Scream of Consciousness and School ReOpening

The title is not a typo, although I make them all the time (it’s scream not stream).

I got the phrase “scream of consciousness” from an OpEd in the NYTimes written by amazing thinker Maureen Dowd (and referenced by others). She was writing about Trump’s response to Kamala’s outstanding speech at the DNC; during the speech, it seems Trump was like a spewing volcano, shouting his thoughts to whatever media outlet and to whomever he could get to listen to him.

I want to take this same phenomenal evocative phrase — scream of consciousness — and turn it on its head. I want to apply it to educational settings and student behaviors from the perspective of trauma responsive pedagogy.

Hear me out.

The Start of School

As schools restart (some have started actually), students of all ages and stages are returning to a learning environment. But, when they return, we often do not know what these students experienced over the summer months when they were not in school (assuming they were not in summer school). And we might be shocked or saddened by what the summer wrought. For many students, the summer was not a respite. These students might be seeing “red,” a reference to the artwork above that I recently completed in my own moments of stress.

Examples drawn from real life: Some students experienced family dysfunction. Some experienced food or housing scarcity. Some experienced oppressive heat with no quality fans or no air conditioning. Some experienced other natural disasters (fires, flooding). Some experienced drug/alcohol use or overuse (themselves or among their family/friends). Some experienced love and/or loss. Some experienced hard physical work to earn money for themselves and often their families. Others experienced parentification; while others played, these students were caring for siblings and sometimes parents or grandparents or other relatives.

Bottom line: summer was not a sojourn at the beach or European travel adventures or trips to theme parks or national parks or zoos for many many students. Summer was not for play.

What to Ask (and Not Ask)

That means several things as students return to school.

First, educators should not begin the new year by asking students: tell us all about your summer vacation (whether verbally or in writing or through drawings). Yipes. That non-existent vacation. Instead, try asking students to name one thing they enjoyed over the summer. “No homework” is a good answer. “Sleeping late” is another good answer.

Second, for some students, back to school is a return to structure and order and omnipresent role models and support systems (including food and healthcare and counseling). Yes, school can be an antidote to a chaotic out-of-school life. This is a key recognition because while students may complain about their school schedule and activities, school is actually settling for them internally. They get to be around non-familial adults who believe in them.

Next, pause when you see students deregulate. They are expressing where they are at psychologically. They are sharing their scream of consciousness, and they want their educators and peers to hear them. They are crying out for attention. They are trying to share how they feel. Behavior, I often say, is the language of trauma.

So, students who are shouting out and acting out are not trying to be bad. They are not retrying to make life difficult for teachers. They are seeking attention. Screams of consciousness are often uncontrollable; it is how one responds to one’s environment and one’s experiences. I am not comparing Trump to students except in this sense: when one is threatened or feels like one is way out of control or one’s autonomic nervous system is activated, one dysregulates. I’d suppose that Trump is threatened by Kamala and the prospect of losing the upcoming election; I am not justifying his behavior but explaining it.

From the educator’s perspective, the key is to determine what is causing the student to dysregulate and what one can do in the short and longer term to help, including enabling the student to reregulate without embarrassment or shame or guilt. For Trump, this is a different situation as he is a grown man (well, maybe not in all senses) and it is not our job to reregulate a potential leader of the free world.

Those educators who see student screams of consciousness as screams for help can take several action steps and that does not, emphasis on not, mean disciplining or punishing the student. Sure, we want our students to be regulated, and we want to assist them in getting to stability but they should not be punished for their cries for help. (We can express our thoughts on Trump dysregulating by walking with our feet, namely by voting.)

Reregulation Steps

Try sharing with students that you see they are struggling. (Idea: Today seems to be hard for you.) Ask them if there is anything you can do to help. Stay calm and use a calming tone. Indeed, if you can process in place rather than removing the student from the classroom (absent violence of course), that will help the student acting out from feeling even more disconnected and disaffected. If you can connect with this student, if you can distract the student, if you can make yourself available to this student, all of that will help. Bottom line, there are a myriad of ways to help students reregulate; one could write chapters in a book or articles on this topic (been there; done that).

I hope that, as we start the school year and we experience many screams of consciousness from our students (sadly they are plentiful), we can recognize that our students need us and while their way of asking for help can and should be improved upon, they want us to hear them. They want us to listen. And we can help them develop better modes of expression. (I use the hand signal of the fist quickly opening, as in “I am flipping out.”)

Let’s do that: listen to the voices and watch the actions of our students. They are begging for us to be there for them. We can do this. That’s part of why educators are remarkable people: the vast majority of them get their job. Their job to help students learn academically and psychosocially and become their best selves. Their very best selves.