Nat Hazards (2014) 72:1075–1092 DOI 10.1007/s11069-014-1053-3 ORIGINAL PAPER
Classroom responses of New Zealand school teachers following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake Victoria A. Johnson • Kevin R. Ronan
Received: 26 March 2013 / Accepted: 12 January 2014 / Published online: 21 January 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract Following a damaging magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand on February 22, 2011, an unprecedented number of displaced school children were enrolled temporarily or permanently in new schools throughout New Zealand. This study utilized accounts from primary school teachers in New Zealand, derived from focus groups scheduled in March and April 2011 for an evaluation of a disaster preparedness teaching resource, to examine how these disasters impacted individuals and schools outside of Christchurch. The educators’ focus group accounts provide an illustration of classroom responses including providing emotional support to displaced children, informal classroom discussions, curricular responses, addressing disaster rumors, and information seeking through peers. Some recommendations are provided on ways to support teachers’ important roles in disaster recovery, including targeting evidence-based guidance and teaching resources to schools enrolling displaced children, dispelling disaster rumors through schools and facilitating peer mentoring among teachers. An overarching lesson is that communities would benefit from teachers being better equipped to provide emotional support and responsive disaster education to children after disasters. Keywords Displaced children Disasters Schools Christchurch earthquake New Zealand 1 Introduction The Canterbury Region on the eastern coast New Zealand’s South Island, with a population of approximately half a million residents, made international news after the devastation
V. A. Johnson (&) Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University, P.O. Box 756, Wellington 6140, New Zealand e-mail:
[email protected] K. R. Ronan School of Human, Health and Social Sciences, CQUniversity Australia, Building 32, Bruce Hwy, Rockhampton, QLD 4701, Australia e-mail:
[email protected]
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from unexpected earthquake activity. On September 4, 2010, the town of Darfield was struck by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake, resulting in damage to infrastructure but no casualties (GNS Science 2010). Subsequently on February 22, 2011, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurred in Christchurch, the region’s largest city, and resulted in 185 casualties and widespread damage, particularly to the central business district (GNS Science 2011). While there were no deaths or serious injuries among staff and students in the 163 primary and secondary schools in the Christchurch area (comprising Christchurch City, Selwyn District and Waimakariri District) most of the schools were closed for about 3 weeks, resulting in academic scheduling changes (Gilbert 2011; Ham et al. 2012). The majority of schools reopened after 3 weeks. Twenty-four schools remained closed for a longer period and 11 that were seriously damaged were slotted for permanent closure or a school merger (Gilbert 2011). The earthquake and school closures contributed to an unprecedented movement of displaced school children; 11,077 students, representing 14.9 % of Christchurch area students, had transferred to another school, including 8,458 students who transferred to schools outside the Christchurch area (Education Counts 2011; Love 2011). In recent years, both large- and small-scale disasters have instigated temporary and permanent movements of large numbers of children and families (Stuart et al. 2013; Elliott and Pais 2010; Donner and Rodriguez 2008), and many displaced children have been rapidly integrated into new schools that were not necessarily prepared to meet their needs (Jaycox et al. 2007; Pane et al. 2008; Reich and Wadsworth 2008; Rowley 2007). Children affected by disasters have been found to be at higher risk for mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder and childhood traumatic grief, behavioral issues such as increased aggression, delinquency or withdrawal, and declining academic performance (Peek 2008; Peek and Richardson 2010; Pane et al. 2006; Jaycox et al. 2007). Further, new living arrangements and school environments, often necessary after a devastating disaster, can further exacerbate the social, environmental, and psychological stress experienced by children and their families (Picou and Marshall 2007; Lazarus et al. 2003). The enrollment of new students displaced by disasters can impact school resources and teaching staff in a variety of ways. Following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, schools in several US states that enrolled displaced children not only had difficulty identifying children’s mental health needs but also faced challenges communicating with parents, funding mental health services and balancing the needs of the displaced students with those of the preexisting student population (Jaycox et al. 2007). In some cases, enrolling new students in the middle of a school year resulted in unanticipated class size increases, higher levels of stress among school staff, and less time for teacher training and professional development (Pane et al. 2006). Although new technologies allow us to track the movement of school children following disasters (Levine et al. 2007), this study and others indicate that schools outside a disaster-affected area are not usually targeted or eligible for disaster recovery resources and funding, even when they enroll large numbers of children who have been directly impacted by a disaster (Pane et al. 2008; Jaycox et al. 2007). Because school is one of the children’s main developmental contexts in addition to home and community, school teachers have an important role in the disaster recovery and stabilization of children and their families (Buchanan et al. 2009, 2010). There is a growing body of research on children affected by disasters, and the use of school teachers as psychosocial mediators in communities directly impacted by disasters (e.g., Baum et al. 2009; Cohen and Mannarino 2011; Wolmer et al. 2003, 2005; Lazarus et al. 2003; Prinstein et al. 1996; La Greca et al. 1994). Teachers are an accessible and trusted source of information and support for children and understand developmentally appropriate practices; therefore, teachers could fill a critical gap in the limited supply of communal
