A Framework for Understanding Poverty Read online

  The next day LaKeitha is waiting for you before school. She is crying. She apologizes profusely for her behavior in class and tells you the following: Her dad is in jail. She is the oldest of five children. Her mother works two jobs, and LaKeitha works from 5:0o to 9:oo p.m. at Burger King every day to bring in money. Yesterday her mother was on her way to school to see you, but she got stopped by the police for an expired inspection sticker. Because she didn't have a driver's license, she was put in jail. Her mother is still in jail, and LaKeitha is all alone with the children. She is 15 years old.

  LaKeitha asks to be allowed back into your class, and she asks you to help get her mother out of jail.

  WHAT SUPPORT SYSTEMS CAN BE ACCESSED TO HELP LAKEITHA?

  Here is a sample list of the support systems some schools use to help students.

  Support Systems Schools Use

  1. Schoolwide homework support: A very successful middle school in Texas schedules the last 45 minutes of every day for homework support. Students who did not get their homework done must go to the cafeteria where tutors are available to help them with their homework. The students must stay until their homework is finished. School officials have arranged for a late bus run to take students home. Many poor students do not have access to adults who have the knowledge base to help them with homework. The school has built this into the school day. Another middle school has arranged for students to have two sets of textbooks-one set at home and one at school. This school does not have lockers. The school has eliminated several problems and has also provided support for students.

  2. Supplemental schoolwide reading programs: Many schools have gone to the concept of an Accelerated Reader program, using a computer-based management program that provides tests for students to take over the book(s) they have read. Students are encouraged to read more because the programs are designed so that students aren't penalized for what their parents don't know or cannot provide for them.

  3. Keeping students with the same teacher(s) for two or more years or having a school within a school are other options. Both of these concepts are designed to build longer-term relationships between teachers and students. Also, much less time is wasted at the beginning of the year establishing relationships with the students and their parents.

  4. Teaching coping strategies can be done in several ways. One is to address each issue as a student needs assistance. Many schools have small groups that meet with the counselor, principal, or a teacher during lunch to work on coping strategies in a number of areas. This ongoing group support allows students to discuss issues and ways to deal with those issues. For example, one elementary school divided all of its sixth-graders into groups of eight. Then school officials took these students and met with them for four weeks, twice a week over lunch, to discuss the issues they would face the next year when they went on to junior high school. Another school has a similar group of students meet who are physically aggressive; the discussion centers around ways to lessen the aggression at school. Advisory groups are yet another way to address issues of support.

  5. Schoolwide scheduling that puts students in subgroups by skill for reading and math can be a way of providing support. One concern with heterogeneous grouping is the difficulty for the teacher to address all of the diverse instructional needs in the classroom simultaneously. One elementary school scheduled the hour for math at the same time in grades i through 3, as well as 4 through 6. Students were then pretested and moved to the appropriate group for that particular unit of instruction. Within two years, the math scores in that building made a considerable gain.

  6. Parent training and contact through video is invaluable, particularly in poor communities. One pattern in poor communities is that virtually everyone has a VCR or DVD player because of the value placed on entertainment. A principal in Illinois who had 95% of his parents on welfare started a very successful program of parental education and contact through videos. Each teacher in the building made a 15-minute videotape. During that 15 minutes, the teacher made a personal introduction, gave an overview of the instruction for the year, identified the expectations of the class, and encouraged the parents to visit or call. Five copies of each video were made and during the first month of school each student could take a copy home and have an adult view the video. This was very successful for several reasons: (1) Parents who were not literate could understand, (2) it provided a kinesthetic view and feel for what kind of teacher the child had, (3) the parent was not dependent on transportation to have a contact with the school, and (4) it prevented unnecessary miscommunications early in the year. It is a low-cost intervention, and other short videos could be made for parents about school rules, appropriate discipline, etc.

  7. The direct-teaching of classroom survival skills makes a difference, according to the research. What are classroom survival skills? Many of these skills are referred to as study skills, but there are also the cognitive strategies that are discussed in Chapter 8 on Instruction. These include such simple hidden rules as how to stay in your seat, how to participate appropriately, where to put your things, etc.

  8. Requiring daily goal-setting and procedural self-talk would move many of these students light years ahead. In the beginning, goalsetting would focus on what a student wants to accomplish by the end of each day and by the end of the week. Goals would be in writing. At the end of the day, five minutes would need to be taken with the class to see if the goals were met or not. Procedural self-talk would begin in the written form; most students likely would need assistance. Procedural self-talk has value only when tied to a specific task. Procedures vary with tasks.

