What to Do if You Have a “Tyler” in Your Classroom

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

“I think I have an anger problem,” I shared with my husband over the phone as I was pulling out of our county’s latest professional learning session, “Every time I come out of a meeting or a training session, I feel really angry, and I don’t know what to do to make it better.”  

On this day, we had a motivational speaker named “Tyler.” He shared his moving story of overcoming trauma in his own life. It was a heart-wrenching story.  As he finished, I waited, along with the other 2500 educators in my school system, thinking he was going to offer a solution and some recommendations for how we, as educators, could deal with trauma.  However, he moved on from his own life to discuss instances of trauma that we had all experienced during the previous 18 months… tornados, a suicide car bombing, elections, protests, and of course, COVID.  As we listened and watched a PowerPoint full of pictures and videos of these traumatic events, I continued to wait, thinking surely there was a point, a solution, a recommendation.  How can we, as educators, support students who, like him, lived or are living with trauma?  The solutions never came; however, during the question and answer session, a teacher asked what he would suggest we do if we had a “Tyler” in our classroom. He chuckled and said, “Pray”. 

I was furious.

This was my 4th year as a principal within a school serving a lower socioeconomic population.  Every single day, I dealt with students who lived with trauma.  Their trauma ranged from situations involving physical abuse to drug abuse to neglect.  Some have a parent who is incarcerated while others have a parent who is working multiple jobs to support the family.  Many lived with grandparents, great-grandparents, or even aunts and uncles.  Many go to sleep hungry and wear clothes that are dirty or don’t fit properly.  

In recent years, our county has spent millions of dollars purchasing research-based, rigorous curricula to support the education of our students.  We have invested in training our teachers on foundational literacy and building knowledge to support learning.  I have worked to ensure that the teachers in my building are supported and engaged in the process of curriculum implementation.  I have worked to ensure that they have all the necessary materials to support teaching.  I have preached the message of “Teach the Curriculum, Trust the Curriculum” over and over.  I have watched the teachers work diligently to implement the curriculum; however, what we haven’t seen are the results for our students.

Most of the classrooms in my building had at least one “Tyler”, if not more, on their class roster, and the teachers worked hard to meet their needs daily.  How do you bring together the rigorous curriculum with a traumatized student whose basic needs are not being met?  How do you utilize rigorous text with a kindergarten student who has never held a book before?  How do you expect students to write complete paragraphs in response to text when they don’t know how to spell their names correctly?  Over 50% of our student population regularly flags for tier II or tier III groups through RTI, indicating that these students lack the most basic literacy skills needed to be successful.

While school systems continue to spend millions on curriculum and “motivational” speakers, what are they spending to meet the needs of the “Tylers” who are enrolled?  How can we close the academic gap that exists between curriculum expectations and reality within our lower-income schools?  How can we meet the social and emotional needs of students proactively?