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Supporting All Students in the Classroom & Beyond: A Polyvagal Perspective on Education
1.1k Plays17 days ago
In this episode, Travis interviews Dr. Niki Elliott, an educator, author, and director at the University of San Diego's Center for Embodied Equity and Neurodiversity. Dr. Elliott is also a PVI Course Partner & PVI Board Member.
Dr. Elliott shares her personal journey in education, her dedication to supporting neurodiverse learners, and the transformative impact of understanding nervous system needs through the lens of polyvagal theory. The conversation explores how reimagining classroom environments—with an emphasis on sensory and relational safety—can unlock the brilliance of every child.
Understanding Behavior Through the Nervous System Lens
Dr. Elliott stresses the importance of viewing neurodivergent students not as "problem kids," but as individuals whose behavior is shaped by physiological needs and their nervous system state. Behaviors often labeled as disruptive or inattentive may actually be adaptive responses to unmet sensory or safety needs in the environment.
Creating Neuro-Inclusive Spaces is Game-Changing
Simple shifts in classroom environments—such as accommodating sensory sensitivities, providing alternative seating, softening lighting, and including students’ voices about their sensory needs—can dramatically reduce behavioral issues and enhance learning for all students. Normalizing these supports improves not only neurodivergent students' experiences but fosters a culture of understanding and resilience for everyone.
Supporting Adults' Nervous System Health is Essential
Dr. Elliott highlights that educators and caregivers must also become aware of their own nervous system patterns and past traumas. Increasing adult vagal tone and co-regulation capacity is vital to creating safe, responsive, and flexible learning communities. Adults set the tone for the classroom; their ability to self-regulate directly impacts students’ learning and emotional well-being.
Join Polyvagal Institute for "The Nervous System in the Classroom," a one-day summit for educators hosted by PVI Course Partners Dr. Niki Elliott and Dr. Lori Desautels. Register for the event at learning.polyvagal.org
To dive deeper, check out Dr. Nikki Elliott’s Heart Centered Connection certificate program or the Mindful Leaders Project for training and resources—and help build more inclusive, healing-focused spaces where every child and adult can thrive.
CONNECT WITH Polyvagal Institute:
WEB: www.polyvagalinstitute.org
Instagram: @polyvagalinstitute
Email: community@polyvagal.org
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Transcript
Understanding Child Behavior from a Neuroscience Perspective
00:00:00
Speaker
and so when I began to not just look at a child for the behaviors that I'm observing or from the apparent lack of executive functioning skills or long-term memory, when I'm not looking at it from the perspective of a problem or of symptoms, I look back to what does this nervous system need in order to thrive?
00:00:18
Speaker
Today I'm joined by Dr. Nikki Elliott, an educator, author, and the director of the Center for Embodied Equity and Neurodiversity at the University of San Diego. With over 30 years of experience, Dr. Nikki brings deep expertise in educational neuroscience, mindfulness, and polyvagal-informed learning.
Meet Dr. Nikki Elliott: Advocate for Mindful Education
00:00:39
Speaker
She is the founder of the Mindful Leaders Project, a district-wide initiative helping educators and mental health professionals foster heart-centered, healing-focused connections with children and families.
00:00:51
Speaker
Her work is grounded, transformative, and deeply human. And beyond that, she's a mom of six and a self-described lover of humanity.
00:01:04
Speaker
Welcome to Wired for Connection, a polyvagal podcast. I am your host and my name is Travis. I guess, can you just share a bit about your background of what, like, how did you land in the world of education and what brought you there to begin with?
00:01:22
Speaker
So I would say that Every job I've ever had has been in the field of education. So even and as a high school student, my first jobs were helping to work with summer camps. And then in in college, I was an assistant teacher.
00:01:39
Speaker
at Berkeley High School, um supporting children who were in continuation programs and in special ed. So even from the very beginning of my work inside of schools, I've always been in the awesome position of being able to provide care and mentorship for children who are very bright, but who the traditional schooling system has pretty much written off for one reason or another.
Challenging Bias in Education
00:02:03
Speaker
And, you know, always being told, watch out for that one or that one doesn't care about learning. So they even in an introduction to a student is coming with the labels and the reasons you should withhold care or minimize expectations and consistently.
00:02:20
Speaker
um Because I have the feeling of, I like to let people sink their own boats with me, right? So if I get to know you and get to care for you and get to see who you are and what makes you tick consistently with those same children that I would be introduced to with a negative label or a set of assumptions, I would come up with a a different opinion about them.
