Category: Child Poverty

Imagine that you are a new teacher. This has always been a dream of yours and finally you have reached it. You have spent years in college getting the degree you need in order to be someone who helps shape the young minds of the future. You received all the certificates you needed, and spent countless hours putting together the perfect curriculum. This was the job you were meant to do. What if all the schooling, all the degrees and all the time you spent putting in to making the perfect curriculum wasn’t enough? The Civic report states that current Federal data shows the number of homeless students in kindergarten through 12th grade has grown by 70% within the last decade (Camera, 2019. p.1). Poverty is one of many different factors that can contribute to homelessness. These students you set out to teach and help mold actually need more than what you were ever taught about and prepared for. So how do we help students from backgrounds of poverty? We have to first help our teachers understand these backgrounds and prepare them for the environment.

What It’s Like for Students from Poverty

For students from a background of poverty, education seems like something they can’t do. One more thing to think about that seems probably unattainable. Most often these students have an overwhelming feeling of “We don’t belong here. People like us do not get educated” and a feeling of being powerless in their lives (Beegle, 2012, p.4). Mainly they just feel alienated from society because of their socioeconomic backgrounds. On top of all of these feelings, they often have the physical barriers that contribute to making education an overwhelming task. In the article, “Washington State works to meet the needs of its homeless students”, Casey Leins (2018) interviewed superintendent Chris Reykdal who stated “If you don’t have a stable place to live, and you don’t have secure food, the learning is so minor in their priority array”. The article ‘Homeless students’ by Author Marcia Clemmitt gives examples of what some of these students go through. The first student was eleven year-old Rumi who stated “I struggled in school because of having to sleep in different places, and not being able to rest”. His mother considered going back to his father despite the domestic abuse just so Rumi could have a stable place to live. The next student was twelve year-old Brooklyn Pastor who stated that instead of focusing on school work she often had to look after her two year-old brother. The third student Army Pvt. Brittany Koon lost her access to permanent shelter when she was too old for the foster care system. She stated “When you are sitting in class you are worried about where you are going to go after, where you are going to eat, and how you are going to get your homework done”. This is a weight that most students from poverty have to carry daily.

Teacher’s Impact on Students

When it comes to the role of a teacher, they have the ability to have some of the greatest influence on a child. They have the ability to impact their lives in more than just an educational aspect. Rita Pierson has been a teacher for the past 40 years and in her Ted Talk ‘Every kid needs a champion’, she talks about a time when she had one particular class of students who were so low in not only their self esteem, but also in their academic performance, that she realized she needed to help change both circumstances. One way in which she did this was to give them a saying “I am somebody. I was somebody when I came. I’ll be a better somebody when I leave. I am powerful, and I am strong. I deserve the education that I get here. I have things to do, people to impress, and places to go”. Pierson explains that if you get to know your students and their backgrounds you will come to find out that students who usually don’t learn is because of poverty, low attendance, and negative influences around them. Sadly this causes them to ultimately end up dropping out. The influence a teacher has can ultimately give a student a sense of power they didn’t know they had. It is a relationship that is often not valued as much as it should be. These are role models that can have a huge positive effect on not only academics, but how a student from a background of poverty can thrive.

Teacher Preparation

When becoming a teacher, there are certification programs put in place called “teacher preparation programs”. Although these programs might differ slightly from state to state, the idea behind them is usually the same. The article ‘Teacher preparation program overview’ breaks down what these programs primarily include. To assist teachers the program runs through specialized course work, student assessments, and early childhood development among other things. Although these are all helpful tools for teaching methods, none of these acknowledge the issue of different socioeconomic backgrounds and the effect it has on education and a student as a whole person. Carolyn Nelson explains in the article ‘Education: Reclaiming teacher preparation for success in high-needs schools’, that although teachers can be highly qualified in an academic aspect this usually doesn’t help them. The teacher preparation programs don’t prepare them for environments like students struggling from poverty; therefore, teachers often find themselves unsuccessful. This has the harsh effect of students falling through the cracks of the educational system.

No Child Left Behind Act

In January of 2002, ‘The No Child left Behind Act’ was signed into law. Although good intentions were in mind, there have been many issues found. The idea behind this act was that all children no matter their race, and socioeconomic background would have an equal opportunity for education. The Federal Law requires that established learning standards are in place of what these students should know and should be capable of doing in academic subjects. The law requires a set level at which students are considered proficient and assessments to measure their progress of reaching this standard (National Center for fair and open testing, 2008, p.2). Although this law did have the benefit of more inclusion for all students, and it did set the bar that all students no matter their background should be learning as well as and as much as their peers, it did not look further than that (Lee, 2014 p.4/5). The Law was more focused on holding schools accountable for test scores than focusing on the students as a whole person. Ultimately, this requirement put more pressure on the teachers to teach kids for scores instead of their well being and what would have actually benefited them.

