To Boost Learning, Start With Emotional Health

—Steve Braden

Ask any teacher to identify these students: The child who should be focusing on a math lesson, but instead is wondering whether her parents will fight again tonight, with words and hands. The student with chronic asthma who routinely misses school and whose grades suffer as a result. The group of friends who cannot play outside because it is not safe in their neighborhood.

Sadly, these scenarios are not new, and the bad news is that things are getting worse. The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced that the number of Americans living in poverty was the highest on record, with the number and proportion of children in poverty increasing. Our nation is already feeling the jarring effects of this spike.

The institution that will continue to bear the brunt of this impact is our schools, and not just because they are constantly having to do more with less. To put it quite simply, schools are where our children spend much of their time. And the number of children in our schools dealing with hunger, illness, violence, instability, homelessness, and other issues related to poverty is on the rise. Arecent study in the Journal of School Health found that, in California, emotional health among students is steeply declining.

Schools cannot—and should not—be expected to manage these issues themselves. On the other hand, they cannot afford to ignore them either.

But there is good news, specifically that some schools are entering into promising partnerships to address students' physical and emotional health even as educators focus on teaching and learning. These innovative partnerships are critical as we face the possibility of even more difficult times ahead.

It can be tempting to think that health and education are separate issues, given that these two systems often exist in silos. But evidence has shown that when it comes to the success of our children, both are equally important. Much has been documented about the impact of poverty and how it affects children's ability to learn. Findings from the California Healthy Students Research Project released earlier this year noted that academic success isn't just about instruction: It's about safe campuses, good nutrition, and mental and physical health. The health community knows that children's health begins not in a doctor's office, but where they live, learn, and play.

Often masked are emotional-health factors that play an essential role in a student's success—these conditions are not as easy to spot as physical ailments like chronic asthma or malnutrition. Issues like a student's ability to feel safe, resolve conflicts, self-regulate impulses, and trust adults all have a relationship with attendance and disciplinary problems, which in turn affect academic outcomes. But the barriers to emotional health are prevalent. A 1998 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly two out of three individuals they studied had been exposed to adverse childhood experiences, including alcohol abuse, violence, or other maltreatment, which affected them into adulthood.

How can we expect children to learn and achieve when they are dealing with illness or trauma? Social innovators are asking that question and putting forth promising solutions.

One solution with momentum is ...

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