00:02:41
Speaker
And so even from my undergrad experience at UC Berkeley, um, that drove me to just start examining what are the other factors that go into how we see students, how we label them, how we route who gets opportunity and ah mentorship and care and who gets written off um into the or fed, as I would say, into the school to prison pipeline or or otherwise.
00:03:05
Speaker
um And so that kind of pushed my interest in once I graduated from UC Berkeley, I got a scholarship to Columbia University at the Teachers College. And i wanted to explore what were those factors in urban education that shift the educational outcomes for students who are capable and intelligent? And and why why do their life outcomes not show that potential?
00:03:30
Speaker
um So from there, I taught fourth and fifth grade in Teaneck, New Jersey. Same thing again, where the veteran teachers were able to cherry pick the students that they did or did not want. And as a beginning teacher, my class was loaded with what others perceived as undesirable students.
Supporting Neurodiverse Students
00:03:49
Speaker
Again, very bright students, um not all children of color, but a significant percentage of them with demonstration of behaviors that made it shadow the intelligence, but the brilliance was there shining.
00:04:05
Speaker
And so Travis, from that point, it has just been my whole entire life, creating educational systems, creating programs, helping build charter schools, and now designing curriculum that help us understand the term neurodiverse, neurodivergent, didn't exist when I first started teaching over 30 years ago.
00:04:23
Speaker
But now we understand neurodiverse, complexities within brilliance. and And it's my love to help teachers, to help all child-serving professionals and caregivers understand these neurodiverse students from a different perspective that allows us to support where they are experiencing challenge, but not allow us to ignore or to dim the genius that they all have.
00:04:47
Speaker
Hmm. I love that. I mean, it hits home for me because my eldest is ah neurodiverse. It's funny, my wife is it was a fourth grade. She's still a teacher, but she stays home and helps teach, but was fourth grade. So i was like, oh, fourth grade, yeah. um I remember many nights my wife grading paper, like, you know, assignments in our home apartment back in the day.
00:05:07
Speaker
um And the neurodiverse hearing you say that reminds me, and and this is, I think, where I want to go next is that I think there is a lot of mislabeling or misunderstanding and they get, they get that, like you said, mislabeled as the problem kid or behavioral. And, and then we miss, I love these, the brilliance that is there because they, they're not understood or what, how do we reach these kids? And they get kind of pushed aside or maybe they get, they become the problem kid or they're in detention. And it's like when actually we're, maybe we're not reaching them the way they need us
Application of Polyvagal Theory in Education
00:05:40
Speaker
to. And that's something that I've had to learn um with a neurodiverse son is just, yeah, it's just thinking differently.
00:05:47
Speaker
um And how do I reach where he's at? Cause it's different. And, I got to understand him, how he thinks, how he ticks, what what speaks to him versus me trying to fit him into my mold.
00:05:59
Speaker
And I think I found that in the education system. So wondering what the education system that you're doing, because it sounds like you found some rigidity there or some um things that were maybe working and things that were not working for these kiddos.
00:06:12
Speaker
And then decided to do your own thing and create curriculum. So I guess what were some themes that you noticed from some of these kiddos in terms of like safety, in terms of connection, in terms of um what were they going through and maybe why they couldn't meet expectation or show up in a way to see their brilliance?
00:06:33
Speaker
So it's a few things that have emerged and it is a big part of why polyvagal theory um is so prominent you know in my work and in the frameworks that I use. um What I have learned is that seeing a child, a neurodivergent child from a physiological or from a nervous system framework or perspective was the game changer um in in my approach to understanding them. My my own children, that of a few of them are neurodiverse as well. Yeah.
00:07:06
Speaker
but also in helping adults understand what the children need. And so when I began to not just look at a child for the behaviors that I'm observing or from the apparent lack of executive functioning skills or long-term memory, But I'm not looking at it from the problem from the perspective of a problem or of symptoms. I look back to what does this nervous system need in order to thrive?
00:07:29
Speaker
And so um once I started digging into the research about the needs of neurodivergent learners, I started seeing low vagal tone, right? so some of the research is showing that by nature of the symptoms for some students that are neurodiverse, whether that be autism, ADHD, or those who have neurological changes due to trauma, um,
00:07:53
Speaker
heightened sensory sensitivities are a part of that, right? So um that sense of felt safety is not just in the relational aspect of the adult.
