How does it feel to be poor?

IU Kokomo students gain empathy, understanding from poverty simulation

By Danielle Rush

Communications Specialist, Indiana University Kokomo

As a toddler, Grace Friend felt helpless while her mother struggled to keep her family housed and fed.

“It was really rough. We had a lot of times we didn’t eat,” she said.

Friend, an Indiana University Kokomo freshman, experienced this adversity vicariously as a participant in the campus’s poverty simulation exercise. Nearly 60 students, many from the School of Education and the School of Nursing and Allied Health Professions, gained insight into the struggles their future students, patients, and colleagues may face in day-to-day life. It was offered as part of the Kokomo Experience and You, or KEY, which provides students with experiential learning programs.

Students were placed in family groups and given an imaginary “home” (groupings of chairs) in the Kelley Student Center. For four 15-minute simulated weeks, family members had to take their children to school, pay their mortgage or rent, go to work, buy groceries, apply for assistance or loans if needed, and perform other activities of daily life.

Some groups faced situations like being underemployed, being evicted from their homes, being grandparents raising grandchildren, having children with illness or disabilities and no insurance, losing jobs, late child support, jailed family members, having one employed adult supporting multiple generations, and being targeted by drug dealers to sell drugs.

Freshman Zeke Reshkus portrayed a 9-year-old boy.

“We faced a lot of adversity,” said Reshkus, an education major from Denver. “My father (in the simulation) lost his job, so we were poor. We had to resort to stealing to get by.”

Experiencing his simulated family’s struggles gave him new empathy for his future students and their families.

“I came from a middle-class family,” he said. “Having this experience is enlightening. Everyone could share their opinions afterward, and most said they never felt this way. We have a little more understanding of what our students’ families may be going through. It’s eye-opening not to expect our students to have everything on the supply list, or not expect them to bring in extras, because they can’t.”

Friend, from Tipton, said she would think twice before asking her students to bring in items to school, and understand when they cannot.

Nursing student Alyssa Baker, Marion, said the simulation was thought provoking. She portrayed a 39-year-old pregnant wife whose husband was unemployed.

“As a returning adult student and mom of four, I really related to a lot of these scenarios,” she said. “It gives everyone an inside look at what it’s like to struggle. It will help me relate to my patients when they come in.”

Cheryl Moore-Beyioku, lecturer in special education and poverty simulation coordinator, said the goal is for participants to feel a deepened understanding of the complexities and challenges of living without sufficient resources.

“It allows them to relate to the real-life experience of people living in poverty,” she said. “There were a lot of emotions flying around.”

After the simulation, Moore- Beyioku and Ali McCorkle, director of the Office of Counseling and Psychological Services, talked through the experience, guiding a discussion about the feelings it provoked.

Moore-Beyioku said the feeling of overwhelm and stress is called “Tyranny of the Moment” and can lead people to do things they normally would not. They may see this in their future students and clients.

“You start making rash decisions,” she said. “You can’t think, you can’t learn. Everything is just too much. I want you to think about that as you work with your clients or students that are living in poverty situations.”

In addition to the simulation, students from IU Kokomo’s freshman learning community in the School of Education attended a KEY panel discussion led by student leaders Ahlise Friedline, Trahan Skinner, and Keeley Carpenter on working with students from low-income families in Title I schools. Panelists were Michele Starkey, superintendent of the Logansport Community Schools, and Krista Crouch, Title I coordinator for Taylor Community Schools.

The 59 participants included IU Kokomo students, graduate students from the Wesley Seminary of Indiana Wesleyan University, Kokomo-Howard County Public Library staff members, a faculty member from Ivy Tech Community College, and dual-credit high school students.

Education is KEY at Indiana University Kokomo.