Book of the Month November 2020 - Know Me To Teach Me

Know Me To Teach Me: Differentiated discipline for those recovering from adverse childhood experiences by Louise Michelle Bombèr
 
The stated goal of Louise Bombèr’s book, Know Me To Teach Me, is timely and interesting: to integrate what we know about attachment, trauma, and neuroscience into practical and wise action. But are we ready for this? One of the tenets of this book is that we should respect and honour our biology as human beings. Louise Bomber attempts to anchor our approach toward young people in the science of the nervous system, but is there a danger that we expect too much of what science can offer us?
 
The wise actions suggested at the end of the chapter on ‘Respecting Biology’ are helpful: putting relationships first, being playful and noticing, and using the presence of the adult to enable a pupil to stay grounded in the here-and-now. Louise’s practical suggestions have helped me develop as a teacher over the years. They are both sensitive to the young person’s needs and ‘doable’ even for a busy and sometimes ‘feeling-inadequate-to-deal-with-this’ kind of teacher. How I wish that the science bit of the chapter — polyvagal theory— was better established and evidenced. Especially considering we already have attachment theory, which gives us teachers a well-attested rationale for understanding how children are impacted by trauma, fear, and stress.
 
In the chapter ‘Rediscovering the Art of Attunement,’ I would like to have seen more examples of how teachers can build their awareness and sensitivity, especially with children who don’t give us straightforward cues. Young people don’t always clearly signal to us what they need. Louise is good at translating a theory into a framework for thinking about behaviours and interventions, but I am not confident that the ‘five states’ that she uses is well researched or evidenced. When a young person becomes more fidgety, is that really a change in a child’s state of being? Should I be thinking about switching to a sensory intervention, or could it just be that my pupils don’t see the relevance of what I am teaching?
 
There is a danger that we think too much in terms of trauma concepts. In my opinion, schools can be genuinely scary and stressful places, and we must be cautious about jumping too quickly into thinking that a child’s behaviour is due to ‘faulty neuroception.’ Similarly, as teachers, we need to keep the bigger picture in view. The behaviours in our class could be due more to our pedagogy or the fact that kids are bored.
 
There are some nuggets of wisdom in this book: Louise links an understanding of how children are impacted by trauma to her experience of what actions really make a difference. Some interventions sound simple, but in practice they take real skill. I found Louise’s explanation of how to use PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, and Empathy) really helpful. I can tell from her examples of when to switch between empathy and curiosity that she has used this approach and has had to work with children who are struggling to accept an adult’s interest. Similarly, her advice on relational repair is worth reading; there is a very helpful summary of how to provide relational repair in her model of a relationship policy for schools.
 
Louise’s thinking is often insightful: she clearly identifies the gap between what we know about trauma and attachment and how that affects our practice, and this book attempts to address that gap. There is helpful advice, but I felt that in places we get ahead of the science. We need theoretical frameworks and an evidence-base for teaching young people, but we mustn’t lose sight of the complexity of teaching. As teachers, the danger is becoming too rigid or limited in our thinking if we oversimplify the science.

David Woodier

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