STUDENTS LIVING IN POVERTY

Students Living in Poverty

Madison Clark
Southern Oregon University
Ed 460 Multicultural Education

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Abstract

Students born into poverty have a difficult time achieving success in school. This
is due to several factors that stem from situational conditions such as poor health or less
family involvement, but other large issues are prevalent in schools and society that are
holding students back from success. There are several ways in which teachers can help
students reach their full potential. Some of these ways include setting high expectations
for all students and believing they are valuable learners, creating trusting connections
with students and their families, collaborating with other colleagues, and pushing for
socioeconomic reforms as well as school improvement.

STUDENTS LIVING IN POVERTY

Starting at an early age, children born into poverty are put at an academic
disadvantage due to their life circumstances. Beginning with the type of early childhood
care that is provided and how much communication and time parents are spending with
their children, the achievement gap is typically already prevalent when they are required
to take their first reading test in kindergarten. Several other factors including overall
poorer health, student mobility, parental involvement and other situational conditions
contribute to the low achievement of students. Although the occurrence of these
circumstances often hinder the performance of students, there are many things teachers
and schools can do to meet the needs of students and raise their academic achievement
which include setting high expectations for and encouraging all students, forming
respectful relationships with students and their parents, and collaborating with other
teachers to bring change and improvement to schools and society.
Although the United States has always been known as the land of opportunity for
all, there is a flaw in which social-class plays a large role in the how ones entire life will
takes course. Class differences affect the ways in which people live their day-to-day lives
by determining where they live, their education, and the jobs they will have throughout
their life. People of the poor or working-class face a tough predicament because they are
often born into the lower class and the cycle of poverty is difficult to break. Often
working-class or poor parents have received less education, which affects the job they
will attain and in turn affects the opportunities they can provide for their children. Their
children will more than likely grow up in an urban district where they will receive a
degree of lower education often taught by undereducated teachers in an underfunded
school with not as much access to materials and resources.

STUDENTS LIVING IN POVERTY

The deprivation of these educational opportunities decreases the achievement of

the students living in poverty, which starts the entire cycle of poverty over again. It is not
that the parents of these children want their children to live underprivileged lives, yet
they are being put through systems that continue this cycle. Lynn Spradlin and Richard
Parsons (2007) state, because public school budgets are based on property taxes,
allowing higher-income school districts to spend more than poorer ones, the countrys
school system is rigged in favor of the already privileged, with lower-class students often
tracked into economically deficient classrooms, thus continuing the cycle of oppression
(p. 156). Social and economic reforms are needed so enhanced learning can take place
among impoverished students so they are more capable of breaking the cycle.
Social and economic reforms are not the only change that needs to happen in
order to raise the achievement of students living in poverty. School improvement is also
needed to close the achievement gap and raise the self-esteem of these students. Teachers
often expect less out of students in poverty and do not offer much encouragement while
they underrate their work. Tracking students on their abilities also resorts in unjust
treatment and assortment that holds them back from having the same educational
experiences as others.
Some people believe in the erroneous myth that poor people share a culture of the
same morals and beliefs. Because of their so-called shared values, they are all seen as
unmotivated with weak work ethics whose parents do not value education and therefore
are not involved in their childrens learning. Although this is only a myth, classism and
specifically the deficit theory clearly exist and are damaging students and their abilities to
learn. According to Paul Gorski (2008), the deficit theory takes the attitude of defining

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students by their weaknesses rather than their strengths to the next level and suggests,
poor people are poor because of their own moral and intellectual deficiencies (p. 34).
This deficit theory places a label on students in poverty that characterizes them as being
not as capable or valuable as learners. The expectations of theses students are being
lowered simply because of the stereotype being placed on them that they do not try as
hard as other students. When in reality students from the poor challenge themselves just
as hard as others, yet face challenges in their outside life and are discriminated upon by
teachers because of the deficit theory, which in turn lowers their academic achievement
and often their self-esteem.
The way in which students in poverty initially learn also contributes to the
limitations of these students reaching their full potential. The first type of learning these
students experience is called situated learning where they learn through relationships,
people, tasks, and contexts. According to Ruby K. Payne (2009), in the situated learning
environment You reason with stories and act on situations, and you participate at a
peripheral levelat the edges of the learning. When one goes toformal schooling,
learning becomes largely decontextualized. You act on symbols (letters, numbers,
drawings), and you reason with laws. Both the environment and the criteria for learning
change. (p. 2). This environment is both new and difficult for impoverished students
because it is a learned way of thinking that they are not used to in the situated learning
environment of living in poverty.
Although there are many things holding students back from achieving their full
potential, there are several steps teachers and schools can take to help students succeed.
First off by reaching out to politicians and insisting that social and economic reforms are

