Restoring Students' Innate Power

Book excerpt: This book explores the effects of trauma on newcomer students and presents stress-mitigating strategies that empower these multilingual students as they transition to a new environment. Diverse insights and experiences bring high-powered learning spaces to life. However, the cultural backgrounds of newcomer students and their families can be very different from the dominant norms of the new community, resulting in misalignments that constitute a persistent challenge. In addition, the process of arriving can exacerbate stress. Entering a new school or classroom means situating oneself within a new context of language, culture, community, and shifting personal identities. This transition shock contributes to a sense of diminished power. In serving these students, we can't afford to leave transition shock out of our conversations about trauma. We must not only stitch together pieces of culturally responsive practice and trauma-informed care but also become practitioners of stress-mitigating strategies that empower newcomer students. We must focus instruction on our students' unique identities. We must restore their power. In Restoring Students' Innate Power, newcomer educator and cultural competency expert Louise El Yaafouri presents * An understanding of transition shock and how stress and trauma affect recent arrivers. * The four pillars of transition shock and how they affect learning. * How students see themselves and how the cultural aspects of their identities inform teachers' work in mitigating transition shock. * How social-emotional learning links to trauma-informed practice. This book isn't exclusively about trauma; it's about restoring power. The distinction is critical. Focusing on the trauma or traumatic event roots us in the past. Restoration of power moves us forward.