" Miss Pauline had explained to Mr. Williams that students still coping with traumatic events were likely to have increased activity in the amygdala. At the same time, there was typically decreased activity in those parts of the frontal lobe where learning takes place. Mr. Williams could go over and over a given lesson, but if a student was in a triggered state, he or she might not learn readily, no matter how good the teacher was.
One could take any of the well- rounded, assured students who served on the Senate and put them into a similar predicament— bomb their home city until it became unlivable, separate some of them from their parents, force them to witness atrocities, starve them for a while, transport them to a foreign country where they understood nothing, give them a teacher who spoke a language they could not comprehend— and most of them, too, would have fallen quiet. "

― Helen Thorpe