(from Faculty Focus) Add Trauma Glasses to Your Teacher Toolkit. Faculty members have a lot of responsibilities in addition to teaching, like planning, prepping, and advising. With enough time, I’m sure that l could add a considerable number of other duties to this list. We love the job because it is rewarding and challenging, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought on new challenges, such as work from home requirements, social isolation, and trying to get through these last few academic years with our physical and mental health still intact. Well, if you thought the slew of challenges was coming to an end, think again.
As higher education enrollment numbers decline, Covid relief funds dry up, inflation continues to rise, and labor shortages grow—pressure is building on many campuses. This sounds like an introduction to an essay about self-care or ways to avoid burnout, but it isn’t. Self-care and wellness are essential for faculty, but this is about our students, how we see them, and how to see them through trauma glasses. What are trauma glasses? Trauma glasses are a way to conceptualize how we view and interpret student behavior, and we all need to add them to our teacher toolkit.