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resources for addressing mental health impacts in disaster-affected communities (Lazarus et al. 2003; Buchanan et al. 2010). Yet, research has found that teachers and parents often underestimate the extent of children’s suffering after a traumatic event, and have difficulty discerning emotional problems in children like anxiety and depression compared with more obvious behavioral issues, such as oppositionality and conduct-related problems (Ronan 1996; Reich and Wadsworth 2008; Pfefferbaum et al. 1999). Some teachers have been trained by experts to provide mental health interventions to children, but there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of these initiatives (Franklin et al. 2012). For example, in a long-term control group study involving children impacted by a major earthquake in Turkey, Wolmer et al. (2005) did not find that a teacher-mediated mental health intervention made a significant difference in reducing post-traumatic, grief, and dissociative symptoms in children. Responsive classroom activities, such as discussions and planned lessons about the disaster, may be more practical than teacher-mediated mental health interventions. A few examples of post-disaster curricular activities in schools have been documented, including activities such as expressive writing and art activities, science lessons, disaster preparedness lessons, and practice of school emergency drills (e.g., Smith and Williams-Boyd 2007; Tucker 2004; Shreve et al. 2002; Degnan et al. 2004; Zevenbergen et al. 2000; Silverman 1999). After the 2010 Darfield earthquake in New Zealand, a survey with a small sample of teachers across New Zealand found that some teachers, particularly senior geography and junior social studies teachers, made curricular changes to incorporate lessons on the Darfield earthquake due to its significance to New Zealand and student interest (Taylor and Moeed 2013). Responsive curricular activities could provide elements of psychosocial mediation after disasters. Providing accurate information and knowledge about a traumatic event has been found to reduce anxiety and distress in both children and adults (Damiani 2011; Kenardy et al. 2008; Brodkin and Coleman 1994). Fothergill and Peek (2006) found that providing accurate information was one of the most helpful responses to children’s emotional and mental health needs following Hurricane Katrina. Further, Peek and Richardson (2010) found that children displaced by disasters had improved academic recovery when their new teachers acknowledged the students’ experiences, facilitated peer support and encouraged children to express their disaster experiences artistically. Exploratory studies on post-disaster curricular responses have found that disaster education is not often recognized by teachers or school leadership as a constructive way to address the needs and interests of students. In a study of teachers’ curricular responses in storm-impacted communities following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Buchanan et al. (2010) found that despite a significant amount of information and guidance on how schools can respond to emergencies and support children affected by disasters (e.g., Bensalah 2002; Leaman 1995; Prinstein et al. 1996), many teachers avoided discussions and lessons on the hurricanes because they were uncertain how to address the subject, inexperienced in developing emergent curriculums, and in some cases, were restricted by school policies that directed teachers to stick with the pre-established curriculum. Similarly, Taylor and Moeed (2013) found that inflexible curriculum and assessment time frames, and a desire to return students to a sense of normalcy, were the top reasons teachers did not do classroom lessons on the 2010 Darfield earthquake in the weeks and months following the event. Since disaster education is not widely taught in New Zealand schools, increasing school-based disaster education for children has been a key goal of the New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management (MCDEM 2006). In an effort to increase children’s exposure to disaster education, in 2006, MCDEM developed and
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distributed What’s the Plan, Stan?, a resource for teaching disaster science and preparedness to students age 7 to 12, to all primary schools in New Zealand. Subsequently, in 2011, an evaluation was undertaken to identify motivators and deterrents to school teachers’ use of the resource. Based on findings from focus groups with primary and secondary school teachers throughout New Zealand, Johnson (2011) concluded that use of the resource is limited and infrequent because many teachers are unaware of the resource and desire training in disaster-related subjects. The 2011 evaluation of What’s the Plan, Stan? also provided a unique opportunity to identify classroom responses to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Due to the timing of the focus groups, which took place just after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, the focus group discussions included accounts of how the earthquake impacted classrooms outside the Canterbury region, some of which enrolled displaced children (Johnson 2011). Thus, based on a secondary analysis of data from the focus groups, this paper analyzed educators’ accounts to create a typology of classroom responses to the earthquake. The findings provide some evidence of needs and resource gaps in schools that may be overlooked when focusing resources to disaster-affected jurisdictions. Some recommendations are provided based on these findings.
