We have all heard it before, “Why don’t they just get a job?”  While many of our friends and family members may share this view in regards to people affected by poverty, the logic simply does not hold up in the majority of cases.

To start off our conversation, consider the following question: If you were in poverty and did everything your case manager requested (i.e. obtained employment and you kept the job for a year), how much closer would you be to being out of poverty by the end of the year? Common sense leads us to believe that once you go from having not having a job to being employed, you would surely be better off.  However, the facts do not support this viewpoint. In fact, you could be worse off than you were before you started working depending on your working wage.

I have witnessed even the most motivated individuals give up on their fight out of poverty because of the dreaded “Welfare Cliff.” The Welfare Cliff takes affect once you start working and your government benefits decrease faster than your income increases.  Suddenly, you are worse off now than before you were working! This system penalizes individuals for working and improving themselves. Only the strongest and most determined individuals will be able overcome this system. We all have heard of these “rags to riches” stories, but they are a rarity.

In a recent Senate Budget Committee paper entitled The Welfare Cliff: How the Benefit Scale Discourages Work, John Sessions states, “The Pennsylvania Secretary of Public Welfare found that because of the stacking of welfare benefits, many individuals receiving welfare stand to lose financially by increasing their income. In one example, the study demonstrated how a single parent with two children earning $29,000 would have a net income, including welfare benefits, of $57,000. Therefore, the individual would need annual earnings to jump from $29,000 to $69,000 (pre-tax) to maintain the same standard of living without welfare benefits.” To illustrate this further please click here to view an informational video provided by the Circles Initiative in Adams County, Pennsylvania.

Summit County (Ohio) Getting Ahead graduates are feeling the effects of this cliff and the pressures on their fight out of poverty. It is imperative we support their efforts during this very tough battle.

Ana Paula De Oliveira, a Getting Ahead graduate through AMHA, described it perfectly, “They want you to do better, but they push you back when you are trying to improve. They don’t even give you time to get on your feet.”

Another Getting Ahead graduate, Kristin Turnberg, added, “Every time I think I am getting ahead, I am always getting set back.”

“Welfare does not afford its recipients a lavish lifestyle by any means, but the system does create additional and unnecessary barriers to self-sufficiency. This is unfair to taxpayers and the families trapped in this dysfunctional system.” (Randolf, 2014)

If we want to help bring an end to poverty, the next step is admitting that the system is broken and having open conversations about moving forward and fixing the problems. We say, here at Bridges Summit County, that the causes of poverty are multifaceted.  Poverty is not solely caused by the behavior of the individual, so the solution to poverty should not just focus on the behavior of the individual. We cannot keep turning a blind eye to a system that creates barriers to people who are striving to become self-sufficient.  Instead, we need to strive for a community in which getting ahead is truly possible.

References

Alexander, G. (n.d.). Retrieved from Department of Public Welfare: www.dpw.state.pa.us

Randolf, E. (2014, December 2014). Research Report. Retrieved from Illinois Policy: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/modeling-potential-income-and-welfare-assistance-benefits-in-illinois/

Sessions, J. (n.d.). Senate.gov. Retrieved from http://www.budget.senate.gov/republican/public/index.cfm/files/serve/?File_id=b5c0680b-d78d-4e00-b4f7-00b5d2a8816a

Written By Getting Ahead GED Instructor Kyle Putinski

Science, technology and math… Oh my!

As Chief Learning Officer, Tessa Torowski has the ongoing task of researching, discovering, creating and implementing new ways to teach and learn. Project Learn’s desire to bring science and math to the forefront of adult education, in addition to her love for the two subjects (her background is in middle level education), is what brought Tessa back to the agency after working as a Project Learn instructor years ago.

“One of my favorite projects so far was creating mobile science kits that instructors can check-out and include equipment and engaging lessons,” Tessa says. “I’ve also helped redesign our Distance Learning Orientation, conduct staff training, and created several videos for our YouTube channel.”

Since most jobs and academic institutions require computer literacy for the most basic tasks, such as filling out applications or time cards, Project Learn is doing all it can to make sure its students are prepared by encouraging technology use in the classroom.

