What Teachers Can Learn from What My Bones Know
Ms. Alvarez had taught seventh grade for eleven years and prided herself on staying calm no matter what a classroom threw at her. One afternoon a student threw a chair, and she found herself frozen, unable to speak, heart pounding as if she were the one in danger. Later, alone in her parked car, she cried harder than the moment seemed to warrant. A colleague mentioned, gently, that some teachers carry their own histories into rooms full of kids acting out, and that freezing wasn't weakness, it was information. Ms. Alvarez had grown up in a house where sudden outbursts meant disappearing into silence to stay safe. The chair had reached past her training and found that old, waiting alarm.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Recognizing your own alarm bells, not just your students'
Teachers spend years learning to recognize dysregulation in children, watching for signs a student's reaction is about more than the immediate moment happening in the room right then. What My Bones Know suggests turning that same attentive, non-judgmental lens on oneself. Difficult or unpredictable experiences in childhood can shape how an adult responds to conflict, noise, or unpredictability for decades afterward, and a classroom offers plenty of both. For a teacher, this might mean noticing that a disproportionate reaction to a disruptive student, or lingering shakiness after a hard day, has roots going back much further than this school year.
Some reactions are simply appropriate to a difficult, under-resourced job.
After a hard classroom moment, ask whether the reaction's size actually matches it.
Why an in-service training won't undo an old pattern
Foo's book describes trying several forms of therapy over years before finding an approach that actually helped her process complex trauma, not any single workshop or technique. Teachers are often offered short trainings on trauma-informed practice, useful for classroom strategy, but not built to address a teacher's own long-standing patterns. Expecting one afternoon session to resolve something formed slowly over childhood years sets up real disappointment. Professional support for significant early adversity usually means trying different therapists or approaches over real time, the same patience a teacher extends a struggling student but rarely ever extends to themselves in the process.
School schedules and modest pay make consistent outside therapy hard to access.
If a training doesn't shift a reaction, treat that as information, not failure.
Replacing "I should be over this" with a clearer story
Teachers often hold themselves to an impossible standard of endless patience, treating any strong reaction to a student as a personal failing. What My Bones Know offers something different: understanding why a pattern developed before judging it harshly. Foo's own healing involved building a more accurate, compassionate account of her own history rather than a harsher one. For a teacher, this might mean recognizing that a strong reaction to a raised voice or a slammed door made complete sense given where it originally started, not an excuse to stop growing, but a steadier place to start than shame ever offers.
Self-compassion cannot replace the classroom management skills the job requires.
When a student triggers a strong reaction, name what it once protected you from.
Teaching doesn't have to be done alone
Teachers often close their classroom door and manage everything inside it alone, isolation the job quietly rewards. What My Bones Know points to connection, not self-sufficiency, as part of real healing. A trusted colleague to debrief with, a mentor teacher, or a peer support group can turn an isolating job into a shared one, making old patterns easier to notice instead of absorbing hard days silently.
Recognizing an old pattern and being compassionate about it can tempt a teacher to treat every hard day as history resurfacing, when a classroom is sometimes just genuinely difficult. Compassion without also seeking support can become a way of tolerating something that needs more than understanding. The two ideas work together only when self-understanding leads somewhere: naming that a reaction has old roots is useful because it points toward what support might help, whether coaching, peer connection, or therapy, not a reason to simply endure it.
Name one thing, honestly
- Which classroom moments hit harder than the situation alone would explain? - Who could you actually talk to honestly after a difficult day at school?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
When a student triggers a strong reaction, name what it once protected you from.