Class Conscious

7/27/2019 Class Conscious

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Class Conscious:How Socio-Economic Status

Impacts Education

Judith Pellettieri, Ed.D.


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Golden Rule For Schools

ALL practices have to

work for ALL students

ALL of the time.


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Know Your Clients

What is the make up of your classroom?

What is the make up of your school?

What is the make up of your community?


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Know Their Class

Lower

Middle

Upper

Alternative


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The Great Class Debate

Schools should acknowledge class anddifferentiate accordingly.

Schools should be blind to class and notstereotype any one group.

Schools need to work for social andeconomic reform.


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Common Belief

It is beneficial to students to attend

schools where their individual differencesare respected and not viewed as

deficiencies.


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How Are Students Different?

Socio-economic Family structure

Race Nutrition

Ethnicity Support system

Physical abilities Family history

Gender Urban / RuralLearning abilities Religion

Family traditions Family dynamics


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Schools have to work for

everyone! Learning disabled (IEP)

Gifted and talented (IAP)

Special needs (504)

Language needs (ESOL)

Poor and rich, walkers and busers, hotlunch or cold lunch, white milk orchocolate, tall and short, .


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School & Family Partnerships

Public schools operate from middleclass norms and values.

Individuals bring with them the hiddenrules of the family in which they were

raised.


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Instruction to the

Lower Class


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Causes of Poverty

Lack of Human Capital

Crisis (car accident, health, fired)


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Social Mobility

One paycheck away from poverty

Tend to reproduce your class


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Facts

The younger the child, the more likely they

live in a low income family.

Maternal education is biggest indicator of

childs school success.

Maternal depression has a major impact on

preschool learning.


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Children of poverty may not know thehidden rules of the middle class.

Poverty is the extent to which an individualis without resources

Language issues can cause students from

generational poverty not to fully developthe cognitive structures needed to learn atthe levels required by state tests.


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Direct teaching must occur to build these

cognitive structures.

Relationships are the key motivators forlearning for students of generational

poverty.


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Child Care

Upper/Middle LowerCenter based care.

Children from centers

are more ready forschool.

Care given by relatives.

Children play less, nap

less, are not as readyfor school.


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Registers of Language

Formal - speaker or

writer gets straight to

the point.

Casual - speaker orwriter goes around theissue before finallycoming to the point.

Teachers using formal register can be viewed

by parents of poverty as being rude and

non-caring


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Tips for working with parents

from poverty. Use the museum format for events.

Have food.

Invite the children.

Have classes that benefit parents.

Call them Mr. or Mrs. as a sign of respect.

Use humor, never sarcasm.

Deliver bad news through a story.


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from poverty Offer a cup of coffee.

Use the adult voice.

Be understanding, but firm. Be personally strong - dont show fear.

Emphasize that there are two sets of rules: one forschool and work and one for outside of school and

work. Dont accept behaviors from adults that you dont

accept from students.


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Instruction to the

Upper Class


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from wealth Dont use humor

Use experts by name

Dont accept behaviors from adults that you

dont accept from students..


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Other Resources

Each individual has resources that greatlyinfluence achievement; money is only one.

Friends in high places Children of wealth may not know the hidden rulesof the middle class.

Relationships are the key motivators for learning

for students of from the upper class.


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Needed For School Success

- Social skills

- Emotional skills- Early literacy skills

- Pre language between parent

and child


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Relationships & Economic Class

All children need

protagonists,

cheer leaders and

role models.


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Best Practices

Form Relationships

Parent / Teacher Conferences Student Centered Practices

Maximin Principle


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Maximin Principle

Inequalities are permitted only when

everyone benefits.

The welfare of the least advantaged is the

touchstone of social justice.

Some cannot be well off at the expense of

others.


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Adjust Your LensAfter school activities

PTO meetings, etc.

Winter Activities

Book Fairs

Bike Rodeos

Breakfast and lunch

Snacks

Communication with homeSchool phobias


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School Practices

Retention - gift of time or discrimination

Homework - boost or burden

Fundraising - individual or whole group


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Ask Yourself

Do you classroom or school practices workfor all of your students?

Are you making the welfare of the leastadvantaged, not the average, yourtouchstone?


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Schools As Solution

Are your practices inclusive?

What do you need to change?


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Diversity

Young people whose languages and cultures differ from

the dominant group must often struggle to sustain a clear

image of themselves because differences are commonly

treated as deficiencies by schools and teachers. S. Nieto, Affirming Diversity


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Credits

Payne, Ruby, A Framework For Understanding Poverty,

aha! Process, Inc., Highlands, TX, 1996.

The Effects of Poverty on Learning, Head Start - Public SchoolTransition Conference, Plymouth, NH, 2004.

Rank, Mark Robert, One Nation, Underprivileged - Why AmericanPoverty Affects Us All, Oxford University Press, NY, NY, 2005

Hooks, Bell Where We Stand, Rutledge, NY, NY, 2000.

Strike, Kenneth A., Haller, Emil J., Soltis, Jonas F., The Ethics ofSchool, Teachers College Press, NY and London, 1998.

Documents

Class Conscious