Want to Get Troubled Teens on the College Track? Figure Out Why They Misbehave

The documentary ‘Paper Tigers’ shows what’s possible when schools talk to kids instead of suspending them.

(Photo: Pivot)

Aug 31, 2016· 3 MIN READ

Culture and education editor Liz Dwyer has written about race, parenting, and social justice for several national publications. She was previously education editor at Good.

Swearing at teachers, throwing chairs in a classroom, getting into fights on campus, or ditching class—those kinds of behaviors are sure to get students suspended, expelled, or handcuffed in the back of a squad car at most American high schools. But instead of responding with the typical punitive, zero-tolerance disciplinary tactics, what would happen if teachers and administrators started asking kids who act out what’s really going on in their lives?

In Paper Tigers—a documentary that follows six troubled teens and the staff at Lincoln Alternative High School in rural Walla Walla, Washington—educators try a different approach: by recognizing that student misbehavior is usually the result of traumatic stress from being abused or neglected, kids’ lives are transformed.

“Educators have such a death grip on tradition that we don’t want to let go. Traditional discipline practices do not work. We’re failing many kids by telling them to pay attention even when Dad beat up Mom the night before,” one of the film’s stars, Jim Sporleder, the now-retired principal of Lincoln, tells TakePart. “Traditionally, we tell students what they did wrong, and then we tell them what the consequence is. With the trauma-informed approach, we ask them what’s going on and where their stress level is, and that’s where the teaching and the relationship begins.”

Director James Redford filmed Sporleder, his staff, and the students during the 2012–2013 school year and also gave the teens handheld cameras to document their lives. Kelsey Sisavath, now 18, was a 14-year-old freshman during filming. Viewers see her share how she began using meth as a way to numb the pain she felt after being sexually assaulted by a stranger when she was 12.

Sisavath tells TakePart that she chose to attend Lincoln because “that’s where the bad kids ended up.” But the learning environment wasn’t what she expected—and not just because students at Lincoln called teachers by their first names. She realized the difference between Lincoln and other schools after getting into her first fight.

“Instead of being arrested or getting disciplined, Jim gave me a few minutes to calm down,” Sisavath recalls. “He asked me, ‘Why did you do this? Why did you get into this fight?’ Any other place, discipline might have been on the table. From that point on, I felt accepted and secure, and I actually apologized to the girl. I don’t think I would have done that if I hadn’t had that support system.”

Throughout the film, viewers see Sporleder, the teachers, and the school counselors strategize about how to reach kids such as Sisavath. One scene shows them discussing how a meth dealer drove up next to campus and tried to lure Sisavath back into using drugs by blowing smoke in her face. In another, they try to figure out how to help another girl whose mom has kicked her out of the house. Instead of referring these teens to off-campus resources that they may never access, Lincoln set up a campus health center where the teens can get physical checkups and talk to trained counselors.

“Once you change from a traditional punitive approach to a more effective approach of asking these kids what’s happening, it allows you to start wrapping around support systems,” Sporleder says.

Sporleder realized that traditional discipline methods weren’t getting Lincoln’s kids anywhere during the spring of 2010, his third year at the school. The 200-student campus had a reputation for drugs, gangs, and violence. “This place was a zoo,” he says in the film.

A lightbulb went off at an education conference where Sporleder learned about the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente. The research showed that kids who experience traumatic events—such as being sexually abused, witnessing domestic violence, or having an alcohol- or drug-addicted parent—are under toxic levels of stress.

Because of the high levels of trauma, their brains become hardwired into fight-or-flight mode, making them prone to angry outbursts and self-destructive behavior. That means teachers who respond to troubled kids with anger or harsh consequences trigger further negative reactions. But, according to the research, one caring adult in a child’s life can help break the cycle.

Sporleder took his learnings back to the staff and provided them with training in the research and de-escalation methods. “Teachers have to know it’s not personal when these kids are screaming at you, but traditionally, we take it personally,” Sporleder explains. “I’ve got to calm myself down if I’m going to have any chance of helping that student.”

Viewers also see how the school is transparent with the students about the ACE research—even giving them assessments that measure how many traumatic events they’ve experienced. The film also shows how the staff explicitly teaches the teens that learning to manage their emotions is a life skill that can put them on the path to college.

“As students begin to engage in the classroom, test scores will go up, and behavior infractions go down,” Sporleder says.

Indeed, since implementing this “trauma-informed approach” to teaching, Lincoln has experienced a 90 percent drop in suspensions and a 75 percent decrease in fights. Test scores have soared, the graduation rate was five times higher, and there was a threefold jump in the number of kids heading to college. Sisavath, who is enrolled in community college, is one of those success stories.

“I don’t feel like I transformed Lincoln. I feel like the kids transformed me,” Sporleder, who now devotes his time to giving workshops on a trauma-informed approach around the country, says. “Each one of us could be the one caring adult that could impact that student’s life.”

Paper Tigers premieres tonight at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Pivot, TakePart’s sister network. To take action, visit the One Caring Adult campaign now.