Poverty in the Classroom

What is Poverty? 

Poverty has a profound impact on how students perform in school. To understand the effects one needs to understand the definition of poverty. According to our text, Teaching with poverty in mind

“Poverty is a chronic and debilitating condition that results from multiple adverse synergistic risk factors and affects the mind, body, and soul” (Jenson, 2009, p.6). 

There are many types for poverty and as a teacher it is important to understand the cause.   

• It may be temporary as a result of a change in family dynamics due to new adult in the household or an adult leaves the household.  This type of poverty is referred to as situational. A natural disaster such as Katrina or Hurricane Sandy could also cause this type of poverty. 
• Another type of poverty is generational. To be considered generational it occurs in at least two generations born into poverty. This is often what is depicted in the media, families that have been poor and don’t know any different. 
• Other types are absolute (when a family does not know where they will get their next meal or where they will be able to find shelter), relative (when a family’s income is not enough to cover the standard cost of living in their region. This is not the same in all places), urban and rural (based on location of families and resources available). 

A teacher does not just need to understand the type of poverty; they should also understand the effects poverty has on the student. Poverty may impact their behavior and their learning ability. As our poverty reading stated:

  “One of the social issues facing children of poverty is emotional trauma. The emotional climate can often be very stressful and emotionally depriving. The lack of emotional nurturing can lead to feelings of alienation, inadequacy, depression and anxiety.”  

These students need an adult role model to  provide them a view of the future available for them that is not stressful, traumatic, nor depressing.  These students need to have hope.

I volunteer at a Title I school this year (Johnson Street Global Studies). Although according to the Department of Ed’s definition of a Title I school does not necessarily correlate to poverty, this school does. There is a high percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch based on their parents’ income. In the 2010-2011 school year, 234 students qualified for free lunch and 16 qualified for reduced lunch prices (NCES Johnson Street 2011-2012). There are a total of 344 students , so that is over 73% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. This is a stark contrast to the school I volunteered at in Davidson County (Wallburg Elementary) last year.  The statistics for Wallburg  had only 30% of the students (267 of 888 students) qualifying for free lunch. (NCES Wallburg Elementary 2011-2012)

My Experience:

There was a stark contrast when I first entered the Kindergarten classroom at Johnson Street to the second grade classroom I volunteered at last year in Wallburg. The students in Johnson Street were not as focused. One student in particular (I will call Charlie ). Charlie is a 5 year old African American male. After talking to him and his teacher over the past few months, I have seen the impact of poverty on his young school career. Charlie had a very hard time focusing and learning his letters. When I talked to him about books, he said “I don’t have no books”. He loves when I read to him and his teacher appreciates my time to spend one on one with him. That helped a lot with his learning the letters.  He is the lowest reader in the class. Lower than even another little girl (I will call Sarah) that English is a second language for. She is also suffering from poverty. I believe Sarah’s poverty is situational and will probably result in generational if Sarah doesn’t excel in school. She is very bright; she just does not have enough support and reinforcement at home. Charlie I believe is situational, but not temporary.  

During the holidays I found out from the classroom teacher that neither Charlie nor Sarah’s parents were able to provide Christmas for them. Charlie’s mom had also just suffered a miscarriage and had no insurance so she was having problems scraping enough money together for food. I fortunately was able to coordinate colleagues to collect gifts and cash for food for Charile’s family and gifts for Sarah. I could not imagine 5 year olds not having a Christmas.  We tried to make the gifts educational (books, Legos,and Leap Pad). That was before this class.

Since starting this class and reading about the different scenarios and approaches, I realize it is more important to identify the type of poverty and no pity the children (as I initially did) but empathize. It does not help the students break the cycle with pity and hand outs only. Although handouts have their place in the solution it is important to promote the students self worth and confidence. Although life may not be fair monetarily, they are not doomed like in the cast system. They have strengths and can learn to use those strengths to excel.

On of the effects of poverty that I believe I as a teacher can control and help my students suffering from poverty deal with are poor diets and lack of energy. Both Charlie and Sarah get very distracted and tired just before lunch (which is quite early 10:55am). When I asked them if they had breakfast Sarah shrugged her shoulders like she did not understand what I was talking about and Charlie said no there was nothing to eat. First try to get them to eat breakfast (the school offers free breakfast) and get the students up and moving periodically throughout the day.  I found a great article on line How Poverty Affects Classroom Engagement that talks about having students engage in slow stretching while taking slow deep breaths can increase their oxygenation. Yoga training has been shown to increase metabolic controls so children can better manage themselves.

Another is helping encourage students. Charlie is a little problem child at times. He acts out looking for attention and once he gets it he does not want to lose it. He has potential and understands letters and words , but there are times he just refuses to say them. Then he will ask if I am going to hit him because he is naughty. Charlie just needs encouragement and a positive adult role model. He is only five and has an outlook that he is naughty and will be hit. As a teacher I would want to let Charlie know it's alright to make a mistake, and there are no physical or mental consequences. I want to encourage my future Charlie’s to embrace learning and love coming to school because it’s a safe structured place of encouragement. 

pictures:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Summer_kids_eat_lunch_-_Flickr_-_USDAgov.jpg
http://www.hpe.com/news/x402898598/School-bus-routes-under-review
http://otherwords.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/poor-child-196x300.jpg