What the Secular School Has Rediscovered

In recent years, trauma-informed pedagogy has become a widely embraced framework in American education. Teachers and administrators are being trained to recognize signs of emotional dysregulation, respond with empathy rather than punishment, and prioritize safety and trust in classroom relationships. Terms like “fight or flight,” “toxic stress,” and “emotional regulation” have become common in professional development sessions.¹  These ideas are frequently supported by research in neuroscience and developmental psychology, giving them contemporary authority and appeal.² 

But for those formed within a Christian context, this so-called “new” discovery should feel more like a return. Long before trauma was a research category, it was a pastoral reality. Long before there were modules on co-regulation and restorative discipline, there were prayers, confessions, and community rituals designed to bind up the brokenhearted. The best of what trauma-informed theory now commends has long been embedded in the moral and spiritual vision of Christian formation.

What is often framed as innovation is in fact a recovery of wisdom that our tradition once carried confidently. The posture of trauma-informed practice—its gentleness, its emphasis on stability and belonging, its refusal to define students by their worst behaviors—mirrors what the most wise, insightful, and Spirit-led Christian educators, pastors, and caregivers have known and practiced for generations. Science, in this case, has not invented something new. It has provided fresh language and validation for what was once commonly understood within a well-functioning Christian community.

A wise small-town pastor tending a flock a century ago would have understood the basic premise of trauma-informed care: that suffering often shapes behavior, that fear often presents as defiance, and that healing comes not from force, but from love and time. The wise Christian teacher in a rural schoolhouse would not have had access to a polyvagal chart or a sensory toolbox, but she would have known from experience that a student’s angry outburst might mask grief, that withdrawal might signal neglect, and that firm kindness over time could restore what punishment alone could not.

At its best, Christian educators reaching back to John Amos Comenius have encouraged attending to the full humanity of the child. They understood that children are not only minds to be sharpened or wills to be trained, but souls to be formed. They honored the image of God in every student, recognizing their potential not only for error, but for redemption.

Yet we must speak plainly: this has not always been the case. For all the truth and wisdom within the Christian tradition, there have been grievous and inexcusable failures. Leaders of Christian schools and churches have, at times, abandoned the very values they claimed to uphold. The history of child abuse in some faith-based institutions, including the devastating legacy of the residential school systems in Canada and the United States, bears witness to what happens when the message of Christ is replaced by the machinery of power.³ In those settings, children were not protected or nurtured. They were silenced, beaten, and in many cases, stripped of language, culture, and identity. Some never returned home. Many never recovered.

These actions were not expressions of Gospel values, but betrayals of them. They occurred when theological conviction was replaced by institutional self-interest, when obedience was prized more than mercy, and when the dignity of the child was subordinated to a warped idea of order. In these moments, the central message of the Gospels—with its call to care for the least of these, to let the little children come, and to embody the tenderness of Christ—was allowed to wither and die within the very places meant to proclaim it.

For trauma-informed practice to truly flourish in Christian education, we must confront this history without defensiveness. We must acknowledge that the secular world has not so much outpaced us as circuitously reminded us of our own heritage. What neuroscience now describes in clinical terms—regulation, safety, connection—the Christian faith has long expressed in spiritual ones: peace, trust, love. The classroom that truly reflects Christ does not need to choose between compassion and conviction. It embodies both.

Today, as public schools embrace trauma-informed language, Christian educators should not respond with suspicion or competition. We should respond with humility. We should recognize that this moment is not a challenge to our convictions, but a call to return to them and expand upon them. The success of trauma-informed practices in secular settings is not a threat to faith-based education. It is a signpost—reminding us that what is effective in science is often what was faithful in spirit all along.

What secular educators are now naming as breakthrough—such as the power of a calm presence, the importance of consistency, and the centrality of belonging—have long been tenets of Christian formation. A child cannot learn while afraid. A teacher cannot shape a heart she does not first hold in trust. These are not discoveries. They are recoveries.

Of course, the language has changed. Where trauma-informed pedagogy speaks of regulation, we might speak of peace. Where it emphasizes connection, we might speak of communion. Where it prioritizes safety, we might speak of sanctuary. But the core remains the same: students cannot be formed in fear, and discipline without love is not formation at all.

And yet, as Christian educators, we must not stop at what the trauma-informed model offers. We must go further. For while the trauma-informed classroom may calm a nervous system, it cannot, by itself, restore a soul. It can build trust, but it cannot bestow purpose. It can reduce shame, but it cannot forgive sin. It can point toward healing, but it cannot name its source.

Christian education must hold the fullness of this tension. We honor what science reveals, but we remain faithful to what Scripture proclaims. Every child who walks into our schools is not just shaped by pain, but called to something beyond it. They are not just to be soothed. They are to be summoned. They are not just wounded. They are loved, and they are meant to become.

We should not resist trauma-informed ideas. We should recognize them as echoes of what we have always believed, and at times forgotten. The classroom that embodies Christ will look remarkably similar to the one described by trauma-informed advocates: calm, patient, restorative, and dignifying. But it will also offer more. It will offer grace, truth, accountability, and hope. It will offer not just stabilization, but transformation. Our students deserve this fullness.

To move from intention into practice, schools must invest in developing what might be called “pastoral pedagogy.” Christian educators cannot assume that theological conviction automatically translates to classroom care. Subject-matter expertise is common, but pedagogical and pastoral fluency is not. Just as trauma-informed frameworks have gained traction through sustained professional development, Christian schools must create structures to form their faculty in the practices of presence and patience. This might include regular faculty reflection on classroom moments through the lens of Christian virtue, workshops on attachment and healing relationships, or peer coaching models that prioritize the formation of the whole child. If we believe that love, grace, and redemption should shape our pedagogy, we must treat those not as vague ideals, but as skills that can be cultivated. Our schools must make space for this formation to occur in evaluation systems, PD plans, and daily rhythms. 

The secular world is remembering what the church once knew: that healing is not a technique, but a way of being. That children thrive not by force or fear, but by presence and patience. That restoration is possible, and that the work of education is not simply to transmit knowledge, but to shape hearts for life in community, under grace, and toward truth.

This is not a trend. It is our tradition. It is the Gospel, made visible in the classroom.

1. Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook. 3rd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2017).
2. Kristin Souers and Pete Hall, Fostering Resilient Learners: Strategies for Creating a Trauma-Sensitive Classroom. (Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2016).
3. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Winnipeg: TRC, 2015; Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928. (Kansas: Lawrence University Press, 1995).