00:08:04
Speaker
Felt safety is also being registered with the environment. And so having a lot of teachers understand that from a sensory perspective, the student is not being able to access a settled nervous system state to learn because they can see the flickering and the fluorescent lights in the room. They can hear the low tones. One thing that really got me when I really dived into polyvagal theory was some of Dr. Porges' is teaching that people who have a higher trauma score um have relaxed ear inner ear muscles that make it easier for them to hear the low tones In an environment, because in the wild or in evolution, from an evolutionary perspective, that makes it better for you to detect the sound of the predator coming from further and further away.
00:08:50
Speaker
Right, right. But if your ears are primed to register low tones more than in a classroom environment, that means you're hypersensitive to the HVAC system. to the projector, to the sounds of students, sweeping chairs around the floor, right?
00:09:07
Speaker
Then that challenges your ability to hear the higher pitch frequencies of the human voice. Now that makes it harder for you to process the teacher to, and then again, if you have teachers that are giving constant verbal instructions and verbal lectures,
00:09:22
Speaker
without pauses for processing, without visual images to go along with and the mapping of what is being asked. Now you're setting up psychological state of of of alarm, right?
00:09:36
Speaker
So again, we it's been really great to expand this idea of safety that it's not just whether or not you're smiling at me
Creating Neuro-Inclusive Learning Environments
00:09:44
Speaker
when I enter the door. There are a lot of other cues in an environment that may be keeping neurodivergent person from being able to register a settled nervous system state that sets them up for learning.
00:09:55
Speaker
yeah So even, you know, one thing I learned, I i ah studied with Dr. Brown and Gerbar, breath, body, mind. One thing Dr. Brown taught was that clockwise spinning in the Northern hemisphere activates the vagus nerve.
00:10:08
Speaker
So that will help us settle, you know, to get the body ready into that state for of alert relaxation for learning. But every time we have a child on, the autism spectrum, a child with ADHD, spinning, spinning, spinning, we say stop.
00:10:23
Speaker
Right. And so without awareness, we're interrupting what their nervous system might innately have them do to try to create a state of physical, so you know, so physiological settledness in the body so that they can access learning.
00:10:38
Speaker
But we interrupt it with what we think our social norms are. And then we end up co-escalating rather than co-regulating. oh man So a big part of my work is like, how do we really do our best job of understanding the physiology of neurodivergent people and then understand all the ways we contradict that, the way we interrupt it, the way we um judge it, shame it and then create spaces where they're physically not able to do the thing that we are demanding that they do.
00:11:11
Speaker
yeah So that's just one example. I see safety far beyond just the person to person connection as it relates to to neurodiverse people. Yeah. no It just makes me think, um you're right. it It isn't just, well, it is person to person. Absolutely. and But in the environment is significant because we think of where are these you know kids, teens, adults spending most of their time?
00:11:37
Speaker
you know How is the environment set up? Is it is it and is it set up to, and don't even like the word accommodate, but actually facilitate? Mm-hmm. growth, productivity, connection, safety, allowing for, you know, you use the spinning, the the stimming, right? to to To regulate. And I've learned all this from having neurodiverse son is that, oh yeah, that's him trying to ground himself or using body to move around, bounce around. And if someone says the teacher's unaware or adult or even me who says stop, he sits still without the awarenesses.
00:12:14
Speaker
i in a way we're impeding the natural bodily movement, the physiology of trying to ground from a polyvagal perspective. And I love that that was the big breakthrough. And so you found this, wow, something's changing. We need to look the environment. We need to start to adapt and teach and understand. And so what are some things since then that you...
00:12:33
Speaker
have been able to do or help generate around environmental awareness or teaching professors, teachers, educators, parents on, hey, we need to understand the physiology of the nervous system, not just you to me, but in the spaces they exist.
00:12:51
Speaker
So i I built a curriculum called the Heart Centered Connection. So it's actually been, it has evolved into a 30-hour certificate, professional certificate program that we offer here.
00:13:03
Speaker
through the University of San Diego. And so it's not just for classroom teachers, it's for um people who work at the YMCA, you know, summer camp, sports coaches, people who teach arts programs, you know, you um foster parents, you know people who have great intention of being inclusive and creating what we refer to as safe spaces for children.
00:13:25
Speaker
but they've never been taught to understand the needs of neurodiverse children. And so because of that, when they see these behaviors, they're constantly saying, sorry, i wasn't trained to support this.