Possible Solution: Teach the Teachers and Provide Support

Teachers should be provided and required to take courses to help them better understand and assist students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. These changes should be made starting with teachers working with students as young as preschool or kindergarten. In the article ‘Educating students who live in poverty’ Donna Beegle states that, “The more assets a student has, both internal and external, the more likely they will succeed”. Beegle explains that we must attempt to find out the why in order to understand the behavior and therefore know how to better assist. In order to do this, we must help our teachers first. One example of a successful transformation is in Walla Walla, Washington. The documentary ‘Paper Tigers’ follows Lincoln Alternative High School as they adjust their teaching methods to help students through Stressful events. They formed the concept Trauma Informed practices (Beyond Paper Tigers, 2020, p.1). When the documentary first started, most of these students had nothing to believe in. They came from all different backgrounds and believed there was no point in trying. Lincoln High didn’t focus on increasing test scores or pleasing a federal law. Instead they changed how they interacted with these students, they got to know each student and their hardship. They helped them build resilience (Mongeau, 2016. p.6). When Lincoln High decided to take on the task of changing their teaching methods and understanding these students as a whole they had a 90% decrease in suspension rate, 75% decrease in fights and a 5 fold increase in graduation. If we implemented these methods into teaching courses to begin with, and started them at a younger age there may be a significant difference in students from backgrounds of poverty succeeding.

Conclusion

There is no denying that poverty is a huge crisis we face today. There are many physical barriers that contribute to why students suffer academically when they come from a background of poverty. However, if we have the ability to change these circumstances, shouldn’t we? A teacher may not be able to change some of the physical barriers of poverty for students, but they have more power to help students from poverty thrive than they are given the tools to do so. If given the tools and the support, Teachers would have the ability to focus on these students as a whole. They would not see them through the small lense of a challenge that will never be overcome. Teachers represent a positive role model that can show students more than just academics but teach them how to be resilient. In ‘Educating Students who live in Poverty’. Beegle stated it best when she said “Mentoring is the single most important action educators can take”. For this alone, we should help teach our teachers how to mentor, how to support and how to assist students of poverty. Not all students’ stories are the same, but teaching methods of support and understanding should be.

References

1. Beegle, D. M. (2012). Educating students who live in poverty. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/programs/slcp/2012thematicmtg/studentpovty.pdf
2. Camera, L. (2019, February). Number of homeless Students Soars. U.S News – The Civic Report. Retrieved from EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=134900637&si te=pov-live.
3. Clemmitt, M. (2013, April 5). Homeless Students. Retrieved from http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2013040500
4. Lee, A. M. I. (2019, October 18). No Child Left Behind (NCLB): What You Need to Know. Retrieved from https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/Your-childs-rights/basics-about-childs-rights/no-child-left-behind-nclb-what-you-need-to-know
5. Leins, C. (2018, November 2). How Washington State is helping Homeless Students Graduate. Retrieved from www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2018-11-02/washington-state-works-to-meet-homeless-students-needs.
6. Mah, T. (2018, April 19). Beyond Paper Tigers: Trauma Informed Strategies. Retrieved from https://www.acesconnection.com/blog/beyond-paper-tigers-presenter-showcase-lincoln-high-school-s-trauma-informed-strategies-jim-sporleder-reflects-on-lessons-learned
7. Nelson, C. (2004, March 22). Reclaiming Teacher Preparation for Success in High-Needs Schools. Retrieved from https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-117036577/Reclaiming-teacher-preparation-for-success-in-high-needs
8. Paper Tigers. (2015). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdDr_nZOIXc
9. Pierson, R. (n.d.)TedTalk: Every kid needs a Champion. Retrieved March 8, 2020, from https://www.ted.com/talks/rita_pierson_every_kid_needs_a_champion/details?language=en
10. Teacher Preparation Programs overview. (2019, January 2). Retrieved from https://study.com/teacher_preparation_programs.html
11. What is the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Law? (2008, January 4). Retrieved from https://www.fairtest.org/what-no-child-left-behind-law

One of the issues debated on about human development is the nature versus nurture debate. Nature is when our behaviors are determined by our inherited genetic material structure while Nurture is when our behavior is determined by our surroundings, our life experiences, our upbringings, and other environmental factors. The environment of each individual plays a very impactful role in their physical, cognitive, and emotional development. Poverty is the deprivation of common necessities of life thus people in this kind of environment will be affected physically, cognitively, and emotionally during the individual’s development.