“We are creating lessons that incorporate technology skills and allow students to use their own devices to learn,” Tessa explains. “Learning through online resources and applications empowers our students to extend the learning outside the classroom walls.”

In addition, Project Learn has sets of tablets and laptops that will soon be debuting in the classrooms.
Tessa also shared that Project Learn was chosen out of thousands to try out test two Foldscopes, handheld microscopes that fold out on a sheet of plastic paper. Foldscope was developed by a research team at PrakashLab at Stanford University, who is “focused on democratizing science by developing scientific tools that can scale up to match problems in global health and science education.”

“The scientist in me is super excited,” Tessa says. “We are still figuring out exactly how we will utilize the Foldscopes in the classroom, but there is no doubt that students will love learning with them.”

Being that Project Learn is working on so many great projects, Tessa says she would like the agency to have its own bank of open resources.

“This could be a website where instructors and students from anywhere could access quality lessons, videos and the like, targeted specifically for adult basic education,” she explains.

Project Learn is dedicated to helping people reach their goals as family members, workers, community members and lifelong learners.

“I enjoy being a part of the small successes along the way,” Tessa adds. “It takes a lot of courage for our students to take that first step, whether it’s making the call or going through the registration process, and I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the journey.”

Written by Communications Manager Alexia Harris

Did you know that there are other uses of social media besides creeping on the person in class you may have a crush on and looking at pictures of your friends enjoying their weekend? Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus and Twitter can be very useful sites for education if you use them in a different way. I use social media sites every day to stay in contact with the news and to get the latest updates in education and science. Some of my best lesson ideas have come by chance while browsing my Twitter feed.

If you are a student, chances are you are on social media. In my classroom, students are encouraged to use social media because I believe the positive uses of social media greatly outweigh the negatives. Listed below are the top five ways to incorporate social media into your own learning journey. Each suggestion is compatible with a laptop or mobile smart phone.

1)      Use Google Hangouts  or Skype to create a virtual study group

Video chatting can be a great way to interact with a student’s class and can also be beneficial for students who have barriers like transportation. Skype and Google Hangouts allow students to have multiple video chats at one time. This would allow students to study together without being in the same place and at times that are most convenient for them. This is extremely helpful when most public facilities close after 8 p.m. and some students enjoy being night owls.

Try it the next time you have a big test. Arrange a Google Hangout by signing up for Google Plus or by having Skype session with multiple people. Then, invite your friends to the Hangout and start your study session!  You will be surprised on how easy it is to set up and how fast you can learn with other students pitching in on the studying efforts.

Sign up for your free Google account HERE and Skype HERE.

2)      Connect with people who have had first-hand experience in what you are studying

Before the invention of the internet, it was very difficult to interact with top leaders in a specific field or top celebrities.  To interact with them, you had to be a personal friend or know someone that knew that leader or celebrity. Now, everything has changed. You can use LinkedIn to connect with professionals in the field you’d like to work in. You can also use Twitter and Facebook to connect with and interact with celebrities.  Interacting with experienced professionals is a great way to learn and put a human feel on a subject which may seem foreign to you.

Check out www.linkedin.com. This website allows you to connect with professionals who may be in an area in which you are currently studying in class.

3)      Use a classroom hashtag to share questions with your classmates

Hashtags, or pound signs if you were born before 1980, can be used in many ways in education. Teachers can use a class hashtag to ask questions to a class and have students respond in real time. I have used this before in my classroom with great results.

#askmrkyle is a classroom hashtag I use in my classroom. If students have a question regarding classroom material, they can ask a question via Hashtag. For example:

Question: How do I add like fractions? #askmrkyle

Answer: Add the numerations together and simplify. #askmrkyle

Hashtags can be used with all social media. The social media platforms I recommend for this would be Twitter and Facebook because these are the platforms that most people use on on a daily basis.

Both social media accounts are free to use. Follow the prompts to open your account at www.facebook.com and www.twitter.com.