2 Methods The excerpts used in this study were derived from results of focus groups with primary and secondary school educators in New Zealand undertaken as part of an evaluation of the national implementation of What’s the Plan, Stan? The focus groups were planned before the Christchurch earthquake on February 22, 2011 and took place just after the earthquake in March and April 2011. While the focus and methods of the evaluation study were not changed due to the earthquake, the focus group discussions captured teachers’ accounts of their interactions with displaced children, curricular responses to the disaster, and the influence of disaster rumors. Consequently, following an initial study based on these focus groups aimed at improving disaster education in New Zealand schools (Johnson 2011), the data presented in this study were analyzed by two raters with a different focus: to identify patterns and themes, and related insights, linked to educators’ classroom responses to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. During the planning of the resource evaluation, eight of the 16 Civil Defence and Emergency Management regions in New Zealand were chosen as locations for focus groups with primary school educators (teaching Years 1–7, students aged 5–12 years old). The jurisdictions included: Auckland, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu¯-Wanganui, Wellington, Nelson–Tasman, Southland, and Canterbury (see Fig. 1). These locations were chosen because they comprised a mix of rural, suburban, and urban communities on both the North and South Islands, some of which have been affected by disasters in the past 5 years. The evaluation report provides more detailed information on the regions and their disaster histories (Johnson 2011, Appendix 2). In each focus group location, local and regional civil defence staff were asked to choose an opportunity sample of 5 to 15 local schools that represented a mix of schools with small, medium, and large student populations and were likely to respond to the focus group invitation. Forty-seven schools were recruited between October 2010 and February 2011 and asked to provide one or two volunteer teachers or principals to participate in a focus group. Use of What’s the Plan, Stan? was not a requirement for participation in a focus group. Of this sample, 34 schools (72 %) agreed to participate and provided a total of 56
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Fig. 1 Civil Defence and Emergency Management regions of New Zealand
volunteers. The most common reason for declining the invitation was a scheduling conflict with other school events. Seven volunteers did not appear on the day of the focus groups. In total, 49 educators representing 31 schools participated in the seven focus groups. Table 1 describes the focus group participants including the number of displaced children in each focus group region after the Christchurch earthquake (Statistics New Zealand 2011). The evaluation report provides more details on the participating schools’ demographics (Johnson 2011, Appendix 3). Following the Christchurch earthquake, social science research in Canterbury was restricted for 6 weeks through a New Zealand government embargo (Johnston 2011), and consequently the Canterbury focus group scheduled on March 17, 2011 was cancelled, thus leaving seven focus groups overall. The first focus group took place on March 1, 2011, 1 week after the Christchurch earthquake, and the last took place on April 12, 2011. The focus groups were 2.5 h in length and were facilitated using 30 open-ended questions divided into six sections in the following chronological order: (1) initial communication about the resource; (2) classroom implementation of the teaching resource; (3) activities for children’s emotional well-being; (4) school exercises; (5) student experiences; and (6) sustainability of the program. Before the commencement of the focus groups, one question was added to the subsection of the questionnaire on activities for children’s emotional well-being: ‘‘Have you used the Christchurch earthquake as an opportunity to discuss disaster preparedness, and if yes, how?’’ All focus group sessions were recorded and independently transcribed.
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Table 1 Focus group characteristics No. displaced childrena
Location
Date
Hawke’s Bay
Napier
March 1, 2011
3
6
195
Manawatu¯-Wanganui Wellington
Manawatu¯ Lower Hutt
March 8, 2011
5
8
234
March 10, 2011
6
10
516
Nelson–Tasman
Nelson
March 22, 2011
5
7
1,404
Auckland
Auckland
March 30, 2011
4
7
1,464
Taranaki
New Plymouth
April 6, 2011
4
5
90
Southland
Invercargill
April 12, 2011
4
6
420
31
49
4,323
Total
No. schools represented
No. participants
Focus group region
a
Children previously enrolled in schools in the Christchurch area (comprising Christchurch City, Selwyn District and Waimakariri District) who re-enrolled in schools outside the Canterbury Region between February 24, 2011 and September 12, 2011 (Statistics New Zealand 2011)
The coding process that was part of the What’s the Plan, Stan? evaluation study resulted in 28 categories and 107 sub-categories, including several categories that related to educators’ personal experiences and opinions regarding the Christchurch earthquake and their interaction with displaced children from Christchurch. For this secondary analysis of classroom responses to the Christchurch earthquake, two independent raters coded the transcripts using NVivo software in order to categorize excerpts, identify patterns, and determine the prevalence of specific concepts, words, and phrases. This two rater process was intended to increase the dependability and credibility of the dataset (Lincoln and Guba 1985; see also Henwood and Pidgeon 1992). The analysis resulted in five main categories that form a typology of classroom responses to the Christchurch earthquake.
