Jo Boone
Sofia Dimitriou
What Classroom
Teachers Should
Know About
Poverty
Defining Poverty
 Government defines it as certain income
levels. Statistics reflect people on assistance.
 What about working poor? Two or three jobs!
 What is poverty in one geographic region can
be almost middle class in another.
 New displaced and homeless – are now in
poverty, but not included in statistics.
Education – Demographic
achievement mirrors local poverty
 Poverty, race, and schooling are very highly
correlated with location.
 African-Americans are the most racially
segregated, but segregation is declining.
 Second most segregated group is Latino. No
changes to ratio of segregation.
 Overall, neighborhoods are more integrated.
Most children in same economic status.
 School racial composition affects academic,
social, and economic outcomes.
Percent of Children in Poverty
Children and Poverty
Children and Extreme Poverty
2008
17%
83%
8%
92%
Poverty
Extreme Poverty
Not Poverty
Not Extreme Poverty
2008
Caucasian Children in Poverty
Caucasian Children and Poverty
2008
Caucasian Children and Extreme Poverty
10%
4%
96%
90%
Extreme Poverty
Poverty
Not Poverty
Not Extreme Poverty
2008
African-American Children in Poverty
African-American Children and Poverty
2008
African-American Children and Extreme Poverty
17%
33%
67%
83%
Poverty
Extreme Poverty
Not Poverty
Not Extreme Poverty
2008
Latino Children in Poverty
Latino Children and Poverty
Latino Children and Extreme Poverty
2008
25%
75%
11%
89%
Poverty
Not Poverty
Extreme Poverty
Not Extreme Poverty
2008
Childhood Poverty 15 Year Trend
Millions of Children
20
15
10
5
0
1
2
3
Year
Poverty
Extreme Poverty
Other Poverty Issues
 Children of immigrants 22% of poverty
cases
 Immigrant rates are increasing
 New Poverty Group:
Great Recession Homeless
Not included in research
Different issues in classroom
May manifest learning issues
in different patterns
More Poverty Issues
 Poverty limits school achievement but effect
of actual income does not affect number of
years of school completed
 Extra-familial environments begin to matter
as much or more for children than family
conditions once children reach school age
 School related achievement depends on both
ability and behavior
Adverse Childhood Experiences Model
Death
Early
Death
Disease, Disability,
and Social Problems
Adoption of
Health Risk Behaviors
Social, Emotional, and
Cognitive Impairment
Conception
Adverse Childhood Experiences
Poverty Effect on School Children
 Poverty associated with delayed language
development and other cognitive skills
 Lower literacy rates and poor numeracy skills
 Higher rates of behavioral and emotional
disorders
 Higher percentage of students in Special
Education and/or needing support services
Poverty Effects on Cognitive Development
 Short attention span because thinking about food
 Lower academic support – poor quality school
 Low motivation to learn – always thinking about






something else
High dropout rate because think they are not smart
enough
Developmental delays because of poor nutrition
or not enough support
Learning disabilities
Illiteracy and low achievement in schools
Little participation in extracurricular activities
Duration of poverty affecting cognitive development
Behavior Disorders
 Chronic stress disorder
No safe-haven or stress reducing outlets
Exposure to violence in neighborhood or home
No caring or dependable adult
 Greater impulsivity
Acting before gaining permission
 Poor short-term memory
Forgetting what to do next
Emotional Keyboard
Taught
Hardwired
Humility
Forgiveness
Empathy
Optimism
Compassion
Sadness
Joy
Disgust
Anger
Surprise
Fear
Taught
Sympathy
Patience
Shame
Cooperation
Gratitude
Education Impact
The relationship between income and schooling
appears to be related to a number of
confounding factors such as:
 parental education
 family structure
 neighborhood characteristics
Many families in poverty don’t take the time to
have conversations. They have arguments.
Result: Students can’t learn appropriate social skills
outside of school.
Lack of Parent Involvement
 Don’t get involved in school functions or
activities
 Don’t contact school about academic
concerns
 Don’t attend parent-teacher
conferences
Children in poverty are more likely to lack
(and need) a caring, dependable adult in their
lives. Teachers may be only adult offering any
support
A Common Problem with Poorer Students
High tardy rates and high absenteeism
Attendance problems often indicate
negative parent attitudes towards
school
Parents may actually discourage
participation in school
Challenges for failing public schools
extreme socioeconomic
stratification
high population of poor children
legacy of underfunded schools
in urban and rural communities
What can a teacher do?
How well and how quickly we help kids adapt to
school forecasts long-term school outcomes
How do we create the ‘SMARTER KIDS’?
Stuff more content? – This doesn’t work!
Children need more capacity.
Academic Operating system for the brain
 Ability and motivation to defer gratification
and make sustained effort for long term goals
 Auditory, visual, and tactile processing skills
 Attention skills that enable students to
engage, focus, and disengage when needed
 Short-term and working memory capacity
 Sequencing skills (knowing the order of a
process)
 Champion mind-set and confidence
These skills form a foundation for school success and
can give students the capacity to override the
adverse risk factors of poverty
Ways to change IQ
 Home environments and living
conditions
 Quality of nutrition
 Early childhood experiences and early
educational intervention
 Amount and duration of schooling
A good teacher for three to five years would
eliminate the average gap between
economic groups and between ethnic groups
Children need a Fluid IQ
 Students need the ability to rapidly adjust
their strategies and thought processes from
one context to another
ex. Child is taught how to cross the street.
They may use this knowledge with their bike
or skateboard, or in a new neighborhood.
 A method of teaching this is with graphic
organizers, etc. Adjusting their knowledge to
another context.
Brain processes can be improved
through variety of activities
 Physical activity - produces new brain
cells helping with learning, mood, and
memory
 Arts improve attention, sequencing,
processing and cognitive skills
 Computer aided instruction and
programs increase attention and
improve working memory within weeks!
Experienced-based brain changes
 Video games – develops attention skills
 Intensive language training evokes
measurable physical changes in auditory
brain maps
 Spatial navigation abilities correlate with the
brain area responsible for explicit learning
and memory
 Learning music results in improved attention,
sequencing, and processing
 Learning new skills increases brain speed
Previous skills help students







Focus on….
Capture……
Process……
Evaluate and prioritize….
Manipulate…..
Apply….
Present….
…. Information in a meaningful way
Practical intelligence
Students with practical intelligence are able to
self-assess and self-correct during learning
process, not afterward
 Knowing why
 Knowing self
 Knowing differences
 Knowing process
 Revisiting
Quality enrichment programs
 Improve language fluency, IQ, and other
cognitive processes
 Reduce school problems and academic failure in
both elementary and high school
 Improve social, academic, and emotional
intelligence when implemented in early
childhood
The quality and duration of interventions along with
smaller, customized, age-appropriate activities
that continue over time is needed.
They can take four to six years
Visible or measurable enrichment results
 Improved reading, verbal, writing
and tutoring skills
 Better overall school performance
 Stronger interest in class material
 Higher grades
 Improved attendance
What does not work.
 Focusing only on basics (drill and kill)
 Maintaining order through show of force
 Eliminating or reducing time for arts,
sports, and PE
 Increasing and intensifying classroom
discipline
 Decreasing interaction among students
 Delivering top-down lectures
High performing schools don’t make
these mistakes
 Overdoing pep talks and hot air
 Planning endlessly
 Putting kids first, staff last
 Creating climate of fear
 Measuring improvement solely
through test scores
 Treating symptoms, not causes
 Counting on big wins, quickly
How to Achieve Classroom Success
 Match curriculum and instruction to standards
 Turn standards into meaningful units
 Pre-assess students’ background knowledge
(at least a week before the lesson)
 Adjust pre-planned lesson plans
 Practice hope building – learned optimism
•
•
•
changes brain chemistry
must be pervasive and felt by all
hopeful kids try harder, persist longer, get better grades
 Remove learned helplessness and feelings of
inadequacy. (Prevents passivity and feelings of
lack of control over circumstances (as early as 1st
grade)
How to Achieve Classroom Success (cont.)
Arts, athletics, and AP
Don’t dumb-down or pace slower for students with less
background knowledge
The arts build attention and processing skills (sequencing and
manipulation of procedures and data), strengthens memory
skills, and builds life-long transferable skills (reading)
Performance arts foster emotional intelligence and help with
social status and friends
Arts has stronger impact for students in poverty than other
groups
Mastering music skills alters the brain
Athletics reduces stress and improves behavior
Mastering motor skills helps students in poverty improve
cognitive systems through sensory platforms
How to create Hope
 Daily affirmations
 Asking to hear students’ hopes and offering reinforcements of those









hopes
Telling students why they can succeed
Providing needed academic resources (paper, pencils, computer
time)
Helping students to set goals and build goal-setting skills
Telling true stories of hope about people to whom students can
relate
Offering help, encouragement, and caring when needed
Teaching life skills in small daily chunks
Avoid complaining about students’ deficits. If they don’t have it,
teach it!
Treating all the kids in your class as gifted
Building academic, emotional, and social assets in students
Engagement Strategies
 Switch up social groups
 Incorporate movement
 Ask more questions (avoid rhetorical ones!)
 Appreciate and acknowledge every
response
 Use energizers and demonstrations
 Be passionate about subject –draws
students into emotional drama of content
Schools that work do these things
 Standards to design curriculum and
assess student work and evaluate
teachers
 Lengthen instruction time in reading
 Spend more on professional
development
 Engage parents in their children’s
education
 Monitor student progress and get extra
help for those who need it
FYI……
 Students score higher on reading tests when
teachers felt able to use a variety of
assessment tools
 Gains in vocabulary and comprehension skills
when teachers gave them reading material a
paragraph or longer in length,
and reading in core subject areas,
and use of computers, workbooks and skill
sheets
Eight Kentucky High-Performing
High-Poverty Elementary Schools
 High expectations
 Focused instruction and assessment
 Positive school climate
 Teachers believed all students could learn and were
willing to work to make it happen
 Consistent use of varied and individualized
assessments allowing staff to pinpoint learning needs
and address them
 Teachers aligned throughout the school what was
taught and what students outcomes were expected
 Bottom line: high expectation learning needs got
need attention not the socioeconomic status of
students
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Hanushek, E. A. (2010). How well do we understand achievement gaps?
pp. 5–12, National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)
(http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc272c.pdf)
Jensen, E. (2009). Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does
to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do about It. ASCD
Manning, J. P., & Gaudelli, W. (2006). What Teacher Educators Should
Know about Poverty and Special Education. Teacher Education and
Special Education, Volume 29(4), 236-243
http://www.childrensdefense.org/newsroom/
http://ddmt.vaniercollege.qc.ca/~s0330431/ece/effects.htm
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_New_Research_High/
http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/information_show.htm?do
c_id=72167
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/startearly/ch_3.html
http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/prdyc/ch7.html