4)      Blog on classroom ideas to further cement information that you have studied

Research has shown that the more you interact with information you are studying, the more you are likely to remember it. Blogging about ideas present in the classroom forces you to use higher level thinking skills which will help you remember information longer. When you access the part of the brain that interacts with the higher level thinking processes you will magically find yourself remembering more information.  Having difficulty in science or social studies? Try to write a blog post about your opinion about a specific topic. Examples could be blogging about the use of nuclear weapons, or you could blog about how you want to see change in the political system. When you take up a task like this, you are statistically more likely to remember the information than if you just read the information by yourself.

Check out this websites to find out how you can begin blogging today!

• http://www.theminimalists.com/blog
• http://startbloggingonline.com
• https://education.weebly.com

5)      Share work socially with peers

With apps like Pocket Scanner and photo messaging on smartphones, almost anyone can turn a paper copy of classroom material into a digital format. Students can use these apps to scan their homework and post the assignment or problem on social media for peer review.  This can be extremely helpful to students as they can get real time help from their peers virtually anytime, any day. Students no longer need to wait for a teacher to respond for help which can lessen the load of teacher and lead to greater success rates in the classroom.

To download apps that will allow you turn paper copies into a digital format, visit Pocket Scanner or Evernote.

Social media can be fun and exciting to use. I recommend trying one of these suggestions and see how it can benefit you in the future. Do you use social media a different way for your studies or lesson planning? If so, I would like to find out what you are doing. Please send me an email at Kputinski@projectlearnsummit.org or you can tweet me @kputinski.

– Kyle Putinski, Bridges Instructor

Depending on how seriously you view serving deli sandwiches, Project Learn was my first “real” job. When I started at Project Learn, I was 19 years old working on my undergraduate degree at the University of Akron. At the time, Project Learn, along with the rest of the library, was housed on East Tallmadge in a maze of temporary walls in an empty warehouse store. Our office was separated by three by eight foot panels of foam board held in place by book shelves. The twenty foot ceiling and the bright hanging lights made me feel like I was on a television set. We were a small staff then with just one location, a couple of teachers, and a handful of tutoring pairs.

When the library reconstruction was finished we moved to our new home in the lower level. By that time, my job went from answering phones to conducting homework help sessions for kids, and testing and orientation for adults. I remember feeling eager to help our students, but slightly ridiculous because I had such limited life experience. Imagine a 21 year old telling you how to set your life goals and get back on track with your education.

By the time I graduated, I held just about every position Project Learn had to offer: tutoring, testing, teaching, orienting and data entry. I even repurposed the foam board from the walls to create summer camp and fundraiser decorations. In 2008, it was time for me to fly the Project Learn coop and head for my own classroom. For the past six years I’ve been pouring my heart out about science to middle school students. My time in the classroom was priceless and now I’m back at Project Learn to help design a mobile science lab and science curriculum.

I’m also working with teachers to help integrate technology into lessons. Because the new Official GED test is computer based, we need to prepare our students with 21st century skills. Project Learn has new Chromebooks and iPads that will be making a debut in the classroom and resource room. We also have a new podcast that will keep our learning community current with the goings-on at Project Learn.

I look forward to exploring these new changes, and am excited to be back with the Project Learn team!

– Tessa Torowski, Chief Learning Officer 

Our volunteers are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. From working one-on-one and in small groups, to teaching the alphabet and algebraic equations, they put in hundreds of hours in our GED, ESL and adult literacy classes and students, which shows their dedication to lifelong learning and Project Learn.

Like many of our students, they are a diverse group of people of different ages, backgrounds and interests and who are working toward something they believe in. And sometimes, they too, are nervous to start classes, but are excited to make a difference in the lives of students they tutor. Once our volunteers are placed in a class, they find that the work they do enriches their lives inside and outside the classroom.

Do you want to make a positive impact in our students’ lives by helping them reach their academic or personal goals? Are you interested in becoming a literacy leader by empowering people and advancing your community? Our next volunteer orientation is Saturday, October 4 at the Main Library downtown Akron.

For more information, contact Elizabeth Davis at edavis@projectlearnsummit.org or 330-434-9461.