3 Results The findings from our analysis include five types of classroom responses following the Christchurch earthquake: (1) providing emotional support, (2) informal classroom discussion, (3) curricular responses, (4) addressing disaster rumors, and (5) information seeking through peers. Excerpts were selected that are relevant to the themes. All names and some pronouns have been changed to protect the anonymity of individuals. Overall, focus group participants expressed a high degree of concern for the emotional coping of students, but there was a high level of uncertainty of how to identify and address children’s needs. 3.1 Providing emotional support Participants in each of the seven focus groups indicated that they had new transfer students in their classrooms or schools who had been displaced from the Canterbury region after the Christchurch earthquake for temporary or indefinite periods of time. Many participants expressed concerns about the sensitivities of transfer students and provided accounts of a wide range of approaches to addressing the earthquake with displaced children.
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When displaced students exhibited strong signs of trauma or withdrawal, most teachers reported that they made efforts to provide or facilitate emotional support. One teacher explained that the school placed a pair of siblings from Christchurch in the same classroom despite their 18 month age difference because the older child was ‘‘traumatized’’ and having the younger sibling with her ‘‘made it easier.’’ Some teachers sought guidance from schools principals, although sometimes principals were also uncertain how to respond. A teacher discussed her experience with three displaced children in her classroom, one of whom did not want to talk about the earthquake when asked, stating: You could see she was really frightened. And I suggested to the principal that she possibly needed some counselling and he kind of backed off it because he didn’t quite know if it was our place to be counselling and opening that up. He was going to discuss it with the parents to see what the parents wanted for their children. But you could see she was definitely in need of some help. Tears welled up. Some teachers reported that they shielded the displaced students from questions, or ‘‘hounding’’, by the existing students. In contrast, teachers also shared accounts of how the existing students helped children from Christchurch by asking them how they felt and listening to their stories. One teacher related: We had two kids come to our school for a while from Christchurch, and the kids talked to them—you know, on their own level—and found out where were you and how did it feel, that sort of thing. So it’s pretty powerful I think, those conversations between the kids. The delay or cancellation of regular school emergency drills was a common account. While some teachers suggested that practice of school disaster responses could serve as a positive coping mechanism for students and staff, others felt the drills could frighten or confuse displaced students or very young students. One teacher stated: When we have needed to talk about safety in school, we have backed away from it because we have got kids from Christchurch who we think can’t cope with it. So we’re struggling a bit to know how much to talk about, what to do. I mean, we should be doing it now but in some cases we have pulled back from it. We have decided not to have an earthquake drill because we think we’re freaking them out. Several teachers described a displaced student as being resilient, indifferent or seemingly unemotional, which sometimes led them to conclude the child did not need special attention. When a displaced child exhibited a resilient attitude, some teachers regarded this as a positive indication that the child was effectively coping, despite knowledge that the child was in a new school and living arrangement due to a traumatic event, and even knowledge the child’s parents were struggling. Regarding a displaced child in her classroom, one teacher stated, ‘‘He was quite matter of fact about it [the earthquake], and I just thought, gee, he’s pretty resilient. I learned later that his father was a mess, which is the reason why he had come up to stay with his brother in Auckland.’’ Another teacher described how a displaced student came to her classroom for a week because his school wasn’t open and his parents were very busy. She related, ‘‘He came to stay with his grandparents and he wasn’t too fazed by it, actually.’’ Several teachers indicated there was a staff meeting in their schools regarding how to provide support to displaced children, but very few mentioned being provided guidance documents or reading materials on talking to children about disasters. One
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participant mentioned that he was emailed a link to the 2006 Psychological First Aid Operations Guide (Brymer et al. 2006). Another participant stated, ‘‘There is a resource out about coping with emotions. Our librarian alerted us to it but I can’t remember what it is.’’ In the section of the focus group discussions about the What’s the Plan, Stan? activities for children’s emotional well-being, participants were asked ‘‘Do you feel prepared to address students’ emotional reactions after disasters?,’’ in reference to a disaster in their own locality. This question was thought-provoking, and for some participants, it took time to deliver a response. It appeared that most had not previously thought about how they would handle students’ emotional reactions after a disaster. Some discussed uncertainty of what their own emotional state would be. One teacher said, ‘‘Teachers are people too and we are going to react in our own different ways. Some will be stoic and staunch and some are just going to run for the hills—you just don’t know until it actually happens.’’ Another teacher stated, ‘‘You like to think you’re a calm person who leads things, but you don’t know—you might go to pieces yourself.’’ However, several teachers reasoned that because they address children’s emotions on a daily basis, they would address children’s reactions to the best of their ability after a disaster, even if they are not certain about the best approach. Some participants discussed how teachers underestimate their abilities to deal with children who have experienced a traumatic event. One teacher said, ‘‘I think as teachers we are often supporting emotional things because awful things are happening in children’s lives, often. If there’s a behavior, it’s usually because there’s a reason. There’s always a reason why. So we are quite skilled in supporting children, we just don’t know that we are, I think.’’ 3.2 Informal classroom discussions Teachers reported that the Christchurch earthquake was a topic of daily discussion with students. Young students were very interested in talking about the Christchurch earthquake with their teachers and peers. Stated one teacher, ‘‘When the Christchurch earthquake happened, you automatically talk about it because that’s what their topic of conversation is.’’ Another teacher described the high student interest in the disaster as a fixation, stating, ‘‘Whatever we are talking about, or doing writing, or anything, they manage to twist everything back to the earthquake.’’ One teacher related, ‘‘It’s part of the emotional thing too. They don’t want to be shut off from it, they want to talk about it. You have to decide at what point you are going to take them, but they do want to know and I think that’s key to it all with their emotions. You’ve got to talk about it.’’ Although informal classroom discussions were common, there was a clear sense of hesitancy and uncertainty among many teachers on how to appropriately broach the Christchurch earthquake with children, particularly when there were displaced students in the classroom. One teacher said, ‘‘We have to be very careful about how we deal with the whole topic of ‘disaster’.’’ Another teacher related: It is a very fine line that we’ve been treading and I think they prefer just to get on with normal life at the moment. We did have an earthquake drill and we did call on the senior student [from Christchurch] to tell us a little bit about what happened that day and how they dealt with it as a school, but she’s new to the school and I think she was embarrassed and didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to focus on it too much because they [the displaced students] just want to get back to normal life.
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Some teachers tried to discuss loss with students using real-world examples. In most cases, it seemed the teachers were guided by their own knowledge of student needs and interests rather than a particular school policy or guidance document. One teacher related, ‘‘I spoke a bit there about pets and about how the children would be feeling about their pets because that was the only way I could think to link loss and suffering to the kids—for the little guys anyway. The senior ones knew that a lot of people had died.’’ Another teacher described her approach: In my class, we have talked about people coming and looting and stealing things because your house is not secure anymore and I related it directly to them—talked about iPods, play stations, things that really matter to them, that are part of their everyday life. I said, ‘They could be gone, or crushed or whatever, and the same with food. What about your cat, your dog?’ That sort of thing, so they really start to think about the things that they are attached to and that helps them take it all quite seriously. In contrast, a few teachers described how they avoided discussion of the earthquakes in an effort not to upset children. In some cases, teachers were adhering to school directives on how teachers should interact with displaced children. One teacher said, ‘‘They wanted to feel ‘normal’ we were told [by the school principal], and ‘just get on with the normal routines’.’’ A similar account from another focus group participant was: I think we had something come through, perhaps from Civil Defence, when we found out we were getting students from Christchurch. The word was put out from our Principal—just try and keep things as normal as possible. Some expressed concerns that opening topics of discussion with children about the earthquakes might create more harm than good. One teacher said, ‘‘You have got the aspect of having to consider—do you bring this all up and talk about it to help appease their concerns, or is it going to bring it all back to them?’’ Others did not want to overstep their responsibilities or suggested they did not have appropriate training to facilitate discussions with children. One teacher stated: We mustn’t overlook the fact that most children talk with their parents about things and if they are in the situation, the parents would be talking with them. It is important to remember too, if they don’t want to talk about it, they are not ready to talk about it. We shouldn’t be pushing them into it. But I also agree with you—we are not actually trained to do that kind of thing anyway. Similarly, a teacher discussed his desire for training: It’s about accessing or having access to experts… I keep saying to the staff we are general practitioners. You know, you do your job that you do, but when we come to a situation where we feel we are not equipped or trained, we can, through all good intentions, actually cause more harm than good. 3.3 Curricular responses Although less common that informal classroom discussions, several of the teachers reported making curricular changes after the Christchurch earthquake to incorporate disaster-related lessons. One teacher described how she made immediate curricular changes due to student interest, stating, ‘‘Our team has actually stopped what we were doing this term, and are doing
