Monday, November 3, 2014

Clare-Gladwin RESD offers CMU poverty simulation to local eduators

As part of a recent professional development opportunity offered by Clare-Gladwin RESD, educators from local school districts participated in a poverty simulation provided by Central Michigan University (CMU).

With the help of trained staff and volunteers from CMU conducting and facilitating the workshop, the 2.5 hour experience took place at Coleman Community Schools and was designed to sensitize participants to the realities low-income people face on a daily and monthly basis. 

In the simulation, participants assumed the roles of different “families” facing poverty with varying circumstances. “Participants experienced four 15-minute weeks with five-minute weekends as they worked through their month of poverty and tried to accomplish their objectives - feeding their family, paying their bills on time, maintaining housing, and maintaining safety,” said Clare-Gladwin RESD Assistant Superintendent for General Education Deb Snyder. “The simulation was conducted in the gymnasium with ‘families’ seated in groups in the center of the room. Around the perimeter of the room were tables representing community resources and services for the families.”

Snyder thanked CMU and its staff for their work in providing the simulation to the region’s educators for the second time this year.


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