Zemii ゼミ: RootEd: How Trauma Impacts Learning and Society

This was previously sent out on Substack in 2021 (Published in July 2020). Today, I will provide the links to the rest of the book at the bottom of the preface so that you can read it in its entirety. Some of the chapters are available to read for free. If you would like to have full access to the entire book, you can upgrade to a paid subscription of $7/month. This book is currently being sold in print worldwide at the following link:

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Introduction

There are two distinct ages when the brain is vulnerable to trauma due to high neurological development. Researcher, Jay Geidd, M.d., has found that up until the age of 5 to 6 years old, children develop 95% of the structure of their brain (2014). A secondary phase of development occurs in the prefrontal cortex around 11 to 12 years, just before puberty (Geid, 2014). These are the two phases when children find themselves facing the reactions adults have to their newly inspired independence.

Toddlers suddenly want to explore independently of …

Preface

Shella Zelenz — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 06:10:08 GMT

“We need this insight.” Mike Kernell, Board Member, Shelby County Schools, Tennessee (Memphis)

This work came to fruition during my doctoral dissertation process. My initial inquiry when beginning my doctoral journey was to find out why the child was removed from education. Why do they not see the child? The reason this was important to me is personal. I began having challenges with the school system as a parent. This actually began even earlier than the school system, with the daycares my oldest child was enrolled in during the 1990’s. Much of the tactics used by said daycares were what I considered abuse. However, as the parent, they spoke down to me as if the reason they had to treat my child in such a manner was my fault. They would then point out that they had my child more than I did, so they knew my child better than I did. All this told me was that the behavior issues they were having had to be a direct result of their interactions with my child if they had my child more than …

Chapter 14: Practical Application

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 14:00:56 GMT

After thorough examination of the history of education in the United States, the psychological conditioning tactics utilized and the source of these strategies, it is crucial to consider the impact that these efforts have had on our society. We have had well over a century of compulsory education with these particular strategies in place, so it is now that we can state there is sufficient evidence to the outcomes provided by these efforts. The rise in behavior issues, violence, and decline in academic achievement should be the most obvious visual demonstrations of how we have failed our society and our youth. Now that there is increasing research in epigenetics and neuroscience, there is further evidence that the efforts made have had long-term and generational impact on collective groups of society. The inclusion of psychiatric medication started in the 1990’s and has continued to increase and be utilized with younger and younger children before their brains have developed. Most evid…

Chapter 13: Communication Skills

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 14:01:01 GMT

Communication is important in any relationship. Without communication, assumptions and misunderstandings prevail. This creates emotional reactions and behaviors that are counter to effective relationship building or to accomplishing goals. Much of the communication commonly seen in schools and families is more in alignment with maintaining order than respecting the individuals in the room. It is as if the individuals are less important than the goal. This is not to be confused with collectivist cultures who are looking for the common good of all involved. This is different. This is meeting the desire of an external party for the good of that party. The family and school are then subservient to the external party’s expectations. So, meaningful communication takes a back seat to ensure that the external party is appeased.

Teachers

Who is the external party? Well, in schools, it would be the school district, and the government entities that fund the schools. It isn’t about the teachers in …

Chapter 12: The Alternatives

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 14:01:06 GMT

Creative Collaborative Environments

In this chapter I will criticize the competitive emphasis that exists in current schools such as letter grading, standardized tests, etc., in contrast with more natural approaches such as experiential learning, student leadership, and intrinsic motivation. First and foremost, "the teacher cannot be the only expert in the classroom. To deny students their own expert knowledge is to disempower them" (Delpit, 2006, pp. 32-33). Jacobs reinforces and adds that "ultimately, most studies conclude that transformative learning is most apt to occur when courage is associated with any and all aspects of being, thinking, doing, and believing" (Jacobs, 1998, p. 169). In order to obtain such transformative learning within the classroom, the teacher must allow the students to participate in the teaching and exploring of material or ideas, even if it means that the students may find their original thoughts incorrect upon completion of the discovery period. The oppor…

Chapter 11: Common Parenting Practices

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 14:01:05 GMT

Parenting

Most parents have the best intentions for their children. Many are nervous about making mistakes and this frequently encourages them to seek the best possible solutions to help them raise responsible and productive people. This has also resulted in the production of a multitude of parenting advice books, videos, and all manner of tools to help parents learn the best and hottest new approaches to parenting.

