Here’s my latest in The Atlantic. 

When ben started flipping desks in the classroom, his teacher Heather Boyle ushered the rest of her first-grade class into the hallway for safety.

Things had begun to unravel a few moments earlier, when Ben—whose real name isn’t being used, to protect his privacy—struggled with a math lesson. He crawled under desks, bumping into other children’s legs. When his classmates complained, Boyle asked him to come out. “I don’t know how to do this stupid math,” he screamed.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re going to come sit with me, and I’m going to help you.” But as his frustrations grew, furniture went airborne. Boyle was forced to clear the room, call the principal for help, and wait until Ben calmed down.

Boyle, who has been teaching young kids since 1997, took charge of a new, trauma-informed classroom in Bartlesville’s Ranch Heights Elementary School: the ATLAS program, or the Alternative Therapeutic Learning Academic Setting. Based on research, and in partnership with a local mental-health center, ATLAS helps kids who have experienced early trauma or dysfunction learn to process and manage emotions so they can return to a typical classroom.

more here.