How Poverty Affects Behavior & Academic Performance

Poverty certainly affects behavior and academic performance on many levels.  It is most important for teachers to understand how to teach children in poverty and how to better serve them.  A large aspect of teaching children in poverty comes from knowing and understanding their home environment and circumstances.

As unfortunate as it is, according to Eric Jenson in Teaching with Poverty in Mind, “low-income neighborhoods are more likely to have lower-quality social, municipal, and local services.” ( Jenson, Eric  Teaching with Poverty in Mind pg 8 ) When a child is exposed to the lower quality resources as such is takes a tool on their whole life including their learning.  Students who are exposed to such impoverished and often negative environments do tend to bring that environment with them into the classroom.  Young students do not know any better than what they are taught at home. Often times, students who live in low –income families are not read to at night, do not have someone to help them with their homework, and are lacking any positive influence.

As far as teachers go, they play a large role in students lives, especially students who come from poor families.   Christine Lynch, Principal of John Spaw Middle School in Spokane, WA said, “You have to teach them, you have to have high expectations…”  It is quite important that teachers remember that giving student sympathy and not expecting, as much from tem is not helping them as far as their academic performance.  Teachers need to learn to make accommodations in other ways instead of letting a student “slack” off in class.  For example, teachers can allow students to be on the computer for a few more minutes at school if they do not have access at home.  The more a teacher can do to accommodate and work with their students at his or her level, the more they will learn and be able to focus on academics instead of situations from home. 

The environments that the students are exposed to at home are far too often not good environments. As much as one would love for parents to work with their children at home, that is not always the reality.  Teachers should continue to encourage parent involvement as that is a huge part of a child's academic performance.  It is also important to understand that the student's parent might not be the best influence for their child when it comes to behavior.  So when a child is acting out in class or making fun of other children, the reason could be that this is the exact behavior they have been exposed to on a daily basis.

Facts on Poverty and Education in the United States:
-According to DoSomething.org  http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-education-and-poverty-america  (click here for more information! )

1. "What is the Poverty Line, anyway? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, it's a family of four (two adults, two children) that earns less than $21,834.
2. Still, $35,000 is basic-needs budget for a U.S. family of four (two adults, two children), as calculated in An Atlas of Poverty in America.
3. In 2008, nearly 43.6 million people Americans lived in poverty (about 13.2% of the population); 12.9 million were under the age of 18.
4. In the US, poverty is still tied to race: 24.7% of the African American population live below the poverty line while 8.6% of Caucasians do.
5. School budgets are tied to property taxes. This is why schools in poor neighborhoods get about half as much money per student than schools in affluent neighborhoods.
6. Three-quarters of the nation's schools (almost 60,000) report needing repairs, renovations or modernization in order to reach good condition.
7. Not surprisingly, most schools in bad condition are in cities where at least 70% of students are below the poverty line.
8. Urban students are less likely to graduate than their suburban counterparts. High school graduation rates are 15% lower in the nation’s urban schools when compared with those located in the suburbs.
9. Graduation rates are also lower among certain groups, particularly ethnic minorities and males. In 2008, the graduation rate among African-Americans was 61.5% compared to 81% for whites.
10. In 2008, 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50%, with the lowest rates reported in Detroit (24.9%), Indianapolis (30.5%) and Cleveland (34.1%).
11. Children of poor families are up to six times more likely to drop out than wealthy. "

Resources:

Jenson, Eric. Teaching with Poverty in Mind. ASCD. Alexandria, Virginia. 2009. 

Lynch, Christine. Principal of John Spaw Middle School in Spokane, WA.

Informational Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_vfvbEoYGc&feature=player_embedded

Christine Lynch tells the importance of teachers being aware and understanding the environments of their students.  She also gives tips on how to better serve them academically.

Here you have a video that displays facts and realities of children in the United States who are living in poverty.