Poverty deprives children in many ways. According to annualreviews.org, poverty has been shown to negatively influence child health and development, to which I agree to because poverty means that the parents cannot afford the proper resources to raise the child. The necessities, such as food, milk, diapers, clothing, shelter and etc. to raise the child and for the child to survive healthily is difficult for the parents to provide. Personally, being from a third world country, I have seen families in poverty living under bridges, next to lakes and next to the highway, and walking around begging for food while carrying their baby or babies on their back. Families in poverty always need to beg for some food in order to survive and feed their babies. Even if they feed the child with a piece of something, that does not mean they have gotten the nutrients they need. Additionally, our bodies are mostly made up of water therefore it is important that we drink tons of water. Unfortunately, just like how it is with finding food, it’s also tough to look for drinking water that has not been contaminated or that is clean enough to drink. The child is not eating enough and its health is at risk. Lack of food and milk means lack of vitamins vital for the baby’s physical growth and strength. Poverty also affects a child’s cognitive development. According to psychologicalscience.org, “People who deal with stressors such as low family income, discrimination, limited access to health care, exposure to crime, and other conditions of low SES are highly susceptible to physical and mental disorders, low educational attainment, and low IQ scores”, to which I totally agree with because being in a low to no income family means no programs that can help the child with developing cognitive skills. Also, growing up with such situations make the child feel inferior, they will most likely have low self-esteem compared to other kids. They are also more exposed to crimes and I believe this will cause them to think violently especially because all they know is about surviving so they will most likely use violence in order to survive. However, even though poverty affects physical and cognitive developments negatively, it’s a different story for the child’s emotional development. I believe that poverty’s hardships bring the child close to the parents – it makes both parents focus on child. Everything they do and they decide to do is for the child. The child and its health are always their number one priority, everything else comes after the child. I say this because I have always noticed that rich parents tend to focus with their jobs to make more money and leaves their children to their nanny. Unlike rich families, families living in poverty are much closer to the child emotionally.

Even though indirectly, poverty still affects the individual during conception through the mother. During pregnancy, it is best if the mother stays healthy by eating healthy, by being stress free, by staying somewhat physically active. However, for people in poverty, those are extremely hard to achieve due to all the stress and worries they have caused by their unfortunate situation. The mother and the family usually have to go through a lot of walking, trying to beg people for some money or for their leftovers so they could feed the baby inside the mother. They are usually homeless or live somewhere that does not really provide them the protection or shelter they need. These set of circumstances lead to a lot of stress. They are constantly worrying about survival and for providing. An individual in such situation lives a difficult life thus an individual in conception is affected by poverty.

Living in poverty means that you do not have all the necessities you need as a child and you do not have access to all the resources to learn. Poverty is correlated to malnutrition because as a child living in poverty, it is challenging to be able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner or even just a meal. It takes a lot of their time and effort just to have someone else’s leftover or to be able to find food that are still edible. They have to beg around for very little to no food and food is not always guaranteed. There will be days in which they have food for all three meals, there will be days in which they barely have food for all of them in the family, and days in which they have nothing at all – it’s tough. In addition to that, even with the little food they got, they are never fulfilled with the nutrients they need specifically the child’s needs especially at this stage, they need much more nutrients to be able to develop. A child’s development is very similar to a flower blooming. Just like how a flower needs to be watered and some sunlight, a child needs food and water to develop healthily. Similarly, it is also difficult to obtain some kind of education level. Some has little to no access to an education program and some don’t have the time as they have to focus on their survival. When I was still in the Philippines, I attended a private Catholic school and it cost my parents tons of money but I’ve seen public schools that the government puts money into. The tuition fees and books would be free but unlike how it is in the United States and maybe other countries, public schools in the Philippines still require students to follow their rules with uniforms thus even if it is free to get in the school, some people living in poverty would choose not to as they cannot afford such uniforms when they are already stressing with feeding their children. Furthermore, even with attending a public school, they still are more likely to do poorly in school because schools as such often lack resources and are not academically challenging.

Living in poverty means being extremely poor and lacking all resources an individual may need in life. Living in such an environment will affect a child’s development physically, cognitively and emotionally. A child needs nutrient-dense food, vitamins, as well as water to physically develop strongly and healthily. Cognitively, a child will be learning differently compared to children in prosperous families. A child in poverty might catch on to being violent as they grow exposed to crimes and discrimination while a child in a rich family will be in kid programs that will teach them learning skills such as attention, memory, and thinking. Physically and cognitively, poverty affects a child’s development negatively however, emotionally, poverty affects children positively, especially in relations with family relatives because all their sufferings bring them together unlike rich parents who live their children to their nannies all the time to work and bring money. Poverty affects an individual’s development both negatively and positively but there is no doubt that an individual’s environment growing up is a big factor if not the main, for an individual’s behavior.

