Poverty Effects on Students

Interning at Southwest Elementary School provides exposure to a new community within the Guilford County School system.  Southwest is an unique school environment compared to the rest of the county schools due to its unusually high average socioeconomic status of the student population.  Though the SES level compares higher than those of the district, it should not mislead or deceive, for the Southwest community experiences poverty as well.  Where SWES lacks generational or urban poverty, it does contain many homes and families experiencing situational poverty due to a number of circumstances such as divorce, disease, unforeseen job layoffs. 

My knowledge of the populations' circumstances are limited due to my time concentrated in the fourth grade classrooms.  The most frequent causes of poverty observed have been family illness or sudden job loss.  These students are faced with a sudden, polar shift in the home environment, forced to live with less fiscal and material resources as well as less parental involvement.  Students existing in situational poverty, struggle emotionally and socially to balance their shift in home life while maintaining their social and academic life in school.  Entering school with issues at home cause distractions and stresses on students, revealing themselves in altered personalities, changes of work ethic and product.  These changes need prompt and attentive recognition so that the student may be relieved of the stresses of home and poverty to feel safe and able at school.  This type of action requires resources and a plan. The SWES community does not deal with poverty with any great extreme or frequency and therefore lacks the resources and plans in place to appropriately deal with sudden situations that arise.

Immense amounts of research have been completed throughout the country in an effort to discover the best, most appropriate strategies to ameliorate the stresses the student experiences and aide them in still succeeding.  Eric Jensen demonstrates for educators a vast amount of action steps to take when dealing with students in poverty (2011). His main point stressed throughout his presentation of the research is the great importance of understanding on the part of the educator.  Teachers must have an understanding of the situations and circumstances their students are being forced to live in.  Many teachers struggle to comprehend the harsh realities of the lives of these children, but research agrees that the first step is an open mind by the educator (Jensen, 2011).  Jensen stresses within his text that as educators, action steps must be taken on the behalf of the students.  The following steps provide students and teachers alike an amiable environment within which to coexist and excel; recognize the signs, alter the environment, empower the students.  With these steps, teachers will demonstrate a renewed understanding to their students while providing them the support, environment, and resources they need that are not being received elsewhere (Jensen, 2011).

Handling poverty and its stresses is no small feat for any district.  It takes great effort, efficiency, and resources.  Balloch expresses the need for schools and districts to embrace the resources that are available (2001).  Though resources can be limited in some areas or a challenge to receive in others, government resources do exist to be used for the benefit of those that need them.  School communities lacking proper resources available for situations of poverty need to research all the resources that are out there.  Balloch's research revealed the numerous public organizations, both community and government based, with funds and resources available to school districts with proper process (2011).  These organizations include, but are not limited to church and faith organizations, armed forces, universities.  These varied groups and more can step in and assist the families struggling through alert and partnership from the schools (2001).  Many schools are unprepared to face the sudden situational instances that occur, just like those in the SWES community. Southwest Elementary is a strong school academically with an equally strong faculty community which supports it.  However it is not properly prepared for the encounters with poverty and the needs of the students living in it.  Through the action steps for educators shared by Jensen and the resources for schools researched and demonstrated by Balloch, Southwest Elementary could progress leaps and bounds in its handling of poverty.

Resources:
Balloch, S. (2001). Partneship working: Policy and practice. The Policy Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books
Jensen, E. (2011). Teaching with poverty in mind, what being poor does to kids' brains and what schools can do about it. Alexandria, VA: Assn for Supervision & Curriculum.