Secondary traumatic stress: One teacher’s experience 

My career as a teacher was relatively short: five years, all in a large, urban district in the Midwest. Budget cuts had forced three elementary schools to merge into one, and as a result, more than 700 students were crowded into the building where I worked. It was an explosive environment, with too few resources and too many children with high levels of need. Ninety percent of the students were growing up in poverty, and many had already been affected by trauma, including gang violence, homelessness, abuse, malnutrition, violence in the home, even sex trafficking.  

When I took the job, I thought I understood what teaching in a Title I school required. I’m a caring person, and I knew I would have no trouble empathizing with my students. But no one prepared me to confront children’s trauma every day.  

In my first year of teaching, I started showing signs of stress — excessive emotional reactions, insomnia, and increased feelings of agitation — all of which I initially attributed to “adjusting” to my new job. Teaching is a stressful career. Of course I was struggling!