Chapter 12: Poverty

Teachers must take a make a conscious effort to gain the perspectives needed to understand student experiences if different than their own

Unless educators have had exposure to poverty, they will subconsciously take their middle-class expectaitons of parent-school reltionships into their classrooms with them

Check Attitude

Examine attitudes toward poverty

Understand your students' situations so that your expectations and teaching are in alignment (this does not mean lower expectations)

Know the Environment

Walk or drive around the neighborhoods in which your students live; walk through the stores; note the existence or absence of parks, churches, libraries, bars, etc.; observe the safety and cultural make-up of the neighborhood

Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the area and determine how these will affect your teaching strategies

Gather Information

Get acquainted with the dynamics of the families

How many children? Ages?

How many parents/guardians?

How many adults work?

Address?

Do they have a phone? Work number?

Communicate with the Low-Income Parents and Children

Two-way communication model is best!

Contact paretns about positive matters first

If a parent understands that you like and appreciate their child, parental enthusiasm in school matters is more likely to result

Create a Partnership

Flexibility, practicality, and creativity can help you mitigate some of the problems associated with lack of resources faced by low-income families: less time, negative school experiences, discomfort in the school environment

Important to remember that the stresses of life on low-income parents may decrease the emotional or physical energy needed to be full partners at times

Become Involved in the Community

Consider attending community celebrations, student performances, sporting events, church celebrations, etc.

Be sensitive to the Financial Limitations of Low-Income Families

Consider the financial restrictions facing families when requesting money for field trips, school projects, special materials, food for special events, registration fees, and extracurricular activity fees

Get creative in raising funds with your students to support school activities!

School Expectations

Results of research reveal that schools expect students to have middle-class experiences and opportuniites; and evaluate children's behavior and scholastic outcomes with middle-class standards

Parents

Substantial numbers of parents of children of poverty dropped out of school before completing high school

These parents are unprepared to help their children at school

These parents are often criticized for not being sufficiently involved at school, for not working with their children at home, and for not attending parent-teacher conferences without taking in consideration circumstances of survival issues

Home environment is often cited as the reason for lack of academic achievement among low-income students

Limited school involvment can be attributed, in part, to:

lack of trust in school personnel

lack of undertanding of the ways schools function

discomfort on the part of parents when interacting with schools due to differences in economic background between teachers

lack of information, skill, time, and transportation

Children

Often experience discontinuities beween schooling and other areas of their lives

Commonly lack middle-class social and language behaviors

Enter schools that were designed for someone else

Good Food

Results in helathy children

Safe and Decent Shelter

Opportunities to Learn

Children enter school with a strong educational background and degree of familiarity with computers

Often attend superior schools with skilled teachers and administrators, adequate supplies and equipment

Decent Neighborhood

Less crime

More resources, better schools

Transportation, Communication, and Economic Opportunity

Healthy Recreation

Health Care, Health Supplies, and Safety Devices

Reduced Family Stress and Conflict

What is Homelessness?

Families who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence

Caused by a combination of factors including the effects of a lack of affordable housing, extreme poverty, decreasing government support, changing demographics of the family, the challenges of single parenthood, domestic violence, and fractured social supports

Gereral Characteristics of Homeless Families

Mother is in late twenties

Adults in the homeless families work (co-workers are often unaware of homeless status)

42% of chidren in homeless families are under age 6

84% of families are female-headed

More than half of all homeless mothers do not have a high school diploma

Effects of Homelessness on Children

Places families at greater risk of additional traumatic experiences such as assault, witnessing violence, or abrupt separation

Can exacerbate other trauma-related difficulties and interfere with insufficient resources available to allow recovery

Children bear the brunt of homelessness

Sick twice as often as other children: suffer twice as many ear infections, have four times the rate of asthma, and have five times more diarrhea and stomach problems

Go hungry twice as often as other kids

More than one-fifth of homeless preschoolers have emotional problems serious enough to require professional care, but less than one-third of them receive treatment

Half of school-age homeless children experience anxiety, depression, or withdrawal from educational, community, and social activities

Have twice the rate of learning disabilities and three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems of other children

Twice as likely to repeat a grade compared with other children

Five Principles for Educators Regarding Homelessness

Do not stigmatize children in homeless situations

Make schools safe havens

Think of the needs of the whole child

Work with parents or guardians to develop concrete goals and plans to address those goals

Reach out to the community

2008 statistics reflect that 14 million (19%) of children under the age of 18 live in poverty

21% of children in the families of the working poor live in poverty

Many of these families are headed by a single parent--usually the mother

New additions to the families of the working poor and those in poverty include former working- and middle-class families whose members have lost their jobs and/or homes

More than 49 million Americans don't have dependable, consistent access to enough food due to limited money and resources

1 in 6 Americans does not have access to enough food

Even college-educated people struggle with issues of hunger in this country

MYTH: "Very few children struggle with hunger because of provided programs"

FACT: 14 million children live in food-insecure households

MYTH: "Most people in low-income households would be fine if they just worked harder"

FACT: 36% of households served by the Feeding America network include at least one adult who works

MYTH: "The lack of adequate nutrition only affects children's physical growth"

FACT: Lack of adequate nutrition affects the cognitive and behavioral development of children

MYTH: "In school, children from food-insecure households perform just as well as children who have enough daily nutrition"

FACT: Children from food-insecure households are more likely to experience irritability, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating compared with other children

MYTH: "Urban counties have the highest poverty rates in the US"

FACT: Couties with disproportionately high rates of persistent poverty are often rural

Lack of Good Food

May result in iron deficiency, hunger, stunted growth, clinical maalnutrition, increased rate of high-risk pregnancies and premature births

Lack of Safe and Decent Shelter, Homelessness, Inadequate Housing, Frequent Moves from House to House

Inadequate housing includes problems such as heating and electricity difficulties, utility shutoffs, cold and dampness, mold and allergies, cockroaches and rats, peeling paing and falling plaster, lead poisoning, crowded housing, and fire=-prone homes

Less Opportunities to Learn

Children are more likely to attend an inferior school that has difficulty retaining skilled teachers and administrators

Poor children have fewer educational materials at home (including computers) and fewer stimulating activities (such as trips, lessons, museums, concerts)

Children in poverty also have greater home responsibilities that compete with school and schoolwork

Poor Neighborhood

More crime and pollution

Less likely to have libraries, organized recreational oppurtuniites, and parks

Limited Transportation, Communication, and Economic Opportunity

Lack of transportation may limit access to child care, health services, recreation, jobs, job-training programs, postsecondary education, and low-cost stores

Inadequate funding for Healthy Recreation

Children may be exposed to things (drugs) and groups (gangs) that both put them at risk and would be less of an issue if the families had the resources available to others

Lack of Health Care, Health Supplies, and Safety Devices

The result is that poor people are less likely to seek care early in a disease's history and more likely to delay until the illness is so bad that care must be sought from an emergency room

Increase in Stress and Conflict

As money decreases, parents' stress levels and depression go up giving way to conflict and the increased chance of child abuse and neglect

Family of two: $12,490

Family of three: $15, 670

Family of four: $18,850

Being "broke" is a temporary state

People in poverty see their situatuation as a hopeless, permanent condition