Understanding the educational implications related to

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Understanding the educational implications
related to poverty

• Presented by
• Dr. Marilyn Kaff Dr. Mary Devin
• Special Education Educational Leadership

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How do you define poverty?
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Definition

• Poverty is the extent to which an individual does
  without resources.
• Financial
• Emotional
• Mental
• Spiritual
• Physical
• Support Systems
• Relationships/Role Models
• Knowledge of hidden rules

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Generational vs. Situational Poverty

• Generational
• People living in poverty for at least 2
  generations
• Characteristics surface sooner if the family
  lives with others who are from generational
  poverty

• Situational
• Lack of resources due to a particular event I.e.,
  death, chronic illness, divorce.

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Case Study

• What resources does this family have?
• What resources are missing?
• Report Out

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Key points about poverty

• Poverty is relative
• Poverty occurs in all races and in all countries
• Economic class is a continuous line, not a clear
  cut distinction
• Generational poverty and situational poverty are
  difference
• An individual brings with him/her the hidden
  rules of the class in which he was raised.
• Schools and businesses operate from middle class
  rules and use hidden rules of the middle class

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Key points about poverty

• For our students to be successful, we must
  understand their hidden rules and teach them the
  rules that will make them successful at school
  and at work.
• We can neither excuse our students nor scold them
  for not knowing we must teach them and provide
  support, insistence and expectations
• To move from poverty to middle class or middle
  class to wealth, an individual must give up
  relationships for achievement (at least for some
  period of time)

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Key points about poverty

• In the US in 1998 one out of every four
  individuals (25) under the age of 18 was living
  in poverty (Center for the study of poverty,
  Columbia University)
• In 1990s one in six US children were poor, one in
  eight white children, one in three
  African-American children and one in three Latino
  children were living in poverty
• In KS 8-9 of adults, and 12 of children live
  below the poverty line
• Regardless of race or ethnicity, poor children
  are more likely than non-poor children to suffer
  developmental delay and damage to drop out of
  high school
• Poverty-prone children are more likely to be in
  single-parent families.

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Key points about poverty

• Median female wages at all levels of educational
  attainment are 30-50 lower than male wages at
  the same level of educational attainment.
• Poverty is caused by interrelated factors
  parental employment status and earnings, family
  structure, and parental education.

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Hidden rules

• Knowledge of hidden rules is crucial to survival
  in whatever class in which the individual wishes
  to live.
• What are the hidden rules of poverty?
• What are the hidden rules of middle class life?
• We in the middle class know what the rules are.
  However, people from other economic groups may
  not be aware of them. We need to be aware of what
  we need to teach those who strive to be
  successful in school and later on in business.

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What you can do in the classroom?

• Hidden Rules
• Directly teach the hidden rules
• Teach that there are two sets of rules.
• Understand the hidden rules that students bring
  with them

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SO What?

• Many individuals do not realize there is a way
  out of poverty.
• Education is the only way to break the poverty
  cycle
• Poverty affects the ability of children to take
  full advantage of educational opportunities

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What schools can do

• Resources of students and adults should be
  analyzed before dispensing advice or seeking
  solutions to the situation. What may seem to be
  very workable suggestions from a middle-class
  point of view may be virtually impossible given
  the resources available to those in poverty.
• Educators have tremendous opportunities to
  influence some of the non-financial resources
  that make such a difference in students lives
• It costs nothing to be an appropriate role model.

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What this means at school or work

• An education is the key to getting out of
  poverty. People leave poverty for one of four
  reasons
• A goal or vision of something they want to be or
  have
• A situation so painful that anything would be
  better
• A person who sponsors them and shows them a
  different way
• A talent or ability
• Being poor is rarely about a lack of intelligence
  or ability.
• Many stay in poverty because they dont know they
  have a choice or that no one teaches them hidden
  rules or provides resources to leave.

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It is possible to have a brain and not have a mind

• A brain is inherited a mind is developed
• Reuven Feuerstein

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Registers of Language

• Register
• Frozen
• Formal
• Consultative
• Casual
• Intimate

• Explanation
• Language that is always the same Example Ten
  Commandments
• The standard sentence syntax and word choice of
  work and school. Complete sentences and specific
  word choice
• Formal register when used in conversation.
  Discourse pattern not quite as direct as formal
  register
• Language between friends and is characterized by
  a 400- 800 word vocabulary. Word choice is
  general not specific. Conversation depends on
  non-verbal assists. Sentence syntax is
  incomplete
• Language between lovers or twins. Language of
  sexual harassment

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What you can do in the classroom

• Language and Story
• When students speak in casual register, have them
  give two other ways to say it in formal register.
• Give information to parents and students in story
  form.

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• Registers
• Frozen
• Formal
• Consultative
• Casual
• Intimate

• Two forms of discourse
• Formal Casual

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Story Structures
Casual ___ ______ Characterization
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Survival Skills in Poverty

• One must use non-verbal and sensory skills

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Survival in School

• To survive in school one must use verbal and
  abstract skills

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The Individual

• If an individual depends on a random episodic
  story structure for memory patterns, lives in an
  unpredictable environment, and HAS NOT DEVELOPED
  THE ABILITY TO PLAN
• THEN

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Cognitive Issues

• 1. If individuals cannot plan, they
• CANNOT PREDICT
• If individuals cannot predict,
• THEY CANNOT IDENTIFY CAUSE AND EFFECT
• 3. If individuals cannot identify cause and
  effect, they
• CANNOT IDENTIFY CONSEQUENCES

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Cognitive Issues

• 4. If individuals cannot identify consequence,
• CANNOT CONTROL IMPULSIVITY
• 5. If individuals cannot control impulsivity,
  they
• ARE MORE LIKELY TO ENGAGE IN
• RISK-TAKING BEHAVIORS

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What does this mean in schools?

• Instruction in cognitive strategies should be
  part of the curriculum.
• To promote learning pay greater heed to what is
  in the students head
• For students and adults from poverty, the primary
  motivation for their success will be their
  relationships.

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What it means in the classroom

• Teachers must
• Help students construct knowledge.
• Link new information to prior knowledge
• Begin instruction at the appropriate level
• Provide a guiding social environment.
• Develop automaticity in certain skills

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HOW TO DEVELOPMENTAL PROWESS
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Teaching Outside the Head
Learning Inside the Head
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Cognitive Strategies
I am just thinking!
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The Need to be Strategic Learners

• Many students need to acquire the skills,
  knowledge and strategies that are necessary for
  functioning in school.
• Many learners when questioned dont know how they
  learned.

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What are learning strategies?

• Learning strategies are techniques, principles or
  rules that facilitate the acquisition,
  manipulation, integration, storage, and retrieval
  of information across situations and settings.
• Strategies are tools and techniques we use to
  help ourselves understand and learn new materials
  or skills.

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What are learning strategies?

• When trying to learn or do a task, strategies
  include what we THINK about (the cognitive aspect
  of the strategy) and what we PHYSICALLY DO (the
  behavioral or overt action we take)
• Strategies can be simple or complex
• Simple
• note taking, making a chart asking ?s

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What are learning strategies?

• Complex strategies a set of different strategies
  that are used in tandem to accomplish a complex
  writing task.

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What you can do in the classroom

• Cognition
• Embed the strategies into daily instruction and
  content.
• Directly teach strategies that have not been
  developed

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Other things to think about

• What examples from your own experience illustrate
  the key points of poverty?
• How does thinking about issues of poverty make
  you re-examine what you do in your own classroom
  or your relationship with students?

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Other things to think about

• How could you use this information in a
  preservice program for teachers?
• How might poverty look different in diverse
  communities?