More than 600 local educators joined us for Dr. Eric Jensen’s workshop,
“Teaching & Engaging with Poverty in Mind” on March 26. (Photo Provided)

By STEPHANIE OVERBEY
Associate Director Kosciusko County Community Foundation

“I came away with a renewed energy and feeling of hope,” commented one teacher. “I often feel impotent these days and like it is impossible to fight against so many obstacles in making a difference. I am driven to find more I can do to level the playing field of my students.”

On March 26, over 600 educators from Tippecanoe Valley, Warsaw, Wawasee and Whitko school corporations along with area private schools attended Dr. Eric Jensen’s workshop on “Teaching and Engaging with Poverty in Mind” hosted by the Community Foundation and held at Warsaw Community Church.

One year ago, Warsaw Community High School Superintendent, David Hoffert, and Wawasee Curriculum Director, Joy Goshert, talked to the Community Foundation about their desire for their teaching staff to attend a workshop by Dr. Eric Jensen, a former middle school teacher who has conducted extensive research on both brain development and poverty. Both school systems had sent a few administrators to Jensen’s workshops and identified those experiences as “game changers” for the staff who were able to attend. However, the cost of sending large numbers of staff was prohibitive – and so, they asked, if the Community Foundation would consider bringing Dr. Jensen to our community.

Why Talk about Poverty — Stats that Hit Close to Home

The average rate of students on free or reduced lunch among the four school corporations that primarily serve our county (Tippecanoe Valley, Warsaw, Wawasee and Whitko) is 48.45 percent with the majority of those students qualifying for free, not just reduced lunch. This is on par with Indiana as a whole.

Nationally, students who come from low income families are seven times more likely to drop out than those from families with higher incomes.

As a whole, students from poverty have greater chronic/acute stressors than other children. Acute stress can exhibit itself in distraction, hypervigilance, apathy and behavior issues resulting in decreased ability to learn or retain learning. Students from poverty have less executive function skills, like working memory, impulse regulation, visuospatial, and language4.

What Can Educators Do?

Jensen explained students who have quality relationships with adults have lower stress, which boosts learning. Learning is also increased when students have more control/choices in the classroom, and are taught coping and stress management skills. The reality is that educators have very little control over what environments students go home to, however they can teach skills to help them mitigate stress, and thereby improve learning.

Jensen had teachers practice relationship building techniques, how to build working memory (both visual and auditory), how to increase classroom engagement by using activities that are relevant and personal to the students, and how to offer meaningful and specific praise to motivate and encourage students.

What Now?

Of the attendees who completed a program evaluation, 93 percent said the workshop material was extremely or moderately relevant to their jobs and 84 percent said they were very likely to or definitely would implement one of more of the strategies they learned in the workshop. Overall, the feedback was very good — although most agreed that a half day workshop was not enough time to learn all they wanted to from Jensen. Teachers provided us with a list of workshop topics that would benefit them in the classroom. We are considering how best to bring relevant, helpful research-based strategies to help local teachers help local kids.