Simulation allows educators to experience what many of their students face every day
Imagine you’re a single mother trying to support two school-aged children on low wages earned working two jobs. You’ve just paid your car insurance and utility bills, when the transmission on your 1997 sedan gives out, and with it goes your only means of transportation to your graveyard shift cleaning offices. Public transportation in your neighborhood doesn’t run at night.
With no money for repairs, you miss work, you get fired, you don’t make rent, and the downward spiral begins. You spend the last of your cash taking the bus to job interviews and social-service agencies, looking for any way to keep a roof over your kids’ heads. Just when you think things can’t possibly get worse, your teenage daughter tells you she’s pregnant.
For those who grew up in poverty, going through the motions of a simulation such as this can be triggering, said Steve Roe. He owns and manages a car dealership in Grants Pass and conducts these simulations across Oregon, free of charge. He said it’s important for people who, like himself, have never lived in severe poverty, to have the powerful experience the simulation affords.
To read the full story written by Emily Green, click HERE
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