References

1. Aber, J. Lawrence. ‘The Effects of Poverty on Child Health and Development’. Annual Reviews, May 1997, https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.18.1.463
2. Sleek, Scott. ‘How Poverty Affects the Brain and Behavior’. Association For Psychological Science, 31 August 2015, https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/how-poverty-affects-the-brain-and-behavior

Our country is in dire need of a wake-up call to the sheer number of children falling victim to poverty and how their futures are consequently affected by this epidemic. 9 out of 10 members of the National Education Union believe that poverty and low income are having disastrous results on children’s learning. In our country, over 4 million children continue to live their lives in poverty and this undoubtingly gives all these children an unfair disadvantage from others through no fault of their own. So how as a nation can we continue to ignore that these children are struggling to thrive in education due to poverty?

Unfortunately, nowadays many children go to school feeling hungry and tired as their parents simply cannot provide for them. According to a study by the NEU, made up of 8,600 school leaders, 78% of staff saw children suffering from fatigue and 57% of pupils have experienced hunger as a direct result of poverty. As shown in these statistics, we can see that low-income families are unable to afford enough food with the right nutrition for their children. If children are not eating properly this can cause a reduction in the brain’s capacity which will in turn result in pupils having further difficulty in class. Also, studies show that a lack of sleep will have an effect on children’s concentration levels in the class.

Furthermore, children from low-income households are more likely to be exposed to drug use or domestic abuse. An article by Community Care found that parental capacity can be affected by substance misuse and can also harm children’s development. This evidence obviously shows us that children affected by these factors are again put at a disadvantage by children from higher social classes than them as they are least likely to face these problems. It is also proven that children exposed to these conditions struggle pay attention or process emotions as they have to worry about their home situation.

In addition, children living in poverty tend to have less verbal and reasoning skills than those of their peers as their parents have less time to interact with them. As stated in a report by the Brooking Institution, under half of the poor children start school with early math and reading skills required in order to be prepared for learning. This highlights that children in low-income families are not getting the same start to their education which can affect them as they grow up and leave school. The same report also shows that more well-off parents spend just under half an hour more engaged with their children per day than that low-income parents. Yet again we can see how this makes a detrimental effect on the education of these children as they fall behind their classmates in these areas.

Likewise, children are set back in class again because poverty at home can trigger conditions that are less than desirable for children to concentrate. It is found that their brains develop better in low-stress environments which low-income households clearly don’t provide. According to the NEU, many children have nowhere to complete homework and insufficient sleep patterns due to overcrowding at home which will result in a lack of concentration and incomplete work. Also, the stress faced at home can cause children to have trouble coping with the problems they come across in school.

Another problem low-income children face is learned helplessness. This is a term used to describe when a person experiences a situation continuously so they believe that they can do nothing to change the outcome. In research by a former school teacher, Dr. Ruby Payne, she states that many poor children are unable to see a future that does not include poverty so therefore they do not possess the motivation to try to escape it. This evidently shows that children from low-income backgrounds are less likely to try to achieve a bright future where they can escape the poverty cycle. They begin to believe that they will not be able to break away from the poverty that their parents found themselves in. Even though it was not the child’s actions that put them in this position they lack the drive to get something better as poverty is all they have known.

However, many argue that a child from a low-income household can still thrive in life as shown through many rags-to-riches stories of famous celebrities. For example, famous country singer, Shania Twain, was brought up in an impoverished household with domestic abuse, and she often went hungry from lack of food. She then had to raise her younger siblings after her mother and stepfather suffered a fatal car crash. However, she was able to catch the attention of record labels and now has a net worth of roughly $350 million. This can be argued that despite her life in poverty as a child she was still able to achieve her goals and escape from poverty.

Sadly, the majority of the children living in low-income households will not be as fortunate as Twain as they are unaware of the possibilities for their future. Simply, children from poorer backgrounds are not taught effectively about the opportunities to improve their futures. As they have grown up in poverty they strive to earn more money instead of focusing on doing a job that they enjoy. It is false to say that some of these children lack the motivation to succeed as some unfortunately are not provided with the right information from the school. According to The Guardian cuts to schools have made staff redundant, class sizes have increased and teaching hours have been cut. How can we expect these same schools to provide the correct information to these vulnerable children in order for them to escape poverty?

The straightforward answer is no. We as a nation cannot continue to ignore the undeniable difficulties children face in education due to poverty. It is so clear that poverty affects children from such a young age that problems will continue to arise into adulthood until they follow the vicious poverty cycle that they have unfortunately watched their own parents face. We as a nation have to realize that the government is simply not doing enough to help those most vulnerable in low-income households as they are not giving them the ideal environment to succeed that other child their age has. We need to work as a country to help combat this issue before these children lose all hope of escaping from their parent’s fate.