00:13:37
Speaker
Your kid can't be here. And then we have a world of exclusion and social isolation, you know, for our neurodiverse learners. So as it relates to environment, one of the pillars of that curriculum is called neuro-inclusive spaces.
00:13:51
Speaker
And so we actually map all eight senses um and help the providers actually look at their own nervous system sensitivities. What's your sensitivity to light, to sound, to touch, you know to taste, to your vestibular sense of balance, your interoception sense of your inner awareness?
00:14:11
Speaker
What are your strengths? What are your challenges? What are your needs? It really starts to help adults see the extent to which we set up classrooms and learning spaces, therapy spaces, homes for what our nervous systems need to feel a sense of settledness.
00:14:28
Speaker
So asking those adults to now back up and then map the the sensory needs of the children in the space, whether they're diagnosed or not. right So it's just not just only for the children who have a diagnosis.
00:14:41
Speaker
And then give those children voice to say how their nervous systems experience the physical spaces that are created has been a game changer for many of the educators that i mentor and train because they're like, oh, I didn't realize how many students feel really stressed by the fluorescent lights.
00:14:59
Speaker
So now they're able to put ah cloth filters on the lights to soften the light. They're able to emphasize more natural lighting. I work in not many, but some schools where the teachers are actually instructed to put butcher paper over the windows to cover the windows and so In certain cases, it's been told because having the children look out of the window is distracting.
00:15:23
Speaker
Now, we know the research shows that view of nature is actually soothing to the nervous system. But they are told to cover the windows because it keeps the children from um focusing because they're looking outside.
00:15:35
Speaker
So, again, we have so many yeah beliefs and practices that go against what nervous systems need to really settle. And then the second thing um Because of the concerns around active shooter drills, I've worked in school districts where the teachers are told to cover the windows um in case of an active shooter. they A person could not look in the window and see that their children. Now that point zero zero zero zero one percent chance.
00:16:05
Speaker
is blocking a child's ability on a daily, daily basis of having access to natural light and a view of nature that can support nervous system regulation.
00:16:16
Speaker
we It's such a shame in our society that we have to think about safety in those ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But again, they've made ah changes to put spinning chairs in the classrooms. So now children on the spectrum or children who have that kind of vestibular sensory need can rock in a chair, can spin in a chair, and it's normalized in the space. It's normal.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's punishment. It's not a privilege. It's just a chair that meets a need. And if you have the need, sit in this chair. So these kind of alternate seatings, the the bringing in of weighted blankets
Integrating Nervous System Science in Education
00:16:52
Speaker
and things. So yeah you're not teasing a child that they have a blanket in class or whatever. squishy things that provide the sensory um experience that they need to settle.
00:17:02
Speaker
But when it's normalized, I've seen children as young as second grade be able to understand what their peers need in order to have a settled nervous system. The teacher gives the child autonomy and agency to name what they need and to move forward toward it as they need um We've seen significant reductions in the need for in-class behavioral support, as well as out-of-class expulsionary discipline for our neurodiverse children who have sensitive nervous systems.
00:17:27
Speaker
And all of that together goes into hands enhancing their perception of psychological and physical safety in the learning space, yeah you know which which improves outcomes for everybody, I would say.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah, and and with this foundation of the the awareness of the nervous system, which, like you said, is such a game changer. And it's been a game changer for me professionally and personally. like just It's something you kind of knew. i felt like I knew it like to a degree, but then I read it. like, oh, that's what this is.
00:17:54
Speaker
so This makes so much sense. I intuitively had an awareness, but now, of course, you start deep diving into this stuff, and as I do, and it sounds like you do too. You start to realize, whoa, like this – it's really the foundation of everything. And it starts to give you a total paradigm shift, perspective shift, which is non-pathologizing.
00:18:15
Speaker
um Even i saw my own reactions of like, oh, that's what I'm stuck in this state or conflict with a spouse or with kids. And you start to just see everything from this total shift of perspective.
00:18:27
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And so with that, going to now education and how the education system is created, for better or for worse, seeing how it hasn't historically been so geared towards neurodiverse population help them succeed. And so the fight you're doing or the work you're doing is, I think, so vitally important because it speaks home to my own personal life. like, yes, we need more of this.