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one on people who help us in times of disaster. It has come straight out of the kids talking about all the people that came in to help Christchurch.’’ Some teachers did reading activities. For young children, teachers used children’s books such as When I’m Feeling Scared by Trace Moroney, Quakey Cat by Diana Noonan and Is That An Earthquake? by Alan Bagnall. In one classroom that was reading different novels with survival themes, the teacher incorporated a discussion about the earthquake. There were a few accounts of earthquake-related writing activities. One teacher facilitated an environmental writing lesson on the Christchurch earthquake, describing the activity as ‘‘a form of expressive recount writing’’ where children incorporate their own thoughts and feelings. Another teacher described a similar expressive writing activity and students’ enthusiastic engagement: We did a lot of writing on it. We did a lot of ‘How would you feel? How do you think they’re feeling?’ and things like that. Great stuff! Great discussion time. There actually did come a time when I actually had to call it and go ‘We cannot start the day off every day focusing on the horrors of the world.’ Also, one teacher described how her classroom read and commented on blogs that children from Christchurch had written about their experiences in the earthquake. Although about a third of the focus group participants indicated they used What’s the Plan, Stan? in previous years to teach topics on disaster preparedness, none of the teachers reported using prepared lesson plans or activities from the resource for responsive curricular activities after the Christchurch earthquake. Most of the teachers described their responsive activities as ‘‘informal.’’ One reason may be the inflexibility of curriculum and assessment timelines in New Zealand schools, an impediment identified in the study of curricular responses after the 2010 Darfield earthquake (Taylor and Moeed 2013). Another reason may be that teachers did not consider the benefits of making curricular adaptations. One teacher stated: We didn’t throw out what we had planned for the term and do a big topic on preparing yourself. But informally all of us talked to our students over that period, of what needs to go in your [emergency] kit… but nothing went home to parents in terms of like—are you prepared, or anything like that. 3.4 Addressing disaster rumors During the focus groups, a number of references were made to two prevalent rumors after the Canterbury earthquakes: the earthquake predictions of New Zealand author Ken Ring, also known as the ‘‘Moon Man,’’ and the ‘‘Triangle of Life’’ theory. Ken Ring is a writer from Auckland known for predicting weather and earthquakes using his research on lunar cycles. Although his theories have been debunked by established scientists and academics (Satherly 2011), in September 2010, Ring predicted that another major earthquake would occur in or near the Canterbury Region on March 20, 2011 (Ring 2010, para. 23). The story increasingly made local and national headline news in New Zealand in the weeks leading up to date, and the discussion and anxiety caused by Ring’s predictions were captured in some of the participant’s anecdotes. One teacher related: The kids just wanted to talk about it. They saw a lot of the images, and I think the Moon Man and his predictions did heaps and heaps of unsettling and harm. It was
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terrible, really. And they [the students] were just so terrified that it was going to happen, all the time. In some cases, parents asked teachers not to discuss the Moon Man’s prediction in class, even when children had questions. One teacher said, ‘‘We had a couple of complaints from parents. You know, the prediction of the [earthquake] on the 20th. When teachers talked about that with their classes, parents have rung up and said stop scaremongering… but it’s out there.’’ In one discussion among focus group participants, some teachers questioned how to address the disaster rumor with students, particularly in light of the ongoing aftershocks in the Canterbury region.1 Participant A: At school you are trying to be calm, and practical and scientific about it and then… Participant B: But you don’t want to shut anything down either. Like you can’t say you’re talking rubbish! Participant A: And you can’t say no, there won’t be a big earthquake that weekend either! We are used to having earthquakes in New Zealand and there was that false sense of security because we knew there were going to be aftershocks. But then there was another earthquake that killed people, in February, and it was smaller over the Richter scale but more violent. I think—I know for myself, so I know that the kids will be feeling it as well—there’s not that feeling of ‘Oh there won’t be one for a while now.’ There’s that ‘What’s going to happen next?’ or ‘When is it going to happen?’ So it’s a lot more frightening, I think. In four focus groups, the ‘‘Triangle of Life’’ theory was mentioned. The ‘‘Triangle of Life’’ is a controversial theory promoted through email messages that advocates for sheltering next to solid objects and not under tables, a protective action known as ‘‘drop, cover and hold’’ that is advised by the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.2 The disaster rumor generated confusion and uncertainty in some communities about the Ministry’s authoritative advice (MCDEM 2010). Although ‘‘drop, cover and hold’’ is regularly practiced in school emergency drills for earthquakes, some teachers questioned this practice due to the ‘‘Triangle of Life’’ rumor. One participant indicated that parents had forwarded ‘‘Triangle of Life’’ emails to the school. In another focus group, teachers discussed their confusion about whether they should get under their desks during an earthquake. Some teachers also said there was a ‘‘controversy’’ or ‘‘debate’’ regarding what to do during an earthquake. One focus group participant was asked by another participant about her school’s ‘‘under the desk’’ policy and she responded, ‘‘There’s a debate about that. Is under the desk the place to be, or is it beside the desk, or is it between the desks?’’ Another teacher stated: I know one of the issues that came up after the Christchurch one was ‘What do you do in an earthquake?’ and there was quite a debate in the class as to whether getting under the tables was in fact the right thing to do. Some kids had heard, I’m not sure where, that was no longer the drill for earthquakes. And the kid who led that discussion was a kid who has just moved up from Christchurch who was in the first Christchurch earthquake… I said ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’ But there’s debate around that. 1
The Canterbury region experienced 3,870 aftershocks from September 4, 2010 to September 3, 2012. For more information, see http://info.geonet.org.nz/display/home/Aftershocks.
