might find us because they search with one of our keywords, then find more of our rich resources, and stumble upon our shame shifting stance! Perhaps they, or you, will discover more joy in learning along the way!?

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