As the end of summer break looms, I find myself thinking — with some anxiety — about our returning students. What are they returning from and what are they returning to?

As the team leader of the Beginning Teacher Mentoring program, I used to headline my agendas with a pithy phrase from the humorist Ashleigh Brilliant. My favorite meme of his for the first meeting of the year was “Welcome back — to or from reality.”

This year I’m returning to school/work reeling from trauma: the sudden death of my 60-year-old son. I’ll return to the compassion of colleagues and the diverting engagement of meaningful work. What about our students? What painful baggage might they be carrying? What refuge will they find in school?

In the societal geography of the Hawaiian ancestors, every district harbored a puuhonua — a place of refuge. In times of war, non-combatants — women, children, the elderly and the families of all warriors — could seek refuge and safety within the puuhonua. They were assured a safe return home when battle ended, regardless of the outcome. At a time when kapu (sacred law) regulated all aspects of life, any breaking of kapu disturbed the stability of society. But any fugitive who had broken kapu could seek refuge and forgiveness within the walls of the puuhonua. There, the kapu-breaker could do the spiritual work to be restored to harmony with their community or family.

In my own ancient classroom practice in Hauula, I strove to create that sense of community-as-family, to recreate and reinforce that deep sense of kinship. I developed a vocabulary and set of protocols to label and affirm our relationship. But more important than the labels and the family-like rituals was the underlying philosophy of the classroom as a puuhonua. Every learner in that living space that is our school “home” must experience it and count on it as a safe place within which to take big risks, since learning — change — is such a risky business.

When I had to discipline, that is deal with the kapu-breaker, I tried to do it without violating the relationship, from a no-fault stance. I knew that whatever disciplinary action I took, if I did it correctly, would be perceived by the child as help or a new opportunity more than as a punishment.

Everyone must know that in our class you “always get chance!” Nobody is ever stuck with a “mistake.”

For each assignment missed there’s some way to make it up. Each test “failed” only leads to the new test that can be “passed.” For every timeout, there’s a time and a path to come back in. For every kapu broken there’s a way to mend, a place and time to heal and be restored to harmony in the group.

I know most children are not returning to school from trauma at home. And I know some children are leaving the safe refuge that is home to enter what may look like a menacing battlefield that is school. I hope most children are commuting to the happy place that is school from the nurturing nest that is home. I know, too, the extraordinarily heavy backpack that teachers carry to school every day.

So how can school be a safe refuge for all? It starts with the teacher heroes who lead with empathy as their forward face; the teacher heroes who look past the plans and programs and schedules to the young humans entrusted to them — who see themselves in their family of students — and care.

Elly Tepper is a consultant educator and Ulu A’e Transitions Grant Team member.