“It was like numbers would just fall out of my head.” — 9-year-old Rawan, Essence of Learning student in Gaza
That’s what toxic stress does to learning: it doesn’t erase a child’s ability, it disrupts how that ability gets accessed.
In Gaza, where children attend school in overcrowded shifts and carry the weight of repeated conflict, Essence of Learning was restructured into a focused 10-week program built around exactly that problem.
The result: 90–94% of participating children were able to master their regular school curriculum, and teachers reported students who were calmer, more attentive, and confident enough to bring their own learning strategies into the regular classroom.
This case study — recognized as a Promising Practice in Refugee Education by Save the Children, UNHCR, and Pearson — lays out how.