Thursday, November 13, 2014

The Culture of Poverty

I admit that I have never known poverty in its most intimate sense. I have never known need. But I do understand how the culture of a family is created. I come from a family that has always valued education and entrepreneurship. My great-great grandfather helped found a college in Minnesota shortly after immigrating to the United States from Norway, and one of my grandmothers attended that college years later, graduating in 1929. Even as the eldest daughter! The other examples are numerous and significant; all have contributed to a culture in my family.

Understanding this also helps me understand that an opposite culture is equally powerful. And in making sense of this, I also realize that poverty is not a problem to be fixed but a culture to be understood. The challenges of poverty are not overcome with band-aid programs in the school, community, or government but through a cultural and social shift in how we respond to those challenges.

I have two significant take-aways from the first two chapters in Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen: first, the impact of poverty on language development; second, the importance of education in breaking the cycle of poverty. As a language arts teacher, I have read about how poverty affects language development in children and how that impact can last for years, even a lifetime. Indeed, I can see the effects of poverty in a child's ability to read and write even in their last years of high school. Unfortunately, addressing that effectively in the classroom during the time I have to interact with those kids is incredibly difficult. I want to help those kids, but knowing how to do so is a challenge. Right not I try to encourage kids to come in for extra support during writing assignments; I offer as much assistance as I can during the writing process via electronic and face-to-face dialogue; and I make allowances for the students who simply may not be able to write at the level that is expected. I don't know how fair or correct any of that is, but it is what my gut tells me is right right now. I honestly hope I learn some other ways to manage my response to these students and their unique challenges as I read the book and listen to discussions.

Education seems to be the most logical and impactful way to break the cycle of poverty. When I consider the stories of people two or three generations older than I, I hear this point often. Many people who lived during the Depression seemed to see education as the ticket out of poverty, and they taught their children the importance of school and learning. What is different now? Is there no hope when living in the darkness of poverty? Is there no understanding of or little belief in what an education can do?

My friend knew poverty as a child growing up outside of Rugby in the 1950s and 60s. His mother and father, however, also knew the value of an education and drilled that knowledge into their children. Of the three children, one is now a retired federal judge and another was the president of a private university for twenty years. What I truly don't understand yet is how the culture of one family can be like this while the culture of another family can be so suspicious or seemingly unaccepting of education and its benefits. What can I do as teacher to help kids realize the power of education?

Changing the culture of poverty is a tremendous task but one we must tackle if we want to help each kid succeed.