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needed in order for the best teaching to take place. According to Richard Rothstein
(2008), Educators have a special and unique insight into the damage that deprivation
does to childrens learning potential (p. 11). Teachers need to come together and fight
for what is right and just in our society so the best teaching can place in schools. Without
this kind of reform, children will continue to live disadvantaged lives because of the
situations they are put in that they have no control over. Although this may be a daunting
and difficult task to accomplish, there are smaller steps teachers can take that are within
political reach. Such things as promoting and providing clinics and after school programs
within schools to ensure healthcare and safety for students who do not have those
options.
Reforming is not the only way of addressing classism within schools. Eradicating
tracking and ability grouping is a start, as well as insisting on providing the best
education for every student that includes higher-order pedagogies, innovative learning
materials, and holistic teaching and learning (Gorski, 2008, p. 35). All students deserve
to be treated as intellectual human beings and are worthy of an education that meets their
needs and is all-inclusive. Students as well as their families also deserve to have access to
school involvement. Families may be struggling with several jobs or may have other
commitments that prevent them from attending normal school activities and events, so
teachers and schools need to reach out and help facilitate their involvement.
Within the classroom and school environment, teachers can make a huge
difference on the achievement of students. Meaningful collaboration with colleagues,
having high expectations for and believing students and their families earn the right to
achieve success, and building relationships of respect with students and their parents play

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a big role in raising the success rate of students in poverty. Collaborating with other
teachers allows for commutation about different methods or strategies that have been
working well so others can try out and use similar approaches. Maintaining the belief that
every student is capable of succeeding and by setting high expectations gives students the
confidence that they can reach high and set goals that will lead to many achievements in
their educational experiences and in life. Having meaningful connections and
relationships with people is an important aspect of life. Having trusting relationships with
people who are willing to help often leads to success among students who are
impoverished. As stated by James Comer (1995), No significant learning occurs without
a significant relationship. All students and especially students living in poverty need
these types of relationships with teachers that they can count on and have faith in to help
them through whatever they may be struggling with.
Reading about the cycle of poverty was one of the hardest things to read. It
makes me sad that children are born everyday into families living in poverty and that they
have no choice but to attend to schools they live closest to which are usually underfunded
schools and they do not receive the same education as other middle and upper class
students receive. Even when they do attend schools that have enough funds and materials,
students in poverty still continue to achieve lower than other students of the dominant
culture because of ability tracking or the deficit theory that many teachers believe.
Researching about this topic has really built a fire inside of me that makes me
want to take a stand and change the way schools and society is structured. It makes me
want to fight for students living in poverty because all students deserve to be treated the
same and be given the same opportunities that everyone else has. It breaks my heart that

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this cycle of poverty holds back so many students that have so much potential of being
successful. I read a story about a mother who of course wants the world for her child but
had trouble holding or even finding a job due to the scarcity of jobs. Its saddening to
read the struggles of just finding food for the night or a place to stay. I could never
imagine how hard that would be both as a child and a mother and feel so thankful for the
life I have lived and been provided with.
It is also saddening to read that so many teachers believe in this deficit theory that
students and their families are poor because they choose not to work hard. I read a
statistic that people living in poverty actually work several more hours a week than a
person in middle or upper class and I can definitely believe it. So many impoverished
people not only work one job, but work two or three jobs and are barely making it by.
They are struggling everyday to just feed their families and pay bills that are often piling
up yet they work so hard to live their lives that no middle or especially upper class person
could ever imagine, unless that is they were able to break the cycle of poverty and work
their way up in life.
The research I have done on students living in poverty has definitely influenced
me to think about what role I will serve as a teacher and what I imagine that as. I want to
be a teacher who is able to reflect on my own personal beliefs and consider what other
people are going through. I want to be a teacher that listens and respects each and every
one of my students ideas and really gets to know them as thinkers and as people. I want
to build relationships of respect with both my students and their parents and I want them
to feel comfortable with me and know that I will not discriminate upon them based on
their socioeconomic status or any other difference for the matter.

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References

Comer, J. (1995) Lecture given at Education Service Center, Region IV. Houston, TX.
Gorski, P. (2008, April). The Myth of the Culture of Poverty. Educational Leadership,
34.
Payne, R. K. (2009). How the Environment of Poverty (Having Fewer Resources)
Impacts Cognition and Learning (p. 2). N.p.: aha! Process Incorporated.
Rothstein, Richard. "Whose Problem is Poverty?" Educational Leadership (2008): 11.
Print.
Spradlin, L., & Parsons, R. (2007). Diversity Matters: Understanding Diversity in
Schools (p. 156). N.p.: Cengage Learning.