"Everyone Carries Hunger in a Different Way": Insights Into Preservice Teacher Experiences of Food Insecurity

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Dismantling the Master's House: Disrupting and Decolonizing Teacher Education

Abstract

Our study provides qualitative analysis of eighteen reflection journals of pre-service teachers who participated in a Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) Challenge assignment. The assignment was part of a social foundations course within our teacher education program; eighteen students participated. Our findings indicate that experiential learning, such as the SNAP Challenge, builds critical consciousness of the connection between poverty, systemic disenfranchisement, and academic achievement; it is thus an essential component to a social foundations curriculum. However, we believe it is necessary to create a two-pronged approach (theoretical knowledge and experiential learning) to exposing students to successfully guide students to a better understanding of food insecurity’s affects on students in the classroom.

Authors

• Benjamin T. Arnberg, Auburn University

• Carey E. Andrzejewski, Auburn University

• Sean Forbes, Auburn University

• Eric Hogan, Georgia Southern University