What Do We Really Know About Students Who Live in Poverty?
As educators, we have expectations of students always being in school and parents being involved as much as possible. If we don't see this parent involvement or high motivation from students, we tend to think that they just don't value education. However, in districts (or even counties and states) where there are high levels of child poverty, what are we doing to help those students?
In order to get a better understanding of what it is like to live in poverty, I had the opportunity to attend a poverty simulation. In this simulation, we got assigned a name and age, and once I walked in the door I was no longer Nessiah Holland a 20 year old college student. I was know a 14 year - old girl who had just been deserted by her dad, living in a 3 bedroom apartment with her mom (who is jobless), and her 17 year old brother who is a high school drop out, into drugs, and is about to have a baby with his girlfriend.
Throughout the simulation I was to go to school (my character was not motivated by school) while my mom tried to get a job so that she could get us food and pay the bills. For a while, my family only had $55 which was not enough money to get food for the week. We went three weeks without eating food and almost had our utilities shut off in our apartment.
At the end, this experience showed me the constant frustration and struggle that people living in poverty go through daily just to try and survive. As the simulation was going on drugs were going around to be sold for money, transportation passes, etc. and people were stealing. Some kids were even skipping school to help their families, but some families were sending their kids to school so that they can eat breakfast and lunch because they may not have dinner.
All of these things that we were simulating are things that real families in poverty have to deal with. What I realized from doing this is that the students we have that live in poverty have an instinct to survive in the world. They need to do what they can to survive and sometimes school just is not that priority. The priority is making sure that they get money to make sure the rent is paid and all of the other bills. Also, the parents of these children are working as hard as they can to provide for their families. They are trying to figure out what they can do to make sure that they have a roof over their head and that they have a meal to put on the table. If they are working to get meal after meal on the table every day, how can we expect them to come to an open house instead?
It was truly eye opening for me to engage in this experience. Growing up, I never had to worry about not having a steady roof over my head, having dinner on the table, or having a different outfit to wear to school every day. I was always provided with these things from my mom and the rest of my family. I never went without anything and I am so grateful for that. However, as a future educator I need to understand where some of my students may be coming from and what I can do to help them.
Schools have begun to try and help students by providing all students in a school district with free lunch since there are so many students in the district who are from low income families (I know my district started doing this two years ago). My school district was also doing a program over the summers where they were providing lunch to the students over the summer. I now realize because of my college education so far and this simulation, that my district does this because there are so many low income families. At the time, I did not really understand why they were doing this.
As educators, if we stay in the dark about what are students are actually going through on a daily basis, we aren't going to be able to reach them so that we can teach them. As they said at the simulation, this is the first step in helping families who live in poverty, and there are more things we can do to help fight it.
I am so happy that I am apart of my church's food pantry and that I have the opportunity to help families in my area who have low incomes and live in poverty. We even hand out school supplies before school starts so that the kids of these families have paper, pencils, book bags, etc. to go to school with. These are all simple things that may be hard for them to get, and we may take that for granted.
Overall, I am so happy I got to experience this. If this ever happens again at my college I will be more than willing to go through the experience again. I want to be an educator that understands the students that I am working with. I want t do everything I can to make a difference in their lives.
Hopefully I get photos from the simulation to share. This was an experience I will never forget.
In order to get a better understanding of what it is like to live in poverty, I had the opportunity to attend a poverty simulation. In this simulation, we got assigned a name and age, and once I walked in the door I was no longer Nessiah Holland a 20 year old college student. I was know a 14 year - old girl who had just been deserted by her dad, living in a 3 bedroom apartment with her mom (who is jobless), and her 17 year old brother who is a high school drop out, into drugs, and is about to have a baby with his girlfriend.
Throughout the simulation I was to go to school (my character was not motivated by school) while my mom tried to get a job so that she could get us food and pay the bills. For a while, my family only had $55 which was not enough money to get food for the week. We went three weeks without eating food and almost had our utilities shut off in our apartment.
At the end, this experience showed me the constant frustration and struggle that people living in poverty go through daily just to try and survive. As the simulation was going on drugs were going around to be sold for money, transportation passes, etc. and people were stealing. Some kids were even skipping school to help their families, but some families were sending their kids to school so that they can eat breakfast and lunch because they may not have dinner.
All of these things that we were simulating are things that real families in poverty have to deal with. What I realized from doing this is that the students we have that live in poverty have an instinct to survive in the world. They need to do what they can to survive and sometimes school just is not that priority. The priority is making sure that they get money to make sure the rent is paid and all of the other bills. Also, the parents of these children are working as hard as they can to provide for their families. They are trying to figure out what they can do to make sure that they have a roof over their head and that they have a meal to put on the table. If they are working to get meal after meal on the table every day, how can we expect them to come to an open house instead?
It was truly eye opening for me to engage in this experience. Growing up, I never had to worry about not having a steady roof over my head, having dinner on the table, or having a different outfit to wear to school every day. I was always provided with these things from my mom and the rest of my family. I never went without anything and I am so grateful for that. However, as a future educator I need to understand where some of my students may be coming from and what I can do to help them.
Schools have begun to try and help students by providing all students in a school district with free lunch since there are so many students in the district who are from low income families (I know my district started doing this two years ago). My school district was also doing a program over the summers where they were providing lunch to the students over the summer. I now realize because of my college education so far and this simulation, that my district does this because there are so many low income families. At the time, I did not really understand why they were doing this.
As educators, if we stay in the dark about what are students are actually going through on a daily basis, we aren't going to be able to reach them so that we can teach them. As they said at the simulation, this is the first step in helping families who live in poverty, and there are more things we can do to help fight it.
I am so happy that I am apart of my church's food pantry and that I have the opportunity to help families in my area who have low incomes and live in poverty. We even hand out school supplies before school starts so that the kids of these families have paper, pencils, book bags, etc. to go to school with. These are all simple things that may be hard for them to get, and we may take that for granted.
Overall, I am so happy I got to experience this. If this ever happens again at my college I will be more than willing to go through the experience again. I want to be an educator that understands the students that I am working with. I want t do everything I can to make a difference in their lives.
Hopefully I get photos from the simulation to share. This was an experience I will never forget.
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