In the previous section, I discussed how the environment shapes a poor student’s academic success. However, the teacher’s attitude toward the cognitive capabilities of their students also plays a major role in shaping a student’s learning. A teacher with low expectations for their students and reluctance to take responsibility for all students can contribute to low achievement (Halvorsen, 2009). In low-income schools, research has shown that the dedication a teacher displays to their student, especially to the idea of responsibility, is associated with how much their students will learn (Lee & Smith, 1996). Responsibility Among Teachers and its Effects on Student Achievement Lee and Smith (1996) describe responsible teaching as the …show more content…
Such teachers respond to “failure as a challenge, requiring the students to redo failed work (with individualized help from the teachers as needed) rather than writing the students off or referring them to remedial classes” (Brophy, 1983, p. 642). Showing all students that they are capable of completing a difficult task, regardless of how long it may take them to grasp it, is the best way to instill a sense of personal responsibility. Responsible Teaching for Low-Income Populations Teachers’ understanding and expectations for student learning is highly influenced by the context of the schools in which they teach. Schools that operate at any level which have a higher population of low-income students typically show decreased standards for responsibility in educational staff as a whole (Lee & Smith, 1996). Teachers in schools that have a high rate of low-income students producing low achievement scores are much more likely to give up on their students (Brookover, Schweitzer, Schneider, Beady, Flood, & Wisenbaker, 1978), when this is the population that teachers need to take the most responsibility when it comes to student learning and growth. Leland and Harste (2005) emphasize that educators who teach children from backgrounds of poverty
More likely to serve low income students is urban public schools which who are reportedly failing to educate the students they serve. In urban public schools, Numerous understudies and their families are living with serious financial disservice. Students are not proven to be the problem. The education that urban students in government funded schools get is evidently insufficient. To be a school that promotes a good academic status of students, you can’t lack basic social utilities. Poverty in urban schools can be fixed. A feature that characterizes effective schools involves coordination instruction among teachers which contributed to the weak academic performance of low income students. You must ask yourself what would be the best solution to help these students succeed? Because urban school are being run badly, they are failing. Improvement within management lies a solution. According to Chicago Tribune in the news article” Economic Inequality: The real cause of the urban school problem” findings show that the root of the problems facing urban schools can be found in gradual but extremely powerful changes in the nation's economy It takes a comfortable environment, suitable effective committed teachers, more use of instructional practices consistently and available necessities and needs. The most important statistic provided is the Growing economic inequality contributes in a multitude of ways to a widening gulf between the educational outcomes of rich and poor
Educators have recently understood that low income schools do need the money and that extra support. They have realized that too many places policies for assigning teachers and allocating resources are perpetuating the problem rather than solving it. The breakdown of data that researchers have found out on 2008-09 school-level spending proves that most of the high-poverty schools collect less than what they are supposed
African Americans are not the only ethnicity group to be singled out with behavior. Racial and ethnic minority students report experiencing low teacher expectations, having less access to educational resources, being placed on lower educational tracks, and being steered toward low-paying employment (Kozol, 1991; Olsen, 2008).This low expectation is causing
As Connell, White and Johnston (1990,p.9) state, 'There is not a “culture of poverty”, nor any key “deficit” that makes poor people different from everybody else and therefore and educational problem'. Teachers and Education Assistants need to adapt into the culture of poverty and be sensitive and understandable to the extensive bar of needs that children of poverty bring to the classroom and they need to consider the cultural values of these children as they arrange their learning. The basis of Groundwater-Smith, Ewing and Le Cornu's opinions in the article is they position readers to view that the teachers dispositions low income students and that rarely the educators offer the same level or enough aid and attention than the other students and they are less likely to succeed in school when compared with the more advantaged children. According to Groundwater-Smith, Ewing and Le Cornu's and Geoffrey D. Borman and Laura T. Rachuba they both state that students from lower income families may not have as high expectations from their parents, teachers or their peers within the school. The students may also not be confident in their own abilities and
If the student fails, the teacher fails. If the teacher cannot compel the student to do something, to use his own mind to solve a problem, then he has failed because the student was not successful.
Gloria Ladson-Billings spent time observing teachers in public schools that were located in predominately low-socioeconomic school districts to figure out what makes them successful with typically low performing students. Some of the things she observed are all the teachers “shared pride in and commitment to their profession and had an underlying belief that all children could be successful” (learnnc). Furthermore, these teachers established trusting relationships with their students that allowed the students to take responsibility for their own learning. Lastly, these teachers also went beyond the classroom to show support for their students such as attending community events. These observations led Ladson-Billings to realize that in order for “teachers to use culturally relevant pedagogy successfully, they must also show respect for students, and understand the need for the students to operate in the dual worlds of their home community and the
Teacher bias towards impoverished individuals could also factor heavily on the academic performances of a child. Disadvantaged students are seen as being " discriminated against by teachers" (Dotts, 53).