2
Get Ready, Get Thru, http://www.getthru.govt.nz/.
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3.5 Information seeking through peers Many participants shared stories that they had heard about the experiences of students and teachers in Christchurch, and these stories appeared to influence how some felt about their own responsibilities to prepare for disasters. For some teachers, the earthquake event provided motivation for teachers to think more strategically about how they should prepare for and respond to a disaster that happens during school. One teacher stated: We have tended to teach our kids about getting to a safe place but… I have talked with colleagues in Christchurch—what has actually occurred inside their school, inside their classrooms. The children actually, on the moment, need to be able to protect themselves from falling objects. The paint pots on the shelf, the high windows that we just about have in all of our older classrooms. So on the moment of the earthquake, those are the sorts of things we need to be actually thinking about. Rather than the actual whole building per se, it’s really just the objects that are within the building. In some cases, discussions with teachers in Christchurch helped confirm the Ministry’s advice to ‘‘drop, cover and hold’’ under desks during an earthquake. One teacher stated, ‘‘They have found out in Christchurch that by getting under the desks, the kids cover their heads, but they actually need to hold on to the desks because apparently the desks were just thrown everywhere. When you are under the desk, whatever you are under, you actually have to hang on to it to keep it over you.’’ When considering how they would prepare for or respond to a disaster, several teachers mentioned that they would like to hear anecdotes from the teachers in Christchurch to understand how they reacted during the Christchurch earthquake and how they coped afterward. Some participants also suggested that their students would benefit from hearing stories from other students who were affected, and in some cases, classrooms had already had discussions with students who had been in Christchurch during the earthquake. One teacher said, ‘‘If the Christchurch teachers could put some things together, I think we would take notice, actually.’’ Another teacher stated: My Mum’s got a friend who’s a kindergarten teacher and I said ‘How are you? Those wee, wee kids…’—you know. And she said, ‘Well, you know, every time there was an aftershock, they’d cry’, and you know, they really got nothing done in a day. So, when these things are happening, I’m really keen to talk to teachers about what they think would be better to do.
4 Summary and recommendations During a 2011 evaluation of What’s the Plan, Stan?, a disaster preparedness teaching resource used in New Zealand schools, accounts derived from focus groups with teachers and principals provided some illustrations of classroom responses following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. These accounts formed themes related to providing emotional support, informal discussions, curricular activities, addressing disaster rumors, and information seeking through peers. Several of the themes align with findings by Buchanan et al. (2010) in their study of Hurricane Katrina’s effect on schools and system response, particularly teachers’ uncertainty about the consequences of discussing the disaster with children.
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Teachers reported that they attempted to provide or facilitate emotional support for displaced students who exhibited obvious trauma or withdrawal, but some teachers assumed displaced children were effectively coping when they were indifferent or not expressive about the disaster. There were few accounts of the use of expert guidance on how to identify and address signs of traumatic stress in children. From the focus group accounts alone, it is difficult to evaluate teachers’ ability to accurately assess children’s coping and provide effective support, but the need for more comprehensive teacher guidance was clear. As identified in the accounts, some teachers did not consider the unseen impacts of parents’ difficulty coping, dislocation, disruption of routines, witness of damage and destruction, or relationships with disaster victims, all of which have been found to negatively affect children’s coping (Lazarus et al. 2003; Milgram et al. 1988). Despite students’ interest in discussing the Christchurch earthquake, planned curricular activities were sometimes limited by teachers’ concerns or uncertainty about broaching sensitive topics with children and schools’ policy to maintain a ‘‘normal’’ routine. These circumstances also led to delayed or cancelled emergency drills in some schools. Further, the confusion generated by disaster rumors, such as the ‘‘Triangle of Life’’ emails described in the results, led some teachers to question authoritative advice to ‘‘drop, cover and hold’’ during an earthquake, which is practiced during school emergency drills. These findings help inform our understanding of disaster impacts that are less understood in the school context and provide key lessons that can be translated to promote more effective disaster response and recovery. Three recommendations, relating to school preparedness and response for displaced children, addressing disaster rumors through schools, and peer mentoring, are based on findings from this study. An overarching lesson is that communities would benefit from teachers being better equipped to provide emotional support and responsive disaster education to children after disasters. 