Hundreds of area educators came to Centralia High School Friday morning for the twenty-first annual Tri-County Institute. Presenters hosted sessions on topics including teaching strategies, classroom management, and student safety.
One of the largest sessions of the day was the poverty simulation workshop held in the gym. Participants in this workshop went through a simulated month as part of a family in poverty, an experience designed to give perspective on what their students might be going through. Lisa Stanton of the ROE was one of the organizers of the project, and said the experience is meant to be frustrating to create empathy for similar situations in the real world.
“They meet the challenges of what families in poverty encounter, and through that process it hopefully helps them to understand a bit more about what that feels like, and in turn take that empathy from that situation,” Stanton said. “Most of the responses were that they were frustrated, angry, annoyed, felt lost or defeated. That’s kind of what we want, for them to get that feeling. The simulation helps them to create the emotion that people that are facing those challenges everyday have, so once you feel that emotion you can then transfer it to action.”
Participants in the poverty simulation workshop listen to a volunteer during review at the end of the session. Photo by Austin Williams.
Over fifty teachers attended the workshop, with twenty-five volunteers helping to set up and run the program.
Most of the sessions available were classroom lectures, such as the one given by Illinois state trooper Roger Goines on internet safety and human trafficking. Goines gave a presentation to four groups of teachers throughout the morning, urging vigilance to stay aware of what students may be encountering online that could lead to real harm. Goines said he had a good turnout for his talks.
“I had a packed house every time, and I get a good response from this because I try to keep it real,” Goines said. “I’ve been doing this for twenty years, and there’s no reason to beat around the bush. This is what our kids are doing, this is what they’re exposed to, and this is what you can do to be a mentor to help and maybe eliminate or prevent a school violence event.”
Free refreshments were provided throughout the day, and teachers were able to receive professional development training credit from most of the sessions offered.
