ACEs and Toxic Stress…How Do They Relate to School Achievement?

I’ve been thinking a lot about mental health and how it relates to immigration and refugees for this class. One of the concepts I keep coming back to is toxic stress and its relationship with school achievement. If a student is under immense stress from family or unsafe home situations, it’s not feasible for them to do well in school. How can you focus on algebra when you’re not sure if you’ll have dinner that night or if there’s gang violence a block from your house?

As a future teacher, I’ve been prepped for trauma-informed care and how to mentor students who may be dealing with ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences. While immigration or seeking asylum as a refugee are not strictly listed as ACEs, I think it’s implied that these experiences can be extremely debilitating for children. If you are the child of an illegal immigrant and worry every day that your parent may be deported, I’d definitely assume that could negatively impact the student and their future.

My hope through the Now, Wow, How project is to better research how ACEs relate to immigration and refugees so that I can try my best as a teacher to help students overcome them. ACEs can be “reversed” (I put this in quotations because can you ever truly reverse something devastating that happened to you?) through the help of strong, warm, understanding mentors and stable, safe, consistency provided by a caring adult. My hope is to create a training program or professional development plan that could help teachers better understand and support their students struggling with migration related ACEs.

If anyone wants to read up on ACEs, I’ve got a few reputable links here with more information related to them.