FORMER SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER HOPES TO TRANSFORM EDUCATION SYSTEM IN CHICAGO

Damien Howard was a special education teacher for 13 years before he decided to start his own business, Clever Characters, which works with schools to increase or improve their social and emotional learning tactics. Photo Credit: Provided by Damien Howard
Damien Howard was a special education teacher for 13 years before he decided to start his own business, Clever Characters, which works with schools to increase or improve their social and emotional learning tactics. Photo Credit: Provided by Damien Howard

Former Special Education Teacher Hopes To Transform Education System In Chicago

BY KATHERINE NEWMAN

After working as a special education teacher for 13 years, Damien Howard decided to start his own business, Clever Characters, as a way of transforming the how inner-city students experience education.

Clever Characters offers a variety of services from professional development to mentoring for students and the concept of social and emotional learning is at the core of each program. Howard has found that using social and emotional learning can help students stay engaged during class and improve their grades, behavior, and self-esteem.

“This is a mentoring organization that coaches mentors, schools, and community centers to basically lead social and emotional learning mentoring sessions for [students.] We’re also working with parents so that they can be equipped with this content as well,” said Howard.

During high school, Howard had the chance to volunteer in the special education classroom at his school and noticed that there was a boy in the special education classroom who he remembers as being very charismatic and a lot like him outside of school.

“I just sensed that something was wrong with the fact that this was a guy who, in the community, seemed just like me but for whatever reason within the school setting, there was a heightened focus upon what he couldn’t do and what was deemed to be his disability,” said Howard. “That really started my whole career in special education and I was a special education teacher for 13 years.”

From there, Howard became more and more invested in changing the way that schools approach special education and even more than that, he wanted to prove that there was value in incorporating social and emotional learning for disadvantaged students.

“I wanted to be a change agent within the education system, specifically for special education and what it meant for black boys and students of color,” said Howard. “I’ve started to get the sense that I have a greater ability to impact and influence change across this whole city that ultimately can bring reform to our education system because it’s vastly needed.”

Clever Characters is working in schools across the city but Howard said they are hyper-focused on south and west side schools specifically in communities that are experiencing significant disinvestment.

Howard is currently working with the City of Chicago’s Deputy Mayor for Education and Human Services to create a plan for the students at Genevieve Melody Elementary School, 3937 W. Wilcox St., on the west side.

“We are in conversation with the Deputy Mayor of Education [and Human Services] and leadership from Melody Elementary School to really be a part of a youth impact movement that will start at Melody Elementary, but also have the ability to spread across that entire community,” said Howard.

Over the last two years, Howard said the schools that utilized Clever Characters’ services saw a 12% increase in GPAs, increased capabilities in social and emotional learning, and overall improved behavior from students.

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