Building a teaching curriculum has become an important part of many graduate students’ educational journeys. Learning to teach university-level classes can be a challenge, with most of us having received little to no training on the subject. Yet, teaching also represents a unique opportunity to share knowledge on the effects of trauma. During the year, I teach at my home university in the department of criminology and at a different university as a contract lecturer in the social work department.
Discussing the consequences of trauma in my elective class happens naturally since the class is called “Domestic Violence.” Generally, I find that my students are interested and rather knowledgeable on the consequences of trauma, which I find motivating as a teacher. Class discussions are rich and insightful. The problem is there is a selection bias at play; since my class is an elective, the student who selected it were probably already sensitized to this issue. Even though I know that my students leave my class knowing more about trauma, its consequences and its treatments than at the beginning of the semester, I don’t always get the impression that I raised awareness. After all, they already were trauma-informed for the most part.