Students and parents always blame the teacher for their failure, when students should be taking responsibility for their own education. In the article “Obama needs to speak honestly about education” by Thomas Friedman claims that teachers are held at an impossible standard while students are not even responsible for their own education. Friedman says “Teachers are held to impossible standards, and students are accountable for hardly any part of their own education and are incapable of failing”(7). Everyone learns at a different pace and there are some really horrible teachers but more than half the
Unfortunately, the school's lack of appropriate education results directly from poor government funding. So even with hard work, the lower-class student is still held down by his socio-economic status. Poverty-stricken parents are unable to offer their children the same attention and motivation as parents of a higher-class can, therefore never providing these children with the mindset that they are able to accomplish the American dream. According to Mantsios, 40 million Americans live in poverty, and the mental and physical affects the low standard of living has on them is undeniable (Mantsios 328). Citizens who live in poverty work long hours for little pay, yet return to a household that in no way symbolizes the hard work put forth. Within this environment, very few people have the positive outlook to mentor children successfully.
With poverty comes a certain attitude, in higher up communities the children and parents are more respectful towards their teacher, education itself is respected; however, in poverty stricken areas the children are at home alone, or running the streets, the parents are usually too busy working to worry about how their child is doing in school. Districts also have the same attitude, schools in upper class neighborhoods have the essentials; such as, running hot water in the gymnasium, and showers that actually work, new books and just the overall approach to the education, of its students is superior. Compared to that of lower class, neighborhoods the essentials are overlooked for instance, classrooms are in need of repair, as well as the bathrooms and gymnasiums. Their books are torn, and outdated, and their approach to education has been to just make it through the
Payne’s (2008) poverty contends that management of low-income families tends to focus on the natural development of their children with little of no regard to cognitive intervention. The poverty theory developed by Payne (1998) focuses on remediation of the economically disadvantaged to remediate their deficits. A latent effect of such miseducation of teachers and school leaders is that students will internalize the views of educational leadership within their schools, consequently resulting ion additional negative outcomes. It is arguable that individuals living in impoverished settings may hold mainstream values and ideas, but lack the resources to enact the values into their lives.
According to the state report card, Salem Elementary School’s socioeconomic status of students is strongly high in poverty. Correspondingly, all of the students enrolled in Salem also have some type of economic disadvantage. As discussed in our EDTE 2020 class, high poverty areas tend to have teachers “with less experience”, who do not have “proper certification”, or who have a “high turnover rate”. This is the complete opposite at Salem, as it’s stated on the report card that all teachers have a bachelor and a master’s degree, with over 72% of teachers being
Department of Education, “documents that schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because school districts across the country are inequitably distributing their state and local funds”. (Education, 2011). Students that come from low income families are not given the equal chance to get the education that students from high income families get. If students are not given the tools they need to be educated, then they will have a poor chance of succeeding in the world.
Students are placed in the responsibility of their own learning and understanding while the teachers encourage students to be more independent and more exploratory. The teachers will foster a sense of autonomy in the learning process as they act as a source of experiences. In addition, as the students watch their teacher makes mistakes, they will learn those failures are part of the learning process. The students will soon realize that mistakes are natural in life and it will serve as stepping stones to
Teaching children of poverty can be very challenging. These children are more likely than their peers to experience poor nutrition, parents with low educational attainment and underemployment, broken families, child abuse and neglect, drug abuse, teen-age pregnancies and high rates of dropping out (Holt & Garcia, 2016). It has been my experience that these students are a little rough around the edges which may cause an educator the inability to see beyond the exterior of the child thus treating them more harshly than their peers. Being employed in a Title 1 school, I have had the pleasure of working with students and families whose major source of income is welfare. They often came from a single-parent household and arrived at school improperly dressed and usually hungry. I found that meeting the child’s basic needs helped them focus on school and took some of the stress off of their parents as they knew their child was in a safe, caring place. One thing that was vital in our classroom was firmness and consistency. Unfortunately, many teachers and schools do not possess the knowledge and experience required for success in these more challenging schools. Impoverished students often do not care about their education nor did their parents seem to care how their children perform in school (Holt & Garcia, 2016). I feel this can be attributed to distraction from just trying to survive. In order to have greater success in the classroom of impoverished students, teachers need to