00:18:52
Speaker
But I'm wondering, a couple of questions I'm thinking of is what is one of the big challenges and or barriers because you're doing something and I found some other systems that are creating something with this awareness with polyvagal theory to help really not just neurodiverse but all folks right um but what are some of the challenge barriers that you're facing now in your line of work now in 2025 of getting this out there of educating of spreading this like where are you hitting some roadblocks I would have to say, actually, in this season, there is a tremendous opening and and receptivity that may not have been there, particularly pre-pandemic, let's say, um because to your point that this conversation is not just about neurodiverse.
00:19:39
Speaker
learners um We're seeing high escalations in behavior, um low um self-regulation capacity, um low vagal tone for students of all abilities in the schools and the teachers themselves are extremely stressed and not able to.
00:19:58
Speaker
manage themselves enough to provide ah another layer of support for children. So because what has previously been promoted in schools in terms of pro-social behavior support or restorative justice, these things are not meeting the present need.
00:20:14
Speaker
um schools are desperate right now because what's happening is more and more children are being pushed out to be referred for special education simply for behavior, which was where we started with this conversation, not because there is limited cognitive capacity.
00:20:30
Speaker
that becomes extremely cost prohibitive for school districts. So they are, and then when we bring this work and we say, here's the science that's explaining what's happening with nervous systems and here's what is needed from the environment. Here's what's needed in terms of co-regulation from the adult nervous system capacity, right? So,
00:20:48
Speaker
um there's actually more work than I can take on right now with schools that are, that are because they want to apply the science to it, right? So they're saying, if you can show me the why, and that's kind of what Polyvagal does in a degree within the larger umbrella of applied educational neuroscience, is showing the why is it but happening this way, and then We can now assess our practices against this science to go, is this best practice? So like you have restorative justice or some kinds of of pro-social behavior support is full of words, full of a lot of talking.
00:21:27
Speaker
Now, if we understand that in a mobilized state, a child is offline. Yeah. Then how does that match with a behavior technique that's telling you to do a whole bunch of verbal processing with a child?
Readiness for Educational Change
00:21:42
Speaker
yeah Right. So so that's that's where the receptivity is coming in because people are going, oh, I did that when I didn't know to stop them from spinning. Well, if that's helping them activate the vagus nerve and create a state of subtleness, how can we bring that in?
00:21:57
Speaker
to an option for the child and not judge it as willful misbehavior, but as a self-soothing technique that's allowing them to anchor to get to the learning that you're asking for.
00:22:08
Speaker
So it's, um I think people are ready for some of the reconditioning and retraining that we all need to do because the way we went through school and did school is not what's going to work for these children today.
00:22:21
Speaker
And I don't think it worked back then because that's when we had such high dropout rates, right? Yeah. and But now there's an expectation that every child is going to college, not that some are going to go and do work in the fields or in the national forest or jobs that don't require you to sit still all day long and not be able to to to to move your body and to meet your physical physical needs as you. yeah So it's. um I'm seeing a ah receptivity. And I think the places where we get the pushback um are places where, um you know, some of your really high, high competitive um environments where parents are more quick to medicate their children to be able to comply um with what the environments are requiring, like where they're requesting it even before official diagnosis has been made because they want their child to be perceived as competitive.
00:23:13
Speaker
um There, when we're asking for the kind of ah modifications and adjustments to the environment that that make the environments better for nervous systems, they perceive that as a watering down of the curriculum or making children weaker or less competitive.
00:23:30
Speaker
So um it's unfortunate because we do see a lot of mental health um breakdowns in those environments with children that are under that kind of pressure without the kind of support that they really need.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's really um exciting good good, exciting um to hear there's a lot more receptivity. And I know there's a lot of work that needs to be done because its ah you know if you think of all of the U.S., it's like where where are those pockets and who's receptive and who's not receptive. And um I love to hear that, hey, there's too much work for me, which is that's amazing to hear.
00:24:05
Speaker
um that there's too much to keep up with the demand. So it sounds like there's some shifts shifts happening here, at least maybe in San Diego County or... all up through California. california and And we're getting requests in other states as well, but you know the reputation for this particular work...
00:24:23
Speaker
has been built in my home state here, but yeah we are in the process now of training other educators and counselors to be facilitators of the work so that more trainings can can happen beyond my schedule. So very excited about that. yeah But I definitely think this applied educational neuroscience lens, um sitting side by side with the understanding of polyvagal theory, helping adults understand their own nervous systems and just helping educators understand how, because we're always concerned with the child's ACE score, it's child's trauma score, right? So what's the child's ACE? And and my perspective as a teacher educator, it's none of your business.
