Ending Poverty by Developing Justice-Oriented Citizens

By: Jenny Hellstrom, Rachel Kohl, Kristin Letrich, Karen Martin, and Kim Stange

Overview of the Social Injustice: Poverty

“Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.”

~Norman Vincent PealeFacts:• At least 80% of humankind lives on less than $10 a day.• The U.S. has the largest gap between rich and poor of

any industrialized nation.• About 790 million people in the developing world are

chronically undernourished• 1.6 billion people live without electricity• 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation• Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, 1 billion are in poverty• According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die EVERYDAY due to poverty.• Approximately a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a

book or sign their names. • Based on enrolment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in

the developing world were not in school in 2005

Journal Articles• “Modern Myths about Poverty and Education”• “The Role of Social Foundations In Preparing Teachers for

Culturally Relevant Practice”• “Online Resources for Developing an Awareness of Poverty”• “TEAMS: (Teacher Education for the Advancement of a

Multicultural Society)”

“Modern Myths about Poverty and Education”

• Myths are unsubstantiated narratives with strong moral overtones.

• National myths promoted in textbooks• Myth 1: “The Poor are Lazy”• Myth 2: “U.S. Public Schools are Failures”• Myth 3: “Racial Segregation in Schools is a

Thing of the Past”• Myth 4: “Student Test Scores Measure

School Quality”

“The Role of Social Foundations In Preparing Teachers for Culturally Relevant Practice”

• 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress • Social inequities play a significant role in shaping teacher

beliefs, attitudes, and expectations of students of color and those in poverty.

• Teachers explain reasons for student’s behavior with references to ethnicity, culture, and/or socioeconomic status of the families.

• Teacher preparation needs to include courses in social foundations.

• Teachers need to be culturally relevant and have a clear sense of their own cultural identities.

• Teachers need to hold high expectations, scaffold from home to school, and involve parents and community members in the classroom.

“Online Resources for Developing an Awareness of Poverty”

• In elementary school: poverty, hunger, homelessness is most often discussed in terms of a canned food drive

• Avoid language such as “poor little children” or “people who don’t work and don’t have food”

• Service Learning Project: Make placemats (or trays) for a local soup kitchen on a weekly basis.

“TEAMS: (Teacher Education for the Advancement of a Multicultural Society)”

• Urban schools have a “revolving door” of unqualified teachers

• Seeking diversity of teacher recruitment• Prepares teachers to increase the

academic success of all students– Pedagogical Seminars– Service-Learning– Teacher Support

Directions: Affecting Systemic Change in our School

1) Get into your lesson planning groups2) Assign group roles:

Recorder: writes the letterDiscussion Director: leader, generates discussion questionsTime Keeper: makes sure work is progressing in a timely manner, alerts the group when there are 5 minutes left, and two minutes leftTask Master: keeps everyone on taskPresenter: reads the letter

Directions: Affecting Systemic Change in our School

3) Discuss in your group (for 10 minutes): – How could you help students in poverty in

our school? – What programs could you create that

provide support for poverty stricken students?

– How would these programs assist all students, not only those in poverty?

Directions: Affecting Systemic Change in our School

4) Use your ideas to write a letter to our Superintendent. Explain how the programs you propose would help the children in poverty in our school (5 minutes).

5) Make sure the letter has all components: date, greeting, main body, closing, and signature.

Directions: Affecting Systemic Change in our School

6) Read your letters to the class (Presenter)

7) Give feedback to the other groups: during the other groups’ presentations write on a post-it note one suggestion the group made in their letter that you had not thought of and liked.

Questions and Answers

References

• http://www.quotegarden.com/poverty.html• http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/pov

erty-facts-and-stats#src24