Parenting is treated almost like a fad. The only things that have remained consistent over the decades are the ways in which abuse is normalized in parenting. This includes the way parents speak of their children in front of them or behind their backs. This includes controlling their children in ways that disempower their children, but make the parent look strong in the eyes of strangers. This includes reward and punishment cycles so frequently purported by schools as the best gimmick to manipulate behavior the way parents desire. It also includes physical and emotional ab…

Chapter 10: Modern Schooling

Shella Zelenz — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:01:09 GMT

"Little children love the world. That is why they are so good at learning about it. For it is love, not tricks and techniques of thought, that lies at the heart of all true learning. Can we bring ourselves to let children learn and grow through that love?" John Holt

Introduction

Many teachers and administrators in public, charter, and private schools feel that they must control children in order to ensure a constructive learning environment. Teachers and administrators do not trust children. They do not trust students to make decisions about their own learning. They do not trust students to help teach one another. They do not trust students to learn on their own.

I have witnessed many teachers in schools recoil at the notion. Their number one issue is classroom management. Classroom management currently dictates a large portion of school time. Stop…

Chapter 9: Behavioral Conditioning for Schools and Capitalism

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 14:01:20 GMT

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” Edward Bernays, Propaganda

Behavioral Conditioning in Schools

If coercion or external motivation is such a deterrent for learning, why do schools use it? Many would argue that they spend far more time with classroom management than they have time to teach various methods on how to read or do maths (or any other subject). This has become such a focus that there are significant books and strategies encouraged by teachers and for teachers on how to manage classroom behavior. This is where behavioral conditioning in school becomes paramount.

Noam Chomsky has been known to speak …

Chapter 8: The Purpose Behind Behavioral Conditioning

Shella Zelenz — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 14:00:27 GMT

“The institutional role of the schools for the most part is just to train people for obedience and conformity, and to make them controllable and indoctrinated—and as long as the schools fulfill that role, they’ll be supported.” —Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002

Behavior

If one were to ask a schoolteacher or principal what the primary focus area of their time at work is, they would tell you that much of their time is spent on “classroom management” or behavior control. Most teachers tell you that they spend more time on behavior management than they do in lessons. Those who say they have great classroom management utilize tactics that often include removal of disruptive students or encouraging parents to medicate the child so that they can behave in class. Removal of students takes many forms. This frequently begins as a time out, detention, or being sent to the principal’s office. More recently, new tactics such as isolation chambers are used to ensure …

Chapter 7: The Purpose Behind Education

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 14:04:50 GMT

What purpose does studying how children learn serve, if not for the intent to manipulate?

Introduction

There is much that has been said about the purpose of education, especially since the 1970’s. The rise in people who are questioning the education system’s purpose and their willingness to participate has grown substantially in the last 50 years. Homeschooling alone has grown significantly in the last 20 years. It is no longer something that is considered a religious focus. It is a resistance to the way in which the education system treats, educates, and fails to protect children. It is also the way in which the education system has increased its demands, while consistently failing to improve outcomes, and destroying what was once treasured family time. How did it get to be this way?

As was discussed in previous chapters, school was never designed …

Chapter 6: Epigenetic Trauma Inheritance

Shella Zelenz — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 23:46:37 GMT

Implications in Education

The field of epigenetics, discovering that what our ancestors did and the way that they did it, has implications for students in the classroom. What our ancestors experienced, for example, in terms of famines or other life-threatening scenarios, is passed on to their descendants through their genes. This discovery lends itself to investigate the possibility of epigenetics influencing why some learners could possibly be having trouble in the classroom: it's not the way their ancestors learned. In fact, from many points of view, it would be easy to see the current educational system as oppressive. I define oppressive education as the debilitation of the students' ability to acquire the skills necessary for them to develop their highest self-expression and become a contributing member of society.