Trauma-Informed Practices in Classrooms
00:25:02
Speaker
It's not our business to collect a child's A score or to be trying to categorize their trauma. Our job is to run every classroom environment as if every child had a high A score.
00:25:13
Speaker
So if we apply trauma-informed practices as par for the course, as foundational ways that we teach, we'll meet the needs. And as exceptional needs rise up, we can find out what those are. But I find that Having adults understand their own ACE core, understanding how their own attachment style, how their own curriculum and instruction style,
00:25:36
Speaker
understanding how their own discipline styles are impacted by how their nervous system has been um primed to survive. It shows up in the classroom. So you can see teachers with high punitive discipline, high needs for rigid control, teachers who um have a difficult time being touched, right? So some people's trauma responses is that they are touch averse now because of what they've been through.
00:26:01
Speaker
But now in their role as an educator or a caregiver, you've got babies, second graders, third graders who are reaching out for hugs and touch in order to regulate and settle their nervous system. But the adult is pushing them away because of their own aversion to touch. And now you've got co-escalation rather than co-regulation.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah. In a way, it even sounds like co-escalation. It's not even a... A logical response is their own survival nervous system taking over of like as an adult, like because they especially if they're unaware of that, they're getting dysregulated going to their way of surviving and coping, which then creates this kind of like boom, boom, boom, boom. Now we're.
00:26:40
Speaker
now we're having a demand or withdraw or be punitive or something because we don't also do. Yeah. Right. Because the adult has the power position. They can punish the child for not complying or regulating, but the child, the adult is not being held accountable for how their limited regulating capacity, self-soothing capacity created the behavior they're punishing now.
00:27:02
Speaker
And that just gets compounded when we're working with neurodiverse children that have exceptional needs or lower vagal tone. We need, the adult to have more capacity.
00:27:13
Speaker
yeah And so helping adults understand that from that perspective has been a game changer um in supporting adults and building more vagal tone, more capacity um through mind-body practices. through through we We have a research project now where some of the teachers we work with have been utilizing the safe and sound protocol. We're tracking heart rate variability to see if improvements in vagal tone for teachers can correlate towards um higher part positive classroom climate yeah um and teachers less reactivity to children who have exceptional needs. So we're really, I'm really proud of the work. I mean, we don't have all the answers with it, but we do have the data that we've collected at some of the schools that we've worked with, where the teachers are implementing this work.
00:28:01
Speaker
We've seen in one school 36% reduction in With teachers really being able to be more finely attuned to whether the behaviors they're observing in children are truly um a sign of willful misbehavior or whether they're a function of the symptom of their condition. And then what other practices, strategies, connections are are capable, are able, excuse me, to be employed in that moment.
00:28:28
Speaker
to support co-regulation. So it it, that has been a consistent, um, finding in the schools where the work has been implemented and fewer referrals, reduction in referrals to special ed.
00:28:40
Speaker
Wow. And think what I'm hearing is this, this, um, kind of holistic integrative approach. It's not just the kids or the teens, it's, but it's the, it's the teachers, it's the staff, it's the practitioners, it's the parents, it's, yes and the environment.
00:28:55
Speaker
Because I, I, agree if we're if the if the one if as i as a parent or an educator not aware of my own nervous system then i'm going especially going based on polyvagal theory like you said it's gonna i'm gonna cause dysregulation or more it's just gonna create a hot mess if you will to keep it simple of of just everyone's kind of stuck in and a dysregulated state but i might tell myself
The Role of Somatic and Communal Practices
00:29:18
Speaker
if i'm unaware of this that i'm doing the right thing or like this is it because this is what i know and um And so I really hear this really integrative, holistic approach of helping everybody with education, with awareness, and then embodying and kind of actually doing something different and creating spaces environmentally as well as within ourself to have this awareness to work together. And when we have that awareness, we could flow.
00:29:42
Speaker
And so I'm wondering... you know, if you had your way, if, you know, if, if Dr. Nikki could wave a wand, wave a, or something else or sprinkle dust or something, um, if, you know, what is like the, you know, two or three things that like, if I, if, if this could just be changed in the education system for felt safety, for growth, for all these things, what would I do?
00:30:08
Speaker
What would be that more like, what be those two, three things? So number one, i would probably, I'm on a mission now in terms of somatics in schools. Right. And so they need to be trauma informed. You know, mind body practices. I see a lot of mindfulness practices that are being brought into schools.
