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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.”
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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 Peale Facts: • 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 • Get into your lesson planning groups • Assign group roles: Recorder: writes the letter Discussion Director: leader, generates discussion questions Time Keeper: makes sure work is progressing in a timely manner, alerts the group when there are 5 minutes left, and two minutes left Task Master: keeps everyone on task Presenter: reads the letter
Directions: Affecting Systemic Change in our School • 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 • 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). • Make sure the letter has all components: date, greeting, main body, closing, and signature.
Directions: Affecting Systemic Change in our School • Read your letters to the class (Presenter) • 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.
References • http://www.quotegarden.com/poverty.html • http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src24