The documentary Paper Tigers is based on the story about Lincoln High School, where the staff revolutionized the conventional approach to teaching by integrating awareness of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) into their curriculum. The team does not treat the students with prejudice or labeling. Still, it integrates their life stories into their learning experience to teach them how to adjust their emotional responses to triggers with awareness. The documentary allows for investigating the journey of several students from their abusive and neglecting families toward healing and success in education. This paper is designed to illustrate the experience of one of the students from the documentary.
Student Experience
The student chosen for the analysis and overview is Kelsey, a freshman, age 14. She comes from a family of a single mother who was using drugs and demonstrated an adverse example of behavior to her child. The girl exhibited negative patterns of behavior, engaged in deviant actions, and expressed suicidal intentions. She acquired a blocking or protecting behavioral mechanism in response to the negative experiences. In particular, the adverse childhood experiences she has encountered are comprised of her mother’s drug addiction, neglect, and her own early addiction to meth as a teenager, as well as sexual molestation.
It was in response to the obtained trauma of sexual assault that Kelsey turned to drugs as her way of coping with the issue. Moreover, it was her way of adjusting to reality following the example of her mother, who was using drugs and lying to her family. Eventually, Kelsey closed and lied to others about her issues and continued to suffer.
The interventions that the staff was using when working with Kelsey included mentorship, group therapy, and psycho-education. In particular, the girl attended classes where other students from backgrounds similar o hers were studying. The feeling of not being alone, belonging to a group of single-minded peers helped her and motivated them to stay on track. In addition, the whole curriculum was organized in a manner of informing and educating the children about the complexity of life experiences they had been exposed to and how to cope with the outcomes.
The teachers showed the students, and Kelsey in particular that their self-worth should not depend on the adverse experiences they encountered. They helped her understand the cause of her aggression and her reactions to triggers, and how to direct her energy toward continuous development.
These interventions were aligned with the psycho-educational direction aimed at informing the children about ACEs to empower them. As for the group therapy interventions, the staff used a specifically designed group discussion class to encourage Kelsey and her peers to open and face their fears. Mentors also contributed to the healing process since they allowed the student to connect with others and develop trust, as well as engage in functional relationships. Along with mentorship and educational interventions, group discussions helped Kelsey deal with her problem.
When working with Kelsey, educators were applying their own patterns of knowing to integrate the girl’s experience in her healing process. In particular, one of the school staff members also had had a drug problem in the past and had successfully dealt with it (Redford, 2015). She said that her drug use was a response to the experience of sexual abuse she was exposed to in the past. In such a manner, the knowledge and first-hand experience of the feelings, cravings, and psychological tensions in the form of aggression, loss of self-control, and mood swings helped her connect with the student. Thus, engaging with the students through personal experience and patterns of knowing helped the staff lead their learners toward the desired goal.
Explanation of the Title of the Documentary
The documentary is entitled Paper Tigers because of the connection of this metaphor with the experiences of the children who attended Lincoln High School. As one of the staff members explained, when a tiger is in a critical situation, its blood becomes filled with cortisol. However, when one is continuously exposed to critical and threatening situations, their cortisol level is always elevated. The kids with ACEs respond to all the triggers with aggression. According to the teacher interviewed for the documentary, “rage, anger – anything could set them off; they don’t know the difference between a real tiger and a paper tiger (Redford, 2015, 00:20:25-00:20:38).
In other words, the children with ACEs develop protecting mechanisms within which they respond to the world with aggression, which often leads to delinquency, addiction, poverty, and other outcomes.
However, paper tigers imply the triggers that are not real; the world itself is not threatening to them. It is their past experiences through which they have formed their attitudes and beliefs about a society that act like paper tigers, the elusive threats that exist only in their heads. Therefore, it is important to help these students understand the causes of their behavior and give them a chance to recover, heal, and step on the path toward personal development, independence, and success.
Conclusion
In summation, the paper has discussed the documentary Paper Tigers, using an example of the experience of one student. The selected student, Kelsey, was exposed to neglect, addicted parent treatment, drug use, and molestation since her early childhood, which negatively affected her psychological development, education, and socialization. Like many other students with the same experiences, she engaged in a vicious circle of dealing with psychological problems by getting more deeply involved in them. Lincoln High School staff developed an effective approach based on the specifically designed interventions aimed at addressing ACEs.
Through mentorship, psycho-education, and group therapy, the children were taught about coping skills and led toward better outcomes. With difficulties and successes, the children were capable of acknowledging their paper tigers and differentiating them from the real ones, the real problems in life. Through their ACEs, they were empowered to find internal strengths and talents to contribute to society and become functional members of it. This documentary shows a valuable example of how one school can make such a difference in the lives of people, which is why it should be followed to advance these achievements nationwide.
Reference
Redford, J. (2015). Paper Tigers. KPJR Films.