00:30:29
Speaker
I see a weaponization of mindfulness practices. As a way of controlling bodies, especially as it relates to mindfulness being brought into communities of color, where mindfulness is going to be the thing that controls your behavior and controls your body. So that is a ah lot of layered yeah conversations um into that.
00:30:49
Speaker
But to have it as a form of wellness, not, okay, you're not behaving well, go over the corner and breathe. And when you get yourself together, then you can earn your spot back into community.
00:30:59
Speaker
So now people feel mindfulness is ah punishment. It's a gentle punishment, right? It doesn't feel like a proactive wellness practice that we all engage in as a community, right? So otherwise I'll go into classrooms and I have seen teachers press play on a mindfulness app and the expectations that the children participate in it, but the teacher's taking attendance.
00:31:22
Speaker
So the message that gives is this is for you, but it doesn't apply to me. So again, whole communities that understand nervous system state,
00:31:34
Speaker
and where it just is part of the culture. Just like you go out and you see a group of of Chinese practitioners in community every morning, we're out doing Tai Chi or or Qigong together, right?
00:31:47
Speaker
So it is a communal practice that we are building and harmonizing the communal nervous system or in other indigenous practices. We drum together, we dance together. Those are vagus nerve activating, settling practices that a community does together. It's not your individual job to go fix yourself.
00:32:06
Speaker
We proactively engage in wellness and co-regulating practices that bind us as a community. So then that's where I say community shows up as medicine. So I would love to see schools take a nervous system um support,
00:32:25
Speaker
it's not just one for PE, because everybody has PE e and, you know, um as ah as a communal practice within school communities. And that all counselors have somatic approaches to their therapy. So anytime a child is being brought out for support, that it has a mind-body connection, not just talk or, you know, here, write a story about why you did what you did, you know? Yeah. um bringing Bringing that awareness through.
00:32:52
Speaker
um i would love to see more collaboration versus competition in schools, because we talk about another form of safety is that psychological threat of the way instruction is designed. Mm-hmm.
00:33:04
Speaker
Right. So if I teach with the brain and nervous system in mind, then I'm aware of how rituals in a classroom signal the amygdala to quiet and help create that psychological safety.
00:33:20
Speaker
um How every time I'm tasked with a new topic, that's an amygdala activation. Right. So how do I build felt safety in the way I scaffold new learning?
00:33:32
Speaker
Again, this is the whole physiological rationale for culturally responsive teaching. So like we have this whole anti-DEI and we want to be anti-woke and all all the things that's going on right
Balancing Safety and Flexibility in Education
00:33:43
Speaker
now.
00:33:43
Speaker
But the thing of the matter is when you're working with children um from different cultural backgrounds and communities, and you're only teaching through one cultural frame, you're asking new information to be hooked on to where you're lacking the existing scaffolding of pre-existing knowledge of the culture.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah. So when we have culturally connected teaching or teaching that's connected to the children's community, you're building new knowledge on top of their awareness of their world as it is for them. Now you make your content Velcro stickier so you can keep quieting the amygdala's activation to the unfamiliar by hooking it to the familiar. So again, you gotta think at every angle from the relational perspective, from the environmental perspective, from the instructional perspective,
00:34:32
Speaker
How are we anchoring safety? And it's not about being safe. It's safe enough. we Right. Because at the same time, I see too much of this bubble wrapping of children in our culture where we're trying to problem solve ahead for everything. We need to make them safe.
00:34:51
Speaker
Don't let them fall off the slide. We need to make them safe. Don't let them figure out their own arguments. You got parents on the playground interceding in every disagreement between children, solving every problem. And then when they're getting to college, they're ready to jump off the roof of the parking structure because they got a B. Yeah.
00:35:08
Speaker
Because everything has been made so safe, so protected. We got parents calling the schools. arguing with the deans. My parents didn't even know what a dean was when I was in college. I'm first generation college student. There was nobody coming to save me if I failed the test.
00:35:22
Speaker
These parents are literally calling the schools, arguing with professors about grades. yeah right So then the minute a child who's been bubble wrapped that way in the name of safety, the minute their nervous system gets stressed with a challenge that they can't immediately solve, they're falling apart.
