Poverty in Education 1

Poverty in Education

Shanna K. Calfee

April 25, 2017

EDUC -570

Dr. Nerren
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In the Educational Leaders article, it’s first recommendation to accommodating poverty

students is to establish a relationship of respect between student and teacher. The article says,

“"No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship." Building a respectful

relationship doesn't mean becoming the student's buddy. It means that teachers both insist on

high-quality work and offer support.” The article moves on to nonverbal communication as well

and saying that nonverbal communication sometimes has higher meaning to poverty students.

It’s important for teachers to be aware of how they may be nonverbally communicating with

their students. This article began with respect being the first strategy and it has eight more.

Those eight others are: make beginning learning relational, teach students to speak in formal

register, assess each student’s resources, teach the hidden rules of school, monitor progress and

plan interventions, translate the concrete into the abstract, teach students how to ask questions,

and forge relationships with parents. In the “make beginning learning relational” the author says

it’s good for the students that are new or eat alone to be paired with other students and to get

engaged in at least one extracurricular group. It’s also good to work in paired assignments and

cooperative groups.

The third point was “teach students to speak in formal register” and this point ended with,

“Some students may object that formal register is "white talk"; we tell them it's "money talk." It

says that teachers should address this issue openly to help the students learn to communicate. It

goes on to saying that poverty students don’t use the “formal register” and that even taking tests

that are written in a formal format are difficult for the students. One activity to help is by

translating phrases from casual into formal register, so students can see the difference and learn

how to communicate more effectively. The fourth point is “assess each student’s resources.”

This is important because if the student doesn’t have the support at home, then the school can
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find out a way to meet the student’s needs. The example the article gave was homework and

how a student wasn’t finishing because they didn’t have any support at home. So therefore, the

school provided before or after help for the student to finish their homework. The fifth point is

“teach the hidden rules of school” and the article begins with, “People need to know different

rules and behaviors to survive in different environments.” The teacher example they gave in this

case is, “The simple way to deal with this clash of norms is to teach students two sets of rules. I

frequently say to students, “You don't use the same set of rules in basketball that you use in

football. It's the same with school and other parts of your life. The rules in school are different

from the rules out of school. So let's make a list of the rules in school so we're sure we know

them.”” In this situation, it’s doing more than reinforcing the rules, the teacher has to explain the

differences so the students will understand.

The sixth strategy is, “monitor progress and plan interventions” and it says that one

teacher alone can’t address all the students’ achievement goals, and it must be a schoolwide

process. In this point a lot of the tips are for planning and documenting regularly. The seventh

strategy is, “translate the concrete into the abstract.” A way of achieving in this strategy is,

“Teachers can help students become comfortable with the abstract representations characteristic

of school by giving them mental models—stories, analogies, or visual representations. Mental

models enable the student to make a connection between something concrete he or she

understands and a representational idea.” It also later says that, “I have found using mental

models decreases the amount of time needed to teach and learn a concept.” The eighth point is,

“teach students how to ask questions” because some students may struggle in formulating a

specific question. The teacher gives an example of how to teach their students to ask questions

by pairing the students up to read a text and compose multiple-choice questions about it. The
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last point to this article is, “forge relationships with parents.” The author presents several

questions about when a parent enters the school and what the parent may think. It also considers

the language, for if it’s understandable or “educationese.” The last tip it gives is to do home

visits. The author says to gather up a few teachers, hire some subs for the day, and to make

arrangements to meet parents at their houses. It’s also good to take a small gift, the article

suggests a magnet with the school’s contact information on it. This helps the parents to see that

their kid’s teachers do care, and instead of the parent constantly coming to school for meetings,

the teachers will go to the parents. This article has nine strategies for the classroom and it

explained them thoroughly. I found this article to be very helpful and it even gives me insight on

some of my current students.

The three articles all have building relationships as one of their key points. It is

important for the student to feel comfortable and be able to trust their teacher. The articles also

have in common boosting engagement with the students and how it’s important for them to work

with others. Another common strategy amongst the articles is to teach the classroom rules and

procedures. Students need to know there’s a difference between known rules at home and

known rules at school. This also coincides with language as well and how students perceive

information. A few more separate examples from the articles are being aware of the stress level

poverty students may have due to their home environment. The “Teaching with Poverty in

Mind” article mentions giving those students certain simple tasks to do in the classroom and

allowing students to have options. The “What You Can Do for Students Living in Poverty”

article mentions having a temporary barrowing system. The article refers to this as a “bank” and

it allows students to barrow supplies till they’re able to have their own. That was another point

in this same article, is to be mindful of the classroom supplies list and keep it simple or some
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students may never be able to meet those requirements. It mentions the same thing with field

trips, that if there’s a fee to be able to go on the field trip that some students won’t be able to go.

