SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Two thirds of Americans are exposed to extreme stress in childhood - divorce, a death in the family. And this early adversity, if it's experienced in high doses, can greatly increase the risk of cancer and heart disease later on. In the short term, it can also make it incredibly difficult for children to focus and thrive in schools. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is founder of the Center For Youth Wellness in San Francisco. She's also written a new book called "The Deepest Well." It's all about childhood stress and what to do about it. Cory Turner of the NPR Ed team reports.
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: In a minute, we're going to visit a school that's part of this growing movement to understand and treat child trauma. But first, it's hard to appreciate just how destructive this early stress can be without a quick lesson in how our brains are supposed to respond to stress. So here's Burke Harris with a metaphor from her book.
NADINE BURKE HARRIS: Imagine you're walking in the forest and you see a bear.
TURNER: Like this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEAR ROARING)
TURNER: Immediately, your brain's amygdala sounds the alarm, and your adrenal glands start pumping out stress hormones.
(SOUNDBITE OF HEARTBEAT)
BURKE HARRIS: Your heart begins to pound. Your pupils dilate. Your airways open up.
(SOUNDBITE OF HEAVY BREATHING)
BURKE HARRIS: And you are ready to either fight that bear or run from the bear.
TURNER: Fight or flight. If you think about it, fighting a bear is a terrible idea, so the amygdala also sends a message to the super-rational part of your brain that says...
BURKE HARRIS: So we're just going to turn you down. Just shh - be quiet - right? - because now is not a time for thinking.
TURNER: Instead, the alarm center activates a part of the brain called...
BURKE HARRIS: The noradrenergic nucleus of the locus coeruleus...
TURNER: Translation?
BURKE HARRIS: ...The part of the brain that's responsible for - I don't know karate, but I do know ka-razy (ph).
TURNER: Finally, the brain tells your immune system to bring the inflammation - just in case that bear gets its claws into you. Now, normally, all this shuts off as soon as the danger passes. But if the young brain goes through too much stress, well, this shut-off starts to short-circuit, constantly sending kids into fight-or-flight mode. Just imagine you're a child in school and small things like a noisy cafeteria or a teacher just asking you to sit down feel like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEAR GROWLING)
TURNER: It's exhausting - and not just for the child. Imagine being a teacher in a school where student stress is common and where poverty makes it even worse. In fact, Burke Harris says in many low-income classrooms, it's not one or two students who have had high doses of stress. It's most of them.
BURKE HARRIS: If you had that many kids in a class and they all had epilepsy, what would you be doing? It seems unfair - right? - because we're talking about a neurotoxin.
TURNER: And that neurotoxin can mean a lot of disruptive behavior. Small things can trigger big feelings. Students in stress can also have trouble paying attention and staying focused. Traditionally, schools have responded to these behaviors with punishment. But there's a growing movement to understand student trauma and plan for it.
CHARLES CURTIS: He got shot Saturday. Cousin got shot; friend got killed. So essentially, he had a whole dice game get shot up. This all happened the day after he buried his grandmother, his primary caretaker.
TURNER: Charles Curtis is the psychologist at Ron Brown College Prep, a public high school in Washington D.C. Last year, I spent hundreds of hours at Ron Brown, where teachers talk about student trauma every day. In the moment you just heard, Curtis was running a staff training on how to handle disruptive behavior. He was also prepping teachers for the return of a ninth-grader who had just experienced enormous tragedy and stress. Curtis reminded his colleagues to be patient. If the student is defiant, don't raise your voice or get in his face.
CURTIS: That'd be crazy. Like, yo, this man just went through God knows what. He's in a safe space, and I just made that uncomfortable for him. So let me be thoughtful.
TURNER: In short, a teacher can be the bear or the one thing that keeps the bears away - a safe, nurturing caregiver. Then English teacher Schalette Gudger chimed in. Embracing students' trauma, she said, means putting their needs first. Yes, they need to learn, but they also need to feel safe.
SCHALETTE GUDGER: Like, some of them are so on edge that they literally do not sleep at night.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah.
GUDGER: So if you need a break - like, if you're comfortable enough here to put your head down, baby, by all means, rest - because this may be their only space to rest.
TURNER: At Ron Brown and an increasing number of schools, when students can't cope in class, they can also go to a reflection room. And when fight or flight leads to actual fights, suspension is a last resort. Instead, students sit down with staff to unpack their mistakes and talk through coping strategies for the next time a bear shows up in class.
Cory Turner, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF POOLSIDE'S "NEXT TO YOU")