00:35:39
Speaker
yep And so for me, I would even venture to say, What if we can't promise people safety? It's just safe enough. But the goal is not to feel safe all the time. The goal is to build nervous system flexibility yeah that can handle challenges, that can handle threat, that can handle feeling disrespected or marginalized or get it rejected for a date. So you're not blowing up the place because somebody didn't accept your invitation for a date.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah. Right. That you have that bounce back ability and that capacity to be fully mobilized and reset, to be fully immobilized and shut down with fear, but to reset and to know you have that bounce back ability.
00:36:22
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that that's what I really want to see built in schools is capacity for children to take risk and fail. hmm.
00:36:32
Speaker
And see that you could bounce back and build that idea stronger. And it turns into an invention that saves the planet. Right. Yeah. So where are we building? we We're keeping too narrow of a range of perfection, of excellence, of safety. And it's not giving us the flexibility that we need to really survive in the wild.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I love, oh my gosh, I love that. It's like a TED talk right there, at the ending. I'm just like, yeah, I felt it. It's nervous system flexibility, safe enough, and that trying to do our best to create an environment and it's communal. Like you said, this communal environment that we're all doing this together. We're all aware we're better.
00:37:09
Speaker
Because again, the great connector is the the nervous system. is If I'm aware of this, then don'll wonder why, you know, you kept saying the amygdala, The novelty can be a mobilizing threat to the nervous system. If everything, every day i come into an environment and it's a different culture, different thing, then for me, if I'm the different culture, it's going to feel unfamiliar and not safe because I'm constantly having learn something new and that could be taxing.
00:37:33
Speaker
But if we're aware of this, the great nervous system regulator, if we have this ah perspective, this broad perspective, then we are creating environments that And that's what you're doing to help facilitate this, this communal connection, communal, safe enough communal flexibility, adaptability, kind of giving, allowing everyone to build on their strengths and helping each other.
Systemic Change for Preventing Student Trauma
00:37:55
Speaker
Because now we're aware, like Timmy knows what Jill's going through because he's aware that she has a different level of need than he does. And he can tune into that. Right. um Versus like, Ooh, something's weird with her. Cause she's got a spin on a chair.
00:38:08
Speaker
um It's a good, it's, it's normalized. This is just what we do. And we're all different and we're all supporting. And because of that, we can adapt and, we can deal with failure and we can have the resiliency because we've done practice enough growing up from child, you know, all the way up of these practices.
00:38:26
Speaker
And also the the the second part of this is that, well, we also need an environment that are aware of this because i think, and I'm just saying this, I think there's also an environment that just create more pain, trauma, stress that absolutely keeps people stuck. And so I think it's a both and it's like both, we need both. we need to address and create better systems.
00:38:44
Speaker
and then go over here. So that's that connector of the of the nervous system of polylegal theory. And I think the work you're doing is so, so important and ah needed big time.
00:38:57
Speaker
And so be conscious of the time. I'm wondering if people wanted to check what Dr. Nikki's about to get some support or take a training, where would they find that? Where would they go? Yes.
00:39:07
Speaker
So I am, again, the director of CENE, which is the Center for Embodied Equity and Neurodiversity at the University of San Diego, Soles. So if you visit our website for um University of San Diego and then look for CENE, C-E-E-N.
00:39:22
Speaker
um We have there the listing for the Heart Center Connection Certificate. Our next open ah certificate will be in the fall in October of this year. So I think next week we'll start taking registrations for that next one. And then I'm also the founder of the Mindful Leaders Project. So there um we host retreats um and different speaking engagements for adults. So this that work is for the leaders. So I'm concerned about the adult nervous system capacity in service.
00:39:51
Speaker
to children who are neurodiverse. And so that mindful-leaders.org just to learn more about the work that we do. I also love supporting empathic leaders. So people who have sensitive nervous systems that feel like they absorb the energetics of of the people that they serve. So we do a lot of mind-body work um in support of that. But it would be a pleasure to continue um bringing this awareness to any organization,
00:40:16
Speaker
We work within the foster care community, um starting to move into the juvenile justice space to help reframe um the beliefs and the ways that those students, are children are being viewed and assessed, um as well as all levels of education and the community-based learning space as well. Before and after school programs, summer camps, we've started providing training for summer camp providers because again, a lot of times they're bringing in students from college students and high school students and to run summer camps and they do not have the awareness that's needed to be inclusive of neurodiverse students in those spaces.
00:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And those that are listening, um the links will be in the description. Click on to find all the work that Dr. Nikki's doing. And I thank you so much for your time today and and just really bless the work that you're doing. So I thank you so much.
00:41:06
Speaker
Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be with you, Trevor. Bye.