Pt 1 in a series on Berry Street Education
Berry Street Education seeks to:
- Advance models of secondary schools to meet the needs of educationally disadvantaged / disengaged young people with a history of trauma, abuse or neglect.
- Bring together three fields of research:
o trauma-informed
o neurodevelopmental
o positive psychology/education, uniting them in a strong culture of academic achievement.
- Inform the teaching practice of vulnerable children through this integrated approach in a continuum of school settings.
Cognitive & Non-Cognitive Skills at the Berry Street School: CHARACTER COUNTS
At Berry Street, our knowledge of trauma’s impact on our students’ development guides our education program design. We seek to understand and undertake a bold next step to our curriculum development and school culture: the integration of our knowledge of trauma’s impact on neurodevelopment along with the best practices around the sciences of well-being, human flourishing and positive psychology.
Our students come to us with histories of education neglect, substance abuse, generational trauma, and a great deal of personal struggle. We seek to create dual-purpose educational experiences: building both cognitive skills and strengths-based resilience.
We know that for our Berry Street students to succeed in school, in transitional career pathways and beyond, we must teach a mosaic of both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. We define cognitive skills as the skills necessary to understand and process information—the foundational academic skills for literacy, maths, inquiry-based learning, vocational knowledge and electronic media.
Post written by Tom Brunzell, Berry Street Childhood Institute Senior Advisor, Teaching & Learning.
