Students exposed to violence at home may benefit from specific approaches and stragegies. While these approaches benefit most students, and are likely already being used to some degree in your classroom, they are especially helpful for students exposed to violence at home.
1. Create a safe and low-stress environment that promotes respect towards others.
- Establish an explicit norm against violence.
- Consistently enforce non-acceptance of violence
- Teach and reward non-violent conflict-resolution and cooperation
- Model nuturing, respectful behavior and gender equality
- Foster cooperation
- Reduce competition.
- Avoid creating situations where students may be humiliated (peers picking teams)
2. Provide positive experiences and activities to promote security, self-esteem, and learning.
- Provide positive reinforcement for students' efforts.
- Provide opportunities for fun.
- Teach all students to recognize their strengths and focus on ensuring that all students experience success.
- Celebrate students' cultural and religious observances.
3. Let students know what to expect
- Plan and prepare the students for visitors
- Minimize last minute scheduling changes
- Give advance notice of upcoming events
- Give advance notice of upcoming lessons or activities that may touch on difficult experiences.
4. Increase positive connections to school
- Look for a match between the student' interests and or strengths and the course ( specific special project), school (assisting custodian) or extracurricular activity (club, sports).
- Encourage participation. Interact with the student from time to tiem to allow the student to talk about his/her involvement.
- Enlist peer ( cross-age-mentor, tutor) and adult (staff volunteers) support to provide encouragement and support.
- Use celebrities students can identify with, who value education, as role models.
5. The following strategies maybe particularly beneficial for students living with women abuse who are experiencing tiredness, lack of confidence in learning, difficulty attending and concentrating, and disruptiosn in homework routines.
- Provide time during the school day for homework completion when the student maybe more able to attend to and complete it.
- Use cooperative learning strategies that allo wfor more immediate feedback, occasions to share, and small group opportunities.
- Consider ways of phyiscally setting up your classroom to take a variety of learning styles into account.
- Check often for understanding to see if what you are saying or modeling is being heard or understood.
- Repeat information in a calm manner.
- Allow students to use learning aids such as tape recorders, calculators, reference charts, and computers as necessary.
6. Take advantage of opportunities to teach students about healthy relationships, equality, and gender roles.
7. Be aware that some activities or situations may remind students of troubling events associated with the violence in their homes, or violence or trauma in other contexts (community, another country).
- Examples of events or themes maybe difficult for children living with violence include;
- raised voices
- alcohol/drug prevention activities/presentations
- making something in class to give to a parent
- violence prevention education
- peer fights
- Affected students may display intensified regular behavior or a change in behavior such as withdrawing, appearing preoccupied, becoming agitated or distressed, or acting out. Strategies that may benefit these students include:
- Inviting the student to assist with another task (giving out handouts)
- asking the student to run an errand (taking something to the office or library)
- talking with the student after class.
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