Education Week 316/2011 Reflection

Study Links Pupils' Stress to School Environments:  It totally makes sense that "the lack of adequate, appropriate materials can affect children negatively in part because teachers become more harsh or frustrated when they cannot teach properly given a lack of resources" I can say for sure that I would experience a lot of frustration if I didn't have all the materials necessary to teach my students the things they need to be taught.  I think that is one of the most interesting things about Teach for America is the fact that they dump teachers in low income neighborhoods and expect them to teach students when they are woefully unequipped to handle the situations.  My friend Steven Millard went into Teach for America and he went to Chicago and some of the experiences he has described to me have been absolutely frightening.  I'm not sure if there is any way that I would be able to do the things he was able to accomplish under the circumstances.  I guess I never really thought about the consequences that it would have on the students.  My question is how are the researchers able to distinguish the mental damage done to the children that is a result of the kids not having the benefit of the resources that would help them and mental damage that is a result of the teacher being stressed.  Perhaps there isn't any difference?
School Health Centers:  I'm very curious as to what district they took the study from in Washington State.  And I'm also curious as to what they mean by Health Centers.  Does that mean that it is just the nurses office?  I honestly don't even know if my high school had a nurses office.  We definitely had an athletic medicine office though.  I spent a lot of time in there but I was never really sick in high school, and even if I was I probably just went home rather than to the office.  Greater access to the health is indicative of a lower dropout rate in part because the students get another resource for help.  People who care about them are showing them that they care and the kids probably take notice of that and want to stick around.