N.J. summit looks at effects of stress on learning

Jenny Roca sat with her legs dangling off the stage as she urged 300 educators to close their eyes, clear their minds, and pay attention to their bodies.

In the span of minutes, the teacher from Arise Academy Charter High School in Philadelphia hoped, those attending a summit Monday on the impact of poverty and violence on children's ability to learn would better understand how the body is stimulated and reacts.

Children can learn to recognize physiological changes to fear, anger, or other emotions, Roca said. And they can learning breathing techniques, exercises, and other coping responses.

"It's a practice," she said, rather than a "magical" solution.

The daylong summit at Burlington County College in Mount Laurel was sponsored by the nonprofit Catholic Partnership Schools in Camden.

Roca, who also runs the Penn Program for Mindfulness at the University of Pennsylvania, was among four panelists who spoke about understanding stress in children who suffer trauma or live in poverty. They covered the effects on brain development and stimulation, and discussed the importance of nurturing infants, intervening at the preschool level, and teaching social skills.

"At the very heart of it, you have to believe there are no throwaway kids," said Jurate Krokys, executive director for Philadelphia schools, a former teacher and charter school founder who attended Monday's summit. "However, there are kids you may not be successful with."

Krokys said teachers needed strong leadership within their districts to positively influence stressed students.

The two critical times to influence children, the experts said, are during infancy, when the brain is developing, and adolescence, when teens start understanding social behaviors.

Educators who address chronic stress will better help students by teaching them how to cope with emotions while supporting them academically, panelists agreed.

"There is no other choice . . . except to take all of this in and make it applicable to all our students," said Julia Wittig, who attended the summit for Teach for America of Greater Philadelphia, which recruits teachers for districts with a high percentage of at-risk children.

Wittig manages first- and second-year teachers in Camden, where the vast majority of students are exposed to chronic stress, which could include abuse, addiction, and neglect.

"We need to create that nonstressful oasis," said Mary Burke, an attendee who is principal of St. Anthony of Padua School in Camden.

It's not a matter of asking teachers to do more, the experts said. A new approach is to integrate therapies that children can use at school, home, and throughout life, which will help them perform better academically.

Good test scores alone will not adequately prepare students for adulthood, according to recent studies and research quoted by keynote speaker Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.

Stress is beneficial in helping children become successful in life, Tough said, which may feel counterintuitive. Children exposed to two to four adverse events in life were more likely to do well, compared with students in affluent communities who were not exposed to adversity, or children from impoverished homes exposed to chronic stress.

Those with grit, self-control, optimism, and curiosity had character traits more correlated with success than those with just high test scores or those who never learned appropriate coping skills, Tough said.

Equally important, he said, was learning to accept failure. Those able to understand their mistakes often have the confidence to try again.

"If we want them to succeed, we first have to teach them to fail," Tough said, noting that for impoverished children, "we have been letting them fail too much for too long."