Students with relatively more recent tribal ancestry appear to have more difficulties in typical western education (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Edu…

Chapter 5: Normalized Trauma

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 19:38:28 GMT

“It is not the trauma itself that is the source of illness but the unconscious, repressed, hopeless despair over not being allowed to give expression to what one has suffered and the fact that one is not allowed to show and is unable to experience feelings of rage, anger, humiliation, despair, helplessness, and sadness.” - Alice Miller

Introduction

When we consider childhood trauma, we often think of physical violence or sexual abuse. Trauma is so normalized in our society, that we don’t often consider the impact of many other factors that cause long-term trauma such as car accidents, divorce, verbal abuse, or spanking. Many may think that verbal abuse and spanking aren’t abuse. They consider it discipline. As discussed in the previous chapter, the brain is designed to respond to threats, so physical violence (such as spanking) or verbal abuse (such as being yelled at) are triggers to rewire the brain to adapt to these experiences as fight or flight triggers. This eventually creates res…

Chapter 4: Trauma and Brain Development

Shella Zelenz — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 21:10:06 GMT

Introduction

Toddlers suddenly want to explore independently of their parents, and are frequently told no, put in the corner (separation from love or nurture), spanked, or put in some form of limiting situation. Outside of any opinion relating to the methods used by the parent or caregiver, the experience the child has is restriction of their independence followed by some form of trauma to reinforce this. This becomes a fixed pain memory.

Chapter 3: The Results of Programmed Narcissism

Shella Zelenz — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 19:41:03 GMT

The fall of the Kingdoms perpetuated the dictatorships in Europe and Asia. The countries that did not befall communist dictators were those where the monarchy was willing to allow a democratic government. Those monarchs were not murdered.

America never had a monarchy. Schools were enacted and fully reinforced in the 1800's and early 1900's. Students were not being trained to serve a monarch. They did not befall a dictatorship because there was no monarch to murder. However, they were programmed to create a unified nation and workforce through their schools.

America was ahead of programming the masses to eradicate individual cultural norms, rituals, and beliefs. Dictators took swaths of countries and tried to formulate nationalist rhetoric to unify the people. These failed significantly in areas where there were too many different cultures. These cu…

Chapter 2 Narcissism

Shella Zelenz — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 23:55:55 GMT

Of all of the things humankind can spend their life energy on,

Narcissism is the largest waste.

Yet entire generations and societies have been enslaved to it for centuries….

Narcissism Defined

The American Psychiatric Association defines Narcissistic Personality Disorder in their Diagnostic Manual IV as characterized by a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy” (APA, 2013, p. 174). Recent debate by the American Psychiatric Association has been whether it should be continued to be included in further diagnostic manuals due to the pervasiveness of the behaviors within other personality disorders (APA, 2013, p. 67). Another key factor is that narcissism is found in the entire population in varying degrees. In essence, it is a fundamental core trait required for survival. The disorder occurs when it is kept at a rudim…

Chapter 1: The Problem

Shella Zelenz — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 00:24:27 GMT

General Problem

If the purpose of education is to help individuals and society live in healthy, balanced ways that lead to a joyful, peaceful existence, then contemporary education and most school reform efforts are failing (Jacobs, 2003). One of the reasons for this problem relates to cultural and educational hegemony and how the powers that control education seem to be aiming at conformity to a particular image of how things should be. "Educational leaders have tried to transform immigrant newcomers and other "outsiders" into individuals who matched their idealized image of what an "American" should be" (Tyack & Cuban, 1995).

I propose a radically different approach to school reform, one that recognizes the phenomenon of epigenetics and the understanding of brain development for those exposed to trauma. The latter provides a more natural model for…

Introduction: Dangerous Society

Shella Zelenz — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 20:54:55 GMT

It is said that the only way to heal is through confronting your predator. The purpose of this book is to confront the predator. Only then can our society begin to heal.

Introduction

Dangerous Society

It isn’t the raping itself that caused the deepest trauma. It was the treatment by society after the rape that traumatized the most. It was as if the predator marked the victim for the “tribe” to know who to attack.

One doesn’t need to look very far to find evidence of how dangerous society has become. The rise in predatory behavior is unprecedented and the parallel rise in people standing up against their oppressors and predators is astounding. There is hope, yet there is still much to be understood if we are to ever see a healthy transition for our future society.

That is what this book is really about. The "predator" wasn't so much the people who did…

Preface

Shella Zelenz — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 01:55:13 GMT

“We need this insight.” Mike Kernell, Board Member, Shelby County Schools, Tennessee (Memphis)