INTENTIONAL NEUROPLASTICITY

A manual for empathic and trauma-informed teaching.

In her latest book, Desautels, an assistant professor in Indiana-based Butler University’s College of Education, builds on her work in Connections Over Compliance (2020) to offer a framework to create an effective learning environment for students while also optimizing teachers’ mental health. Drawing on applied educational neuroscience and polyvagal theory (which foregrounds the role of the vagus nerve on emotions and reactions to trauma), Desautels explains how to approach and maintain emotional regulation, help students achieve stability, and create a supportive environment that allows space for learning. The book encourages teachers to coregulate with students, modeling such behaviors as deep breathing, taking breaks, and mindfulness, while also understanding that the methods they find most useful may not be the ones their students prefer. Desautels addresses the specific problems that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the learning experience but reminds readers that there’s always been a need for welcoming approaches to teaching. The book responds to common objections to coregulating practices, including claims that they coddle students or reward bad behavior. The book includes several “Guest Reflections” by other teachers, which offer additional perspectives on trauma-informed teaching and provide concrete examples of implementing this book’s highlighted techniques. The writing is generally solid, explaining complex topics in relatively simple language. However, readers may find some of the book’s quirks grating, such as the excessive use of the term shares when introducing quotations, instead of says or writes. At times, the tone of the prose tends a bit toward melodrama: “The highly irrational middle school and high school TikTok challenges might have been driven by the developmental need for attachment to others, at the cost of an adolescent's need for authenticity.” On the whole, however, the book is informative, making a coherent argument for an emotionally intelligent approach to classroom engagement. Desautels acknowledges that her methods may require a fundamental shift in classroom management, but she persuasively presents the work as worthwhile.

A thoughtful look at addressing students’ emotional needs in a classroom setting.