The 'Disability-Opportunity' Model of Trauma-Informed Learning
A Meditation on the pedagogy Kurt Hahn
For the last couple of weeks, I have been writing some reflections on what it means (in theory and in practice) to work to create trauma-informed classrooms. This is Part 5. You can find the introductory post in the series here, in case you want to go back and read from the beginning.
In 1904, the German, Kurt Hahn, was eighteen years old. He was an active young man and enjoyed the outdoors. On this particular day, Hahn was out of a day of sailing on a lake near his home and ended up staying in the direct sunlight much too long.
The results were disastrous. Hahn suffered a severe case of sunstroke, so bad that he has required not only to spend several months recovering in darkened rooms but also had to have an operation to remove the occipital bone at the rear of his skull.
For the rest of his life, Hahn was required to be extremely careful of sunlight, with an eccentric style of dress that included darkened glasses and wide-brimmed hats whenever he was outdoors. A few hours’ indiscretions had lifelong consequences.
Given this background, and his extreme sensitivities, it may seem hard to imagine, but later in his life, Kurt Hahn was instrumental in establishing one of the most successful wilderness-based education programs in the world, which are now known as the international network of Outward Bound schools.
It was during this period of extended convalescence that Hahn reflected carefully and deeply on the role of education, and how limitations factor into the success (or failure) of the educational moment.
Core to these reflections was a singular phrase that ended up becoming the seed crystal of Hahn’s pedagogy: Your disability is your opportunity.
At first, this statement may seem odd; however, it’s logic is extremely Pauline. Rather than emphasizing the educational moment based upon moving from strength to strength, Hahn’s insight was to leaven the educational moment with periods of meditation upon current limitations. This would occur in an environment where such limitations would not be ridiculed, but rather, would be emphasized as positive opportunities for reflection and growth (forgive the male-centric language):
Make children meet with triumph and defeat. After you have replenished their tanks of vitality, by discovering and maintaining their strengths, but not before, you should tackle their weaknesses. It is possible to wait on a child’’s inclinations and gifts and arrange carefully for an unbroken series of successes. You may make him or her happy that way –I doubt it–but you certainly cripple him for the battle of life. It is our business to plunge the children into enterprises in which they are likely to fail, and we may not hush up that failure; but we should teach them to overcome defeat.“To him that overcometh will give to eat of the tree of life”...Success in the sphere of one’s weakness is often as great a source of satisfaction as triumph in the sphere of one’’s talents.
It is important to understand that this emphasis on limitations must be conducted in an environment of trust and where the student has learned to be able to risk.
What this means, in practice, is often that the instructor in these situations is paying very close attention to each student in the educational moment, and is herself or himself leading the educational moment with modeled vulnerability. In other words, the instructor is working to undermine the power dynamic of “expertise” or “mastery” in the educational moment, choosing instead to present to the students as a learner with limitations (emotional or functional) who is willing to take risks to grow.
The way this is developed in Outward Bound pedagogy is through the concept of the “challenge zone.” In this model, it is assumed that everyone operates out of a zone of comfort. We have routines and self-expectations, as well as a self-perception of our limitations.
Beyond the edge of this zone of comfort is a zone we perceive to be risky or dangerous. In the Outward Bound analysis, this is referred to as the “challenge zone.” As we move toward this zone, we may feel social or physical panic, despite the fact that we are still a long way from actual danger.
As a result, our “mental space” of comfort looks like this:
Hahn’s insight was to understand that our zone of comfort is often very narrow. We like the things we are good at, and we avoid the things at which we do not demonstrate immediate expertise. The result is that our comfort (the zone of our success) becomes a de facto limitation. It is our disability.
It is in this light that we can explore Hahn’s statement your disability is your opportunity: The goal of the educational moment is not to reinforce the zone of comfort. Instead, the goal of the educational moment is to create a space where the student can venture beyond the comfort zone, into the “challenge zone.” In other words, we must find ways to bring our students into the space of growth, while making sure they are not moving beyond the realm of challenge into a zone of actual (physical, social, or psychological) danger.
Thus, in the wake of a successful engagement with this educational moment, the “zone of comfort” grows, into the challenge zone. We learn that we can risk more, and accomplish more, than we initially believed or knew that we could. As a result, the zones now look more like this:
The power of Hahn’s insight is manifold, but for our discussion, I want to focus on the assumption it makes about the subjects (instructor and student) within the educational moment. It is assumed that each comes to the moment with a disability, a wound. We each come to the moment with limitations.
This is an important corrective to the assumption that the educational moment represents a manifestation of the “normal.” in other words, this is a moment where each presents to the other from a space of social vulnerability, rather than from social strength.
That is to say, if we do not present in this moment with our disability, we will not be able to realize our opportunity. We will have the appearance of educational growth, but not the actuality of it.
Thus it becomes very important to consider Hahn’s pedagogy in an explicitly trauma-informed context. We should imagine that the ground state of our classroom is a space where students enter with disabilities. They enter this relational space as wounded persons, as persons with limitations. Further, as instructors, we must enter that same space with an acknowledgment of disability, of woundedness, and limitation.
It is clear that if these ground states are not observed, the educational moment could very easily become a space of new trauma. If we expect students to be vulnerable and take risks while not being ourselves visibly available in our risk and vulnerability, we can re-create the imbalances of power that re-traumatize.
Note that most “traditional” classroom structures are designed to leverage exactly this kind of imbalanced power, and to make the instructor impervious to (social, psychological, actual) disability. This is why the traditional structures of the classroom should be subject to examination and interrogation.
Students will present their limitations to us in different ways, of course. More than this, by the time they reach us, students may have learned the social coping mechanism of presenting “safe” limitations (which they know are not actually limitations but will appear to the instructor as something that can be “worked on” and thus “satisfy” the educational moment without any actual education transpiring). This means that the instructor needs to be very intentional in creating spaces of interaction where, over time, actual growth and education might eventually occur.
This will require close attention on the part of the instructor. It will also require acknowledging that, for many of our students, entering our classroom means they are already entering a panic zone (though most have been socialized to hide that fact from their instructors, and often even from themselves). It takes time, effort, and the patient building of trust to allow students to experience the educational moment as a zone of comfort, where they might at last be expected to engage in challenging themselves in the manner that Hahn envisioned.
In conclusion, I believe that Hahn’s insight that your disability is your opportunity is incredibly helpful and powerful, provided we have the humility to see that—in most cases—the social dynamics of our classrooms often present the greatest debilitation that our students will need to overcome, in order for education to actually begin to occur.
As I mentioned, this is part 5 of a series on “creating a trauma-informed classroom.” You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment, and if you want to ensure you get access to the whole series, please consider subscribing. Also, if you think others would benefit from reading these ideas, it would be wonderful if you would share them. Those links are below. Thank you.