BAP113 After a Traumatic Event ft. Kimberly Thyberg

Welcome to the Boosting Achievement ESL podcast. This show is about teaching your class after a traumatic event.  You can listen or watch the show in this post or find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to “BAP113 After a Traumatic Event ft Kim Thyberg” on Spreaker.

In this episode, Kimberly Thyberg reached out to talk about returning to our classrooms after a traumatic event.  I highly recommend Newcomer teachers follow Kim because she is constantly sharing things that are working in her classroom.  Some of her tweets are below.

We recorded this show a while back so you’ll hear Kim and me talking about how we might create a sense of safety for our students following something difficult and frightening that we all experienced together.

I am proud to say that our company, Seidlitz Education, has now added two very important people to our Newcomer Division.

Elise Diaz & Dr. Marie Heath have extensive experience with newcomers and they bring deep backgrounds in trauma-informed teaching and social-emotional learning.  Dr. Michelle Yzquierdo was the first newcomer specialist at Seidlitz Education and I know what I know about newcomers because of her.  Please reach out ( carol@seidlitzeducation.com ) to learn more about how our Newcomer Division can support your work.

I have not had the same experience Kim’s class had gone through.  But I was able to tell her what we did when our community went through a natural disaster.  I wrote a blog post about teaching immigrants after that disaster back in 2017 and it was shared around the world. Classes in Canada reached out to my class because of that post.  It may be useful if you’re looking for ideas and resources along the lines of what Kim and I discussed.
In this show I mentioned the number of people displaced in the world and why Kim and I teach so many students who have limited formal education and have already lived through difficult circumstances.

Trauma Informed Educators Network

In our conversation, you’ll hear me tell Kim that I am subscribed to the Trauma Informed Educators Network Podcast.

At that link, you will find ways to follow them on Facebook and other opportunities to learn from TIENetwork. Their website explains that the TIENetwork is a social media network made up of 29,000+ practitioners in 100+ countries collaborating and connecting around being trauma-informed.

Teaching to Strengths Book

I also mention Teaching to Strengths: Supporting students living with trauma, violence, and chronic stress.  I have mentioned this book in other episodes, it is an important resource from Zacharian, Alvarez-Ortiz and Haynes.  You can find it here. 

211.org The United Way Help Line and Website.

Some of What Kim Did with her Students After Our Talk

You can find this printable at
We also talked about all the great things Kim shares.  She is constantly showing what is working with her newcomers.  She is a great follow!

Thank you again, Kim for taking time to talk with me about this difficult part of our job.  ALL of us have now gone through a pandemic and so we can all connect to some of the difficulties you were experiencing.  We appreciate your vulnerability and your willingness to come on the show. It helps all of us reflect and learn.

STRONG HUGS!! 🤗

OTHER THINGS I PROMISED in this show:

Nov 15th 4pm ET: Free webinar on Literacy for Emergent Bilinguals in Secondary: https://bit.ly/NAELPALiteracy

Our 3rd Quarter NAELPA/OELA/NCEL webinar on effective literacy (Elementary focus)

WEBINAR in REPLAY AND RESOURCES

 

Emily Francis’ PLC4Newcomers Meeting where I shared about Literacy for Secondary Newcomers

 

I hope these resources are helpful.  Thank you for checking them out and thank you for stopping by this podcast.  You are really extending my learning.

Take good care!

Carol