Turnaround featured in Tom Vander Ark’s Getting Smart

Tom Vander Ark’s blog on Getting Smart looks at why students affected by adversity often have lower rates of school engagement and higher rates of chronic engagement, reflecting on Turnaround’s work as mentioned in David Bornstein’s article in The New York Times. Here is an excerpt:

“In classrooms where lots of kids are under varying degrees of stress, one child acting out can set off other kids and shut down the learning environment for everyone, said Dr. Pam Cantor, “If you have numerous children across the school with issues like that, you can produce a hugely negative culture and shut down learning in the building.”

The solution? Researchers (Bethell et al. 2014) suggest “that building resilience—defined in the survey as “staying calm and in control when faced with a challenge,” for children ages 6–17—can ameliorate the negative impact of adverse childhood experiences.”

We encourage you to read Vander Ark’s blog post, Helping Students Cope With the Trauma Associated with Poverty.