While Adverse Childhood Experiences can cause toxic levels of trauma and lead to negative health implications in adulthood, researchers have discovered that Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) can mitigate their effects.
What are these PCEs that can build resilience and add years to someone’s life?
- Being able to talk with family about your feelings
- Feeling supported by friends
- Having at least two non-parent adults who take an interest in you
- Feeling a sense of belonging in school
- Participating in community traditions
- Feeling like your family stood by you in difficult times
Teachers were a huge part of building resilience in my life. As I begin my 28th year in education and my 6th year as an Intervention Specialist, I am ever aware of the power a classroom teacher has in the lives of their students. The teachers in my building found these notes in their mailboxes today, in little burlap bags with mini watering cans and a pack of seeds, to remind them of the immense possibilities they hold in the life of a child. A special thank you to my friend Heather Leighton who knows how precious those wildflowers can be.
May All Your Weeds Be Wildflowers
That’s my wish for you this year, in this garden of a classroom where you are planting seeds. Your garden will have marigolds; identify them early on. These are the students who have “I love my teacher” written all over their faces on the very first day of class and still, on those dark days when you might have forgotten what made you select this profession to begin with. Seek out the marigolds when you need them and even when you don’t think you do.
Your garden will have tulips. You will water and fertilize them with every intervention you can imagine – with no movement, not a single green leaf or digraph mastered or inference from the text. And suddenly, come spring, they will bloom! Every ounce of energy you have put into them will come back tenfold, and you will feel like you have made a difference, at least with this one.
And then there is the weed – you know the one. They are making your life miserable with their behavior, apathy, or intolerable home life – any of the many “things” you can’t seem to fix, no matter how hard you try. Secretly, you are so sure that nothing you do will ever make a difference with that one because nobody could. You just never know – that one might be a wildflower. The wildflowers come back when you are in the 10th, 15th, or 20th year of your career or sometimes when you are busy planning lessons or wrapping up the year, and that email, letter, or visit stops you in your tracks because you never realized that one thing you said or did made the difference between a life lost and a life saved- because that is the power of one teacher in a classroom. That is the power you have to make a difference.
I hope that all your weeds are wildflowers. Let me know if I can help. It’s going to be a great year!
Amy Miller – Intervention Specialist
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