  9. Team interventions are a way to provide support to students. This happens when all the teachers of a student meet with the parent(s) to make a plan for helping that student be more successful. This works as long as the intervention with the parent(s) is positive and supportive.

  DEBRIEFING THE LAKEITHA CASE STUDY

  One of LaKeitha's issues is simply time. She doesn't have any extra time. One of the things the teacher can have LaKeitha do is identify when, given her schedule, she can get things done. The teacher needs to provide flexibility for her to finish her assignments (maybe an extra day) and be flexible about the interruptions that will be a part of her life. The teacher can also give LaKeitha phone numbers and addresses of organizations (churches, social agencies, etc.) that can help provide some relief to her-mentally, emotionally, financially, and physically. Someone needs to spend five minutes with LaKeitha explaining how to access the adult voice, and how using that voice will help her negotiate her difficulties with authority figures and be a better caretaker of her siblings. Certainly of great importance is the acceptance and understanding of her situation by the teacher.

  WHAT DOES THIS INFORMATION MEAN IN THE SCHOOL OR WORK SETTING?

  19 By reorganizing the school day and schedule, and often by making minor adjustments, educators can build support systems into the school day without additional cost.

  v Support systems need to include the teaching of procedural selftalk, positive self-talk, planning, goal-setting, coping strategies, appropriate relationships, options during problem-solving, access to information and know-how, and connections to additional resources.

  CHAPTER 1

  Discipline

  n poverty, discipline is about penance and forgiveness, not necessarily change. Because love is unconditional and because the time frame is the present, the notion that discipline should be instructive and change behavior is not part of the culture in generational poverty. In matriarchal, generational poverty, the mother has the most powerful position and is, in some ways, "keeper of the soul." So she dispenses the judgments, determines the amount and price of penance, and offers forgiveness. When forgiveness is granted, behaviors and activities return to the way they were before the incident.

  It is important to note that the approach to discipline advocated in this book is to teach a separate set of behaviors. Many of the behaviors that students bring
to school are necessary to hep then survive outside of school. Just as students learn to use various rules, depending on the computer game they're playing, they also need to learn to use certain rules to be successful in school settings and circumstances. If students from poverty don't know how to fight physically, they are going to be in danger on the streets. But if that is their only method for resolving a problem, then they cannot be successful in school.

  The culture of poverty does not provide for success in middle class because middle class to a large extent requires the self-governance of behavior. To be successful in work and in school requires self-control concerning behavior. What, then, do schools need to do to teach appropriate behavior?

  STRUCTURE AND CHOICE

  The two anchors of any effective discipline program that moves students to selfgovernance are structure and choice. The program must clearly delineate the expected behaviors and the probable consequences of not choosing those behaviors. The program must also emphasize that the individual always has a choice-to follow or not to follow the expected behaviors. With each choice then comes a consequence-either desirable or not desirable. Many discipline workshops use this approach and are available to schools.

  When the focus is "I'll tell you what to do and when," the student is unable to move from dependence to independence, remaining at the level of dependence.

  BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

  Mentally, or in writing, the educator is advised to first answer certain questions about the behavior. When these questions are answered, they lead to the strategies that will most help the student.

  BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

  1. What kinds of behaviors does a child need to be successful?

  2. Does the child have the resources to develop those behaviors?

  3. Will it help to contact parent(s)? Are resources available through them? What resources are available through the school/district

  4. How will behaviors be taught?

  5. What are other choices the child could make?

  6. What will help the child repeat the successful behavior?

  The following chart indicates possible explanations of behaviors, along with suggested interventions.

  continued on next page

  PARTICIPATION OF THE STUDENT

  While the teacher or administrator is analyzing, the student must analyze as well. To help the student do so, this four-part questionnaire is given to the student for completion. This has been used with students as young as second semester of first grade. Children in poverty have the most difficulty with Question #3. Basically, they see no other choices available than the one they have made.

  In going over the sheet with the student, the educator is urged to discuss other choices that could have been made. Students often know only one choice. They don't have access to another way to deal with the situation. For example, if I slam my finger in the car door, I can cry, cuss, hit the car, be silent, kick the tire, laugh, stoically open the car door, groan, etc. I have a wide variety of choices.

  THE LANGUAGE OF NEGOTIATION

  One of the biggest issues with students from poverty is the fact that many children in poverty must function as their own parents. They parent themselves and others-often younger siblings. In many instances they also act as parent to the adult in the household.

  Inside virtually everyone's head are three internal voices that guide the individual. These voices are the child voice, the adult voice, and the parent voice. It has been my observation that individuals who have become their own parent quite young do not have an internal adult voice. They have a child voice and a parent voice, but not an adult voice.

