During the 18 years he was a counselor at Barratt Middle School in South Philadelphia, Steven Hymans became accustomed to seeing students arrive for classes traumatized beyond their years.
“There were so many homicides in the neighborhood,” Hymans said recently. “In my 18 years at the middle school, I saw a lot of trauma, a lot of neglect. I did so much grief counseling while I was there.”
The kids who came to school having witnessed violence — a relative shot, or a robbery, perhaps — often found it a bit more difficult to settle down and study, Hymans said. Many showed symptoms of “hypervigilance,” a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. “You can see the instability is difficult for them,” he said, “and stressful.”
Hymans’ story apparently isn’t uncommon: Using national rates as a guide, officials estimate at least half of Philadelphia school students have experienced one major traumatic event. At least one-fifth have probably experienced two or more such events.
Do the math, and that means as many as 60,000 Philadelphia students are coming to school having experienced trauma that has the potential to upend their lives, their schooling, and their future.
"The research shows that there's these repeated traumas coming into the schools," said Jody Greenblatt, who oversees school climate matters for the district.
[For more of this story, written by Joel Mathis, go to http://www.phillymag.com/news/...#V01CcDZPotbqAQTG.99]
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