Sarah Mills knows that trauma can take many shapes in the classroom. Among the wayward youth at BackTrack, where she became the schoolteacher in 2014, it could manifest as a loud, malevolent force. For Ezidi children who have experienced unspeakable horrors at the hands of Islamic State, it often takes refuge in deathly silence.
“Every day many students and teachers come into a space together and they are carrying so much baggage," Sarah says. "Good practice is about leaving that baggage at the door and helping your students to do the same.”
Both the BackTrack role and her current one as head teacher within the English Language Centre established at Armidale Secondary College to support the region's growing Ezidi population have demanded Sarah confront traumas of her own. She has also drawn deeply on her extensive UNE education - first a Bachelor of Education (Primary), then graduate certificates in Theatre Studies with Teaching Methods and Teaching English as a Second Language.
"Many of the BackTrack kids had experienced horrible home lives, been locked up in gaol and told they were shit, so they would commonly lash out," Sarah says. "I had to learn to gain their trust, but I had been a bit of a lost teen myself, so I understood something of what they were going through. I've always felt sorry for those kids who don't get it at school, because I was one of them."
At BackTrack Sarah created what she referred to as "the upside-down classroom". "I turned a lot of teaching methods on their head," Sarah says. "I had really strict rules, but I didn't care if the boys were lying under a table or sitting at a table. The rules were around respect, kindness and value for education, not who had the neatest handwriting. We valued anyone who had a go."
Sarah understood that many of the teenage boys had previously sought to disguise their embarrassment at not being able to read or do basic maths by mucking up and getting suspended. It had become a practised routine.
"They were used to giving up," Sarah says. "They felt really uncomfortable when they couldn't do something, so I made it clear that there was never a stupid question in my classroom. If they still didn't know something that I had explained several times, it was my problem, not theirs.
"My goal was always to set them up to succeed, not to fail, and I would do everything in my power to get them there. This was so different to what they were used to, so they let their guard down and start learning. I often recalled something the late Sue Fell [a much loved member of Theatre Studies at UNE] taught me: she said, no matter how angry you are or what you want to say, always offer an open hand, not a closed fist."
Eleven years' teaching at Uralla Central School had informed Sarah's teaching practice by the time she arrived at BackTrack, but her conclusions about what constituted effective teaching were also drawn from her own experiences of school. "I failed the HSC spectacularly," she says. "I didn't understand what was going on half the time at school and I attended a really academic school, where all my friends were doing well. It made me think that education could be delivered in a different way, and I decided I wanted to help others who had struggled like me."
So Sarah spent two years re-doing the HSC at TAFE college while working part-time in a hardware shop. She was accepted to study at UNE based on teacher recommendations - an opportunity she grabbed with both hands - and never failed a unit during the four years of study that followed. It was at BackTrack that she swiftly learned about trauma-informed practice - the theory that promoting safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration and empowerment could help heal the wounds of trauma.
"It was a really tough classroom," she says. "I used everything I learned - my primary education, drama skills and teaching practice - to connect with the boys and get the most out of them. We always started the day with a game, often something physical to get their heads back inside their bodies, and we had a fake Monopoly gambling racket going on for a while, to teach multiplication.
"Having taught drama, I understood the dynamics of a classroom. I could get kids really wound up, then bring them back down again and help them to regulate their emotions. I would address anything that came up in the classroom using true values-based education. Life skills were embedded in everything we did."
Today, heading up the English Language Centre at Armidale Secondary College is "like BackTrack on steroids". In both settings, Sarah says, education is not black and white, but grey, and "there has to be allowance for that or the kids will never learn". What started with two students at the start of 2018 has grown to 115 students and 13 staff as Armidale's population of Ezidi people has grown.
Again, it's a challenging classroom. "Our students are highly traumatised and often don't have any education in their home language," Sarah says. "They've experienced trauma on a completely different level- they have experienced first-hand the atrocities of war and genocide. But I use the same methods to engage them that I learnt during my UNE drama training and at BackTrack. Trust, safety and friendship are essential before any English education takes place. We deal with the welfare first.
"The Ezidi students go through a silent phase for two weeks to a month after they arrive. But I tell teachers to make the most of it, because once they come out of it, they don't shut up. Once we have gained their trust, they learn beautifully. We now have kids studying at TAFE doing VET courses in nursing, beauty, construction, early childhood education and community services, and they have only been learning English for 18 months, so that's pretty amazing."
In a special partnership, students Sarah has engaged with through previous BackTrack programs are also now helping Ezidi children to learn. "They are often our Indigenous and disengaged kids who hate school, but they're always the first to volunteer to give us a hand," she says. "They are so beautiful with the Ezidi students, who start cheering when they walk into the classroom."
It's a long way from Sarah's own school experience. "But I think if I hadn't failed so dramatically when I was at high school, I wouldn't understand what many of these kids are going through, and how hard it can be to learn," she says. "Everything that has happened to me throughout my life has led to me becoming a good teacher, but none of it would have been possible without UNE giving me a go."