The article emphasizes the importance of how the teacher should be sensitive about money

because it could embarrass the student. Even being aware of your speech and how it can effect

students, for example by saying, “There’s no such thing as free lunch,” because that could

embarrass the low-income students who do have free lunch.

Another article pushed for five main research points and one of them was checking if the

student is proficient in reading. The author writes, “Second only to safety, ensuring that all

students develop literacy skills reflects a core priority in high-performing, high-poverty schools.

As a principal at a middle school in the South put it, "We start with reading and end with

reading. There's a lot of content and important stuff in between, but if our kids can't read at grade

level, they'll never do as well as they could or should with the rest." The author gives three main

points to achieving the the reading goal; conducting an analysis of the students’ unique needs,

developing an understanding of the influence of poverty in reading achievement, and examining

the research base concerning literacy. It’s important to find ways to motivate and encourage the

students to read, and the school celebrates when they reach goals. Something else this article

says that I like is, “Professional learning and student learning are two sides of the same coin --

they cannot be separated.” This is where the “Life Long Learner” that Lee University strives for

and this article relate. The author continues with, “In the process of developing common

assessments or have begun using them within the context of a community of practice. During

this work, as students' needs are identified, so too are the learning needs of the adults in the

school.” I believe this is important for educators to remember as well, that not only are teachers

helping their students achievement but they are also better themselves as educators during the
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process of it all. I believe it’s good to have this mindset continuously and to hopefully not get

weighed down with test scores.

One of the other teaching strategies in this article was considering the framework of the

curriculum. The article gave a wonderful example saying, “Leaders in HP/HP schools credit

much of their success to a high level of coherence in the instructional program. Several of the

schools that we studied began their improvement efforts by adopting a Comprehensive School

Reform model, but later customized that model to better fit their needs. Schools also used a

homegrown approach that emphasized higher-order questioning, development of academic

vocabulary, reading across the curriculum, and common classroom-based assessments. Whether

using an established model or a homegrown approach, schools commonly

developed communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), groups of people who work together over a

period of time. These groups are neither teams nor task forces -- they are peers held together by a

common sense of purpose and a real need to know what one another knows. This collaborative

structure enabled schools to create, implement, continuously improve, and sustain a coherent

instructional framework.” Though my teaching years are few, I believe this is a wonderful

example of an effective working body of teachers. I like that the school did a “homegrown

approach” because this can relate to the students more and create that comfortable learning

environment.

Overall, after reading the articles and researching, everything effects a poverty student.

Things that may go unnoticed to teachers aren’t always unnoticed to students. This research

paper has definitely given me more insight on students of poverty and even helps me to

understand my own students and why they possibly act the way they do. This article also affirms
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for me that some of the strategies I’ve been doing in the classroom are good and I should

continue to practice them. This also encourages me to try different approaches as well.
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THOMPSON, J.
In-text: (Thompson, 2017)
Your Bibliography: Thompson, J. (2017). Retrieved 23 April 2017, from What You Can Do for
Students Living in Poverty Website title: Teaching URL:
http://teaching.monster.com/counselors/articles/8164-what-you-can-do-for-students-living-in-
poverty

GAJOWSKI, C.
Teaching with Poverty in Mind: How to Help At-Risk Students Succeed
In-text: (Gajowski, 2017)
Your Bibliography: Gajowski, C. (2017). Teaching with Poverty in Mind: How to Help At-Risk
Students Succeed. Scientific Learning. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from
http://www.scilearn.com/blog/how-to-help-at-risk-students-succeed

PAYNE, R.
Educational Leadership:Poverty and Learning:Nine Powerful Practices
In-text: (Payne, 2017)
Your Bibliography: Payne, R. (2017). Educational Leadership:Poverty and Learning:Nine
Powerful Practices. Ascd.org. Retrieved 23 April 2017, from
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr08/vol65/num07/Nine-Powerful-
Practices.aspx

BUDGE, W. AND BUDGE, K.

5 Questions That Promote Student Success in High-Poverty Schools
In-text: (Budge, & Budge, 2017)
Your Bibliography: Budge, W., & Budge, K. (2017). 5 Questions That Promote Student Success
in High-Poverty Schools. Edutopia. Retrieved 25 April 2017, from
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/high-poverty-schools-promote-student-success-william-parrett-
kathleen-budge