  An internal adult voice allows for negotiation. This voice provides the language of negotiation and allows issues to be examined in a non-threatening way.

  Educators tend to speak to students in a parent voice, particularly in discipline situations. To the student who is already functioning as a parent, this is unbearable. Almost immediately, the situation is exacerbated beyond the original incident. The tendency for educators to use the parent voice with students who are poor is based on the assumption that a lack of resources must indicate a lack of intelligence. Students and parents in poverty are very offended by this.

  When the parent voice is used with a student who is already a parent in many ways, the outcome is anger. The student is angry because anger is based on fear. What the parent voice forces the student to do is use either the child voice or the parent voice. If the student uses the parent voice, which could sound sarcastic in this context, the student will get in trouble. If the student uses the child voice, he/she will feel helpless and therefore at the mercy of the adult. Many students choose to use the parent voice because it is less frightening than memories connected with being helpless.

  Part of the reality of poverty is the language of survival. There are simply not enough resources for people in poverty to engage in a discussion of them. For example, if there are five hot dogs and five people, the distribution of the food is fairly clear. The condiments for the hot dogs are going to be limited, so the discussion about their distribution will be fairly limited as well. Contrast that, for example, with a middle-class household where the discussion will be about how many hot dogs, what should go on the hot dog, how much of each ingredient, etc. Thus the ability to see options and to negotiate among those options is not well developed.

  To teach students to use the "language of negotiation" one must first teach them the phrases they can use. Especially beginning in fourth grade, have them use the "adult" voice in discussions. Direct-teach the notion of an adult voice, and give them phrases to use. Have them tally each time they use a phrase from the "adult" voice. There will be laughter. However, over time, if the teacher also models that voice in interactions with students, one will hear more of those kinds of questions and statements.

  In addition to this strategy, several staff-development programs are available to teach peer negotiation. It is important that, as part of the negotiation, the culture of origin is not denigrated, but rather the ability to negotiate is seen as a survival tool for the work and school setting.

  Adapted from the work of Eric Berne

  Quit picking on me.

  You don't love me.

  You want me to leave.

  Nobody likes (loves) me.

  I hate you.

  You're ugly.

  THE CHILD VOICE

  Defensive, victimized, emotional, whining, losing attitude, strongly negative non-verbal.

  You make me sick.

  It's your fault.

  ? Don't blame me.

  She, he, did it.

  You make me mad.

  You made me do it.

  The child voice is also playful, spontaneous, curious, etc. The phrases listed often occur in conflictual or manipulative situations and impede resolution.

  THE PARENT VOICE * **

  Authoritative, directive, judgmental, evaluative, win-lose mentality, demanding, punitive, sometimes threatening.

  • You shouldn't (should) do that.

  It's wrong (right) to do

  That's stupid, immature, out of line, ridiculous.

  Life's not fair. Get busy.

  You are good, bad, worthless, beautiful (any judgmental, evaluative comment).

  a You do as I say.

  If you weren't so , this wouldn't happen to you.

  Why can't you be like ?

  * The parent voice can also be very loving and supportive. The phrases listed usually occur during conflict and impede resolution.

  ** The internal parent voice can create shame and guilt.

  THE ADULT VOICE

  Non-judgmental, free of negative non-verbal, factual, often in question format, attitude of win-win.

  In what ways could this be resolved?

  • I would like to recommend

  What are choices in this situation?

  I am comfortable (uncomfortable) with

  Options that could be considered are
r />   These are the consequences of that choice/action

  We agree to disagree.

  USING METAPHOR STORIES

  Another technique for working with students and adults is to use a metaphor story. A metaphor story will help an individual voice issues that affect subsequent actions. A metaphor story does not have any proper names in it and goes like this.

  A student keeps going to the nurse's office two or three times a week. There is nothing wrong with her. Yet she keeps going. Adult says to Jennifer, the girl, "Jennifer, I am going to tell a story and I need you to help me. It's about a fourth-grade girl much like yourself. I need you to help me tell the story because I'm not in fourth grade.

  "Once upon a time there was a girl who went to the nurse's office. Why did the girl go to the nurse's office? (Because she thought there was something wrong with her.) So the girl went to the nurse's office because she thought there was something wrong with her. Did the nurse find anything wrong with her? (No, the nurse did not.) So the nurse did not find anything wrong with her, yet the girl kept going to the nurse. Why did the girl keep going to the nurse? (Because she thought there was something wrong with her.) So the girl thought something was wrong with her. Why did the girl think there was something wrong with her? (She saw a TV show ... )"

  The story continues until the reason for the behavior is found, and then the story needs to end on a positive note. "So she went to the doctor, and he gave her tests and found that she was OK."