4.1 Target resources to schools that enroll displaced children Evidence-supported advice commonly provided to schools after earthquakes is to help children get back to school and into normal routines, but not to avoid discussion of the event itself (National Institute of Mental Health 2006; U.S. Department of Education 2005; Ronan et al. 2006). However, findings from this study indicate that advice to maintain normal routines may be interpreted as a recommendation to avoid disaster-related topics with children. Considering the lack of professional training for teachers on addressing children’s needs following disasters and the low likelihood teachers will seek this training on their own, schools enrolling students displaced by disasters should be proactively targeted for evidence-based psychosocial resources that help teachers feel informed and capable of discussing disasters with children (Kilmer et al. 2010; Jaycox et al. 2006). Uptake and effectiveness of these resources could be continuously evaluated to ensure that teachers are not only aware of the available resources, but are comfortable using them (Society for Community Research and Action 2008). An example of such a resource is the Teacher Training Resources (2011), developed by researchers at the University of Queensland after a series of natural disasters in Australia, which was provided to help teachers address the many ways that children may respond to traumatic stress (see also Jaycox et al. 2006; Ronan and Johnston 2005; La Greca et al. 1994). Ideally, teacher training would happen before disasters as a school preparedness measure. The Center for Mental Health in Schools (2005) found that pre-disaster crisis response training helped teachers better meet the needs of displaced children following Hurricane Katrina compared with teachers who did not have this training. Teachers are busy professionals with multiple competing priorities. Thus, it is important to emphasize
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that teacher training can be done in an efficient timeframe, such as through an in-service training that provides them with the basic skills to help children, and themselves, cope more effectively with children’s questions, emotions, and reactions following a disaster or other traumatic event (Kilmer et al. 2010). 4.2 Address disaster rumors through schools Disaster rumors and myths are known to thwart well-intended public education efforts, particularly in communities that have low trust in authorities (Thomas 2007). These accounts indicate that disaster rumors may have obstructed teachers’ provision of accurate information to students and the execution of ‘‘drop, cover and hold’’ drills for earthquakes in schools. Ongoing relationships among schools and the Civil Defence and Emergency Management sector are needed to ensure schools and other institutions not only have access to accurate information but also are able to trust authoritative advice. Trust in authorities is a critical component of motivating individuals to prepare for disasters (Paton 2003). Communication with schools could be an effective medium for addressing disaster rumors and dispelling the spread of inaccurate information about disasters and disaster preparedness. Not only do schools serve an audience of children and teachers, but schools are a source of information for the wider community when children share what they have learned in school with their households (Ronan et al. 2010, 2012). Therefore, by targeting schools with accurate disaster information, psychosocial guidance and age-appropriate teaching resources such as What’s the Plan, Stan?, local and national agencies can better address community-wide disaster rumors while supporting opportunities for disaster education and the recovery needs of displaced children. 4.3 Facilitate peer mentoring to support disaster education These findings and others (e.g., Taylor and Moeed 2013; Johnson 2011; Buchanan et al. 2010) suggest that student and teacher interest in disaster-related subjects increases significantly after disasters, but responsive curricular activities are inhibited by teachers’ inexperience with the subject matter and concerns about the sensitivities of displaced children. Multiple comments during the focus groups identified a common desire to hear more stories from teachers and students in Christchurch about their response and coping since the earthquakes. This indicates that peer mentoring, where teachers who experienced the Christchurch earthquake could mentor other teachers interested in learning more about disasters and coping strategies, could be a powerful mechanism to train teachers on how to provide emotional support to children affected by disasters and age-appropriate disaster education. Peer mentoring could also improve teacher training for use of What’s the Plan, Stan? in New Zealand schools, which was recommended as a measure to increase uptake and use of the resource (Johnson 2011). Research on professional development in teaching has found peer mentoring and coaching to be effective in helping teachers learn and implement newly developed content compared with traditional seminars and other passive training methods (Joyce and Showers 1996).
5 Limitations This study has several limitations. This focus group study examined the implementation of What’s the Plan, Stan?, a teaching resource on disaster preparedness, using a series of
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questions focused on the use of the resource in schools. Due to the timing of the scheduled focus groups, insights about the impacts of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake were also captured. Because of the focus of the study and the small number of participating educators, these findings do not represent the full range of experiences and issues faced by school teachers outside Canterbury following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. The secondary analysis of the data represents opportunistic research, providing useful information in an area not previously examined. Acknowledgments This research was supported with funding from the sponsors of the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowships in Public Policy, administered by Fulbright New Zealand, and the New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management. The opinions and views expressed in this paper are the personal views of the authors and do not represent in whole or part the opinions of Fulbright New Zealand or any New Zealand government agency.
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