Creating a Solution to Stress in the Classroom

In his 22 years of teaching high school English to East Oakland's teenagers, Jeff Duncan-Andrade has witnessed kids and their families struggle through all kinds of trauma. He has seen how the constant, unrelenting stress - what researchers are now calling toxic stress - that comes from housing, employment and food insecurity, as well as continued violence in the neighborhood, visits a punishing impact on students and how they learn.

These experiences led Duncan-Andrade, some years ago, to begin looking for ways to better support students and their families - to show students they were valuable members of a community and worthy beyond their test scores.  Read more.

Comments