Strategies for Working with Students in Poverty

1. Strategies for Working with Students in Poverty Renee Chandler Clear Lake School District September 16, 2010

2. School systems are not responsible for meeting every need of their students. But when the need directly affects learning, the school must meet the challenge. • Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1989)

3. Poverty: “The extent to which an individual does without resources.” • Financial • Emotional • Mental • Spiritual • Physical • Support systems • Relationships/role models • Knowledge of hidden rules Ruby Payne (2005)

4. Poverty and Language • Hart and Risley in Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (1995) found the following patterns in children between the ages of 1 and 3 in stable households: • Welfare households: Child heard an average of 10 million words • Working-class households: Child heard an average of 20 million words • Professional households: Child heard an average of 30 million words

5. Registers of Language • Frozen • *Formal • Consultative • Casual • Intimate *Language of tests, school, workplace, etc. Joos, 1967

6. Formal vs. Casual Register • Formal register is composed of a 1,200- to 1,600-word spoken vocabulary • Casual register has few abstract words, uses non-verbal assists, and has 400- to 800-word spoken vocabulary.

7. Patterns of Discourse • Formal-register: Get straight to the point • Casual-register: Go around the issue before finally coming to the point

8. Story Structure • Formal-Register: Plot is most important. Structured in chronological order with beginning, middle, and end • Casual-Register: Characterization is most important. Story can begin at beginning, middle, or end. Told in vignettes with audience participation in between.

9. What is the importance? • Cognitive studies indicate that story structure is a way that the brain stores memories. • Formal-register stories allow memories to be stored more sequentially. • Episodic, random memory has adverse effects on thinking. Feurerstein (1980)

10. Classroom Activities • Have students write in casual register, then translate into formal register. • Use graphic organizers to show patterns of discourse • Tell stories both ways and discuss the similarities and differences. • Use stories across content areas. • Make up stories with the students that can be used to guide behavior (social stories).

11. What about Achievement? • Low achievement is closely correlated with lack of resources, and numerous studies have documented the correlation between low socioeconomic status and low achievement (Hodgkinson, 1995). • Part of the issue the fact that tests are biased in favor of white, middle-class students. • The other part of the problem is that students raised in poverty are lacking cognitive strategies. The good news about this one is that we can do something about it!!!

12. How do we help students develop cognitive strategies? • Use graphic organizers. • Teach students how to systematically gather data from text. • Establish goal-setting and procedural self-talk. • Use a kinesthetic approach when appropriate. • Teach structure and patterns. • Teach students to make questions. • Sort relevant from irrelevant cues (cartooning). • Teach mental models (drawings, charts, stories, metaphors, analogies can be used to make abstract concepts more concrete.)

13. Hidden Rules Among Classes • Take the Hidden Rules quiz • You assume that everyone knows the hidden rules for the social class to which you belong—this is not necessarily true! • Not knowing the hidden rules for middle class makes it difficult to break out of poverty. • Not knowing the hidden rules for poverty makes it difficult for teachers to connect with their students!

14. To survive in poverty, once must rely upon non-verbal, sensory, and reactive skills. To survive in school, one must use verbal, abstract, and proactive skills.

15. Generational Poverty • Generational poverty has its own culture, hidden rules, and belief systems.

16. Characteristics of Generational Poverty

17. Characteristics at School

18. Something to keep in mind … Wealthy students who attend high-poverty schools perform worse than poor students who attend low-poverty schools.

19. Implications … • Being in poverty is rarely about a lack of intelligence or ability • Many individuals stay in poverty because they don’t know there is a choice (or they have no one to teach them hidden rules or provide resources) • Schools are virtually the only places where students can learn the choices and rules of the middle class.

20. Discipline • Many of the behaviors that students bring to school are necessary to help them survive outside of school. • Students need to learn that rules vary from setting to setting. • Self-control is critical to school success but it is not a valued characteristic in the culture of generational poverty.

21. How do we move students toward self-governance? • Structure • Choice • These two elements allow students to move from dependence to independence.

22. Behavior Analysis • What kinds of behavior does a child need to be successful? • Does the child have the resources to develop those behaviors? • Will it help to contact parent(s)? What resources are available through parents and through the district/school? • How will behaviors be taught? • What are other choices the child could make? • What will help the child repeat the successful behavior?

23. Response to inappropriate behavior: • What did you do? • When you did that, what did you want? • List 4 other things you could have done. • What will you do next time?

24. Implications for School: • Students from poverty need to have at least two sets of behaviors from which to choose. • The purpose of discipline should be to promote successful behaviors at school. • Structure and choice need to be part of the discipline approach. • Discipline should be seen and used as a form of instruction.

25. No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship [of mutual respect] --Comer

26. Relationships of mutual respect include: • Support • Insistence • High Expectations

27. Building relationships of mutual respect with parents • Stay in the adult voice • Use language that is clear and straightforward • Always call them by Mr. or Mrs. (unless told otherwise). It’s a sign of respect. • Use humor (not sarcasm). • Deliver bad news through a story. • Be personally strong • Don’t accept behaviors from adults that you don’t accept from students. • Be human and don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t have all the answers.

28. Phrases to Use with Parent from Poverty • “Learning this will help your child win more often.” • “The mind is a mental weapon that no one can take from you.” • “If you do this, your child will be smarter and won’t get cheated or tricked.” • “Learning this will help your child make more money.” • “This information will keep your child safer.” • “I know you love and care about your child very much, or you wouldn’t be here.”

29. Emotional Resources Schools should establish schedules and instructional arrangