Poverty in the Elementary School

Poverty takes a big toll on students in the Elementary School classroom. I have noticed a lot about some students in my classroom that may not have a lot at home and how that affects them in the classroom. One student of mine has just joined this school in November and his parents are divorced. He lives with his mom during the week and his dad over the weekends. His mom owns her own cleaning service while his dad works at a restaurant. I found out very early in the year that when he gets home after school, his mother works until 8 o' clock at night and he has to make dinner for his little brother when this boy in my class is only in 4th grade! Since he has been here, I have noticed that he does do some of his homework but he lacks motivation while he is in school. He also is very quiet and rarely ever smiles. I think his home life is definitely affecting his motivation in school because he is so focused on what he has to do when he is at home with his family that when he gets to school, he loses that motivation he has at home because he just wants to have some time to relax when he obviously doesn't get that at home.

There is also a student in my classroom who I noticed the first day of observing the classroom last semester that something was a little off. I caught him wandering around the classroom instead of sitting in his seat like he was supposed to be doing what he was supposed to. I also had observed in weeks to come that he rarely ever turned in his homework, found it difficult to follow along with the teacher and if he ever got called on he had no idea what he was doing. At this point, I realized he was very below grade level. After realizing this student had some problems, I asked my teacher about him. It turns out that that student's mother had died and his dad is in jail and he had to live in a hotel until he could figure out what to do. He finally got adopted into his mom's sister in laws house along with his two sisters but she already had two children and wasn't doing well in the first place so getting placed into a house that already doesn't have good living conditions probably wasn't a good move. So within all of this happening, it effected him in such a negative way that he has become so below grade level, he has some social problems and he can't pay attention. Also, to add on to this is also ESL, was born early and had heart surgery as a small child. 

According to Eric Jensen in a book called Teaching with Poverty in Mind, "Low-SES children are often left home to fend for themselves and their younger siblings while their caregivers work long hours." (Jensen, 2009) They talk about comparing them with their peers, they spend more time indoors watching television than playing outdoors or in after school activities and this is true for my student as well because I heard recently that he stays at home and plays Xbox instead of doing homework at some points. Eric Jensen also talks about how low-income parents are overwhelmed by diminished self-esteem, depression, and a sense of powerlessness. These feelings often get passed down to their children in the form of insufficient nurturing, negativity, and a general failure to focus on the children's' needs. It also talks about how poverty is a major predictor of depression in children which would explain why I rarely ever see the first child smiling.

Eric Jensen also talks about how some teachers may interpret students' emotional and social deficits as a lack of respect or manners, when in reality, those responses are the only ones they have been taught as a child and don't know what else to do. Maybe for the little boy with the dad in jail, he thinks that walking away from a situation he doesn't like is the right thing to do since maybe that is what he would do at home and at school but he doesn't know that thats the wrong thing to do at school when you are trying to learn.

I have learned a lot of different strategies in helping these children not only from the book but also from my own experience in the classroom. I know now that some of these behaviors that we want them to have might not have been taught to them in the past, so we might have to teach them it ourselves. One of the quotes I really liked in the book was "You can't change what's in your students' bank account, but you can change what's in their emotional account." (Jensen, 2009) This talks about really respecting your students, avoiding demeaning sarcasm and asking student what they would rather do and how they would want to learn the material. I really took this into consideration because I tend to be a very sarcastic person when it comes to working with students, but not in a mean way. I always try to make it funny but I have to be careful to always try to say the right thing because I can joke around about them not having something when in reality, they don't.

A couple other strategies I can work on with students living in poverty are building core skills (short and long-term memory, problem solving skills), if they have difficulty in reading find out where the problem is (vocabulary deficit, comprehension challenge), provide hope and support (build supportive relationships), etc. I really think that last one is a a very big deal and not a lot of teachers realize it. Students who are living in poverty don't have the social skills to try to meet new friends so they are often lonely. Here is where the teacher needs to step in and learn about his interests and try to pair him together with other children in the class with the same interest so they can have something in common and maybe spark a friendship out of that.

Overall, there are a lot of students living out there in poverty but teachers can't just let it slide by because without building that relationship, finding out the problems and building core skills the child is just going to stay in the same spot he is in now which is either problems in his social life or academically as well. Sometimes, when the parents are too busy trying to care for themselves, it's the teachers job to keep that child where he needs to be in life, which is successful.




Jensen, E. (2009). Teaching with poverty in mind. (p. 16, 21). Alexandria, Va: ASCD.