Interviewed by Kaitlin Smith
The Vulnerable Heart of Literacy
Elizabeth Dutro
Teachers College Press
1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027
www.tcpress.com
9780807763124, $29.95, PB, 144pp, www.amazon.com
Kaitlin Smith speaks with Dr. Elizabeth Dutro and Alex Shevrin Venet concerning the need for trauma-informed teaching in these times. Dr. Dutro is a professor and chair of the Literacy Studies program at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education. There, she draws on past classroom experience and her extensive research to design pedagogies that make space for difficult experiences to be honored as knowledge in schools.
An excerpt from Dr. Dutro:
I would say that school leaders ought to be sure that they’re informed on what it means to be trauma informed and the range of approaches that exist, think about whether equity is at the center, and watch for the use of certain keywords in those approaches and in their workplace. If words like “damage” or “broken” are foregrounded, it’s a time for leaders to push back and say, “No. That is not how we are going to view children in my school. I know there are alternative ways to think about this that are much more humane, that are anti-racist.” Find those models and use them.
Read the full interview here