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)”• “Beyond Charity”• “The Causes of Poverty- Key Economic Issue”• “The Hard Work Hypothesis: Is Doing Your Homework Enough to

Overcome the Effects of Poverty?”• “Making Sense of a Globalizing World: Adolescents’ Explanatory

Frameworks for Poverty”• “Using the Storypath Approach to Make Local Government

Understandable”• “Powerful and Purposeful Teaching and Learning in Elementary

School Social Studies”

“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

“Beyond Charity”

• Children need practical experiences in schools and communities.

• Social justice education begins with children’s personal experiences then moves toward critical perspective and action

• Students should get involved in efforts to change the root cause of a problems

• ex. speak with service providers and public officials about the condition of homelessness

“The Causes of Poverty- Key Economic Issue”

• Students are interested in poverty due to the stigma attached

• Lesson on poverty statistics proves opportunity to think critically about data

• Debate on poverty- does not resolve issue but will help become informed, critical decision makers

• Use date to evaluate the positive claims in each argument

• Cornerstone of socially responsible citizenship

“The Hard Work Hypothesis: Is Doing Your Homework Enough to Overcome the Effects of Poverty?”

• Does low SES and poverty really effect grades that much, or is it simply hard work?

• Studied the Hmong and the Boat People, both came to America as immigrants and lived in poverty

• Found that these students did significant amounts of homework, but did that really attribute to their success, or did family background have something to do with it as well?

• Found that many of these students performed well in school, because of homework completion, but homework did not directly effect standardized test scores.

“Making Sense of a Globalizing World: Adolescents’ Explanatory Frameworks for Poverty”

• Researched how adolescents explain global poverty

• Of all adolescents surveyed, no single explanation was agreed upon for the cause of poverty

• Uses explanatory framework to incorporate all different types of ideas

• Adolescents explained poverty in terms of unequal resource distribution, failed modernization and exploitation by wealthy nations

• Overall, these adolescents had little faith in world leaders to solve the crisis of poverty

• Students believed it is our responsibility to help end poverty in the world

“Using the Storypath Approach to Make Local Government Understandable”

• Storypath – using a narrative to have students role-play as the characters (engages emotionally and cognitively)o Ex. – Students build an imaginary community to

make decisions for; they take on roles as community members

• Students’ community Critical incidento Challenges students’ previous experiences;

engages students in inquiry and problem solving• Why is Storypath so powerful?

o It gives students personal connection to social studies words, causing them to more easily grasp their meaning.

“Powerful and Purposeful Teaching and Learning in Elementary School Social Studies”

• Social Studies helps students learn to make informed decisions about their world.

• Powerful Social Studies Learning should be:o Meaningfulo Integrativeo Value-basedo Challengingo Active

• “Denying students the opportunity to build social studies vocabulary and background knowledge can lead to lower literacy levels and, ironically, increases the achievement gap.”

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.

6) Read your letters to the class (Presenter)

Questions and Answers

References• (2009). Powerful and Purposeful Teaching and Learning in Elementary School Social Studies. Social

Studies and the Young Learner, 22(1), 31-33.• Fernandez, M.R., & Nunez, M. (2006). Collaborative recruitment of diverse teachers for the long haul –

TEAMS: Teacher education for the advancement of a multicultural society. Multicultural Education, 14(2), 50-56.

• Fox,K.R. (2008). Online Resources for Developing an Awareness of Poverty. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 21(2), PP.32-Cover 3.

• Guillemets, T. (2007). Quotations About Poverty. Retrieved October 1, 2009 from The Quote Garden Web site: http://www.quotegarden.com/poverty.html

• Krashen, S. (2005). The hard work hypothesis: Is doing your homework enough to overcome the effects of poverty? Multicultural Education, 12(4), 16-18.

• Manning, J.P., & Gaudelli, W. (2003). Modern Myths about Poverty and Education. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 16(2), 27-29.

• McGuire, M. E., Cole, B. (2008). Using the Storypath Approach to Make Local Government Understandable. The Social Studies, , 85-90.

• Meyers, J.P. (2008). Making sense of a globalizing world: Adolescents' explanatory frameworks for poverty. Theory and Research in Social Education, 36(2), 95-123.

• Otlin, J. (2008). The causes of poverty: Thinking critically about a key economic issue. Social Education, 72(2), 75-79.

• Ryan, A.M. (2006). The Role of Social Foundations in Preparing Teachers for Culturally Relevant Practice. Multicultural Education, 13(3), 10-13.

• Shah, A. (2009). Poverty Facts and Stats. Retrieved October 1, 2009 from Global Issues Web site: http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and stats#src24

• Wade, R.C. (2000). Beyond Charity: Service learning for Social Justice. Social Studies and the young learner, 6-9.