A Framework For Understanding Poverty And The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

Earlier this year, I read Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle tells the story of Walls and her siblings as they experience an impoverished childhood and attempt to escape the poverty-stricken lives of their parents. In her descriptions of her life and the lives of her family members, Walls influenced my ideas about poverty, homelessness, and escaping hard lives.

Critical to our education today is the way in which diversity matters. In order to have a positive effect on student

Teachers should advocate for all students’ backgrounds and cultures to better their students’ learning. To accomplish this, teachers should be informed about their students’ home lives, be conscious of how and what they should be taught, and ultimately make their education a priority. Students from poverty in a multicultural classroom need the correct tools and teaching approaches from their teachers.

In a world that is becoming increasingly dynamic and interconnected where each of us are becoming more dependent on each other, diversity is a crucial element of life. Never in human history have students had available to them the

Earlier this year, I read Jeanette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle tells the story of Walls and her siblings as they experience and attempt to escape the poverty-stricken lives of their parents. In her descriptions of her life and the lives of her family members, Walls influenced my ideas about poverty, homelessness, and escaping hard lives.

In The Glass Castle, a memoir, by Jeannette Walls she tells the story of her and her family. The Walls family is constantly short on food and money and are always moving around the country because Rex can not keep a job. In the first half of the novel the family lives in the desert. The father, Rex Walls tells his children once he makes the prospector and finds gold, in the desert, he will build the family a house called ‘The Glass Castle’ for them. When the Walls have nowhere else to go they decide to move in with Erma, Rex's mother, in Welch until they have enough money to get there own house. Soon after the family gets their house in Welch the house starts falling apart. Jeannette does not want to live with her parents anyone and she decides

Teaching in racially diverse classrooms often leaves educators feeling uncertain about how to proceed and how to respond to historically marginalized students. There is pressure to acknowledge and accept students of color with different perspectives, to diversify the syllabi, be more aware of classroom dynamics, and pay attention to how students of color experience the learning process.

The Glass Castle by Janette Walls is a memoir. The book starts from the earliest childhood memory in which Janette dress catches fire while she is cooking herself some hotdogs. The book retraces the Walls family life from Nevada, California, Arizona, West Virginia, and then finally ending in New York. Janette Walls gives a very detailed description of the events that took place over a fifty- year period; starting in 1957 and ending in 2005. The book really allows for the reader to understand the hardships of being raised in a dysfunctional family. The family is composed of Rex the father, Rose Mary the mother, Lori walls the oldest child, Brian the only son, and Maureen the youngest child. Regardless of the hardships, the Walls family remained

The most memorable time when I was impacted educationally by diversity would be my freshman year in High School. I had gone to a private Christian school from Kindergarten through 8th grade. My mom thought that it would be a great idea to send me to public school for my freshman year. Mind you, I lived in Dallas, TX at the time and public school is quite different than private school there. I was not only the minority in school, but I was one of five Caucasian kids in the entire school. I was made fun of for being white, coming from private school, and for being smart. Just like the article, Helping Diverse Learners Succeed, I had to learn about my new environment. I didn’t understand why the kids were mean to me and why

Coming into this class, there weren’t many expectations. The description is in the name: Diversity and the Disenfranchised, there isn’t much that can be mistaken for. I figured that we would talk about all the normal oppressed groups: African Americans, Hispanics, and the poor. When talking about African Americans and Hispanics I figured that there would be a lot more historical context than what was actually discussed, because that is the only thing I have ever been taught. Instead, we learned about how their ethnicity shapes them, and how typical white traditions were not what African Americans or Hispanics followed. When talking about the poor I figured we’d address welfare and why people were poor. We did those things as well as watched a video of how being poor affects the lives of children, which made much more of an impact on me than just learning about statistics.

This paper will be discussing a recent fifteen hour field experience I participated in which I observed a classroom which included many students of diverse ethnic and cultural groups. I will discuss any prejudices/discriminations I observed in the classroom based on ethnic and cultural diversity. I will also describe how this experience has made me determined to try to create a positive learning environment for students of diversity in the classroom.

In Heritage High School, there exists a substantial gap between minority and white students engaging in arduous subjects, as only fifteen-percent of minorities enroll in Advanced Placement courses compared to the staggering seventy-percent of white students participating in ambitious classes. This disparity among students has accelerated the semblance of a marginalized society consisting of minority pupils, who remain futile in pursuit of academics. I seek to tarnish the illusion of inadequateness, as remaining fulfilled causes a person to not accel. To challenge myself is utterly necessary in upholding an inclusive society, which demonstrates that minorities are seeking to improve themselves. To be an exemplar in the standards of a dignified student of color. This perpetual drive of success develops the foundation of an inclusive society. The efficacy of a student's tenacity will propel the urge of prosperity within themselves. Society is solely a spectrum of colors, a pack of crayons, to not pick an choose a colors you are comfortable with, but to include the diverse, plentiful array of colors, to illustrate a painting of opportunity. An illustration of a vivid colors brimming with a rigor is the utter depiction of an inclusive

America’s schools are challenged to meet the academic and interpersonal needs of all students regardless of culture, race, or ethnic background. Hawley and Nieto (2010) claim that race and ethnicity significantly impacts students’ learning in their article, “Another Inconvenient Truth: Race and Ethnicity” (p. 66). They contended that educators should be “race and ethnicity -responsive” to effectively understand the challenges students from diverse races and cultures face (Hawley & Nieto, 2010, p. 66). Moreover, the article noted that schools should have practices in place that promote an inclusive, supportive, and enriching learning environment for all students including students from different races and ethnicities.

The stereotypes of people living in poverty in America are so deeply imbedded in our society. We as educators may need to examine our beliefs and open our mind to new interpretations of the behavior of those struggling without basic needs. Doing so, however, is the first step to improving our success and effectiveness with educating students in poverty and helping end the cycle of suffering. Educator’s attitudes and beliefs shape you tone of voice, your body posture, your facial expressions and your actions towards students. Working daily with students who are classified as living in poverty. I believe it is our duty as educators to work with student’s effect by generational poverty. One thing I do not see a lot of is help

This study adopted a qualitative method enabling the researcher to gain an insider’s view of the field through close association with both participants and activities within the setting (Burns, 1994). The data in this study, which took place in a school focusing on a year-one classroom, was collected through two structured interviews and observations of classroom practices and students (Morrissey, 2014). The researcher took notes related to the students’ diverse learning progress and how this diversity had been addressed in the school and the year-one classroom (Morrissey, 2014). A great deal of information regarding diversity was gathered while observing classroom practices and students. These observations helped conceptualized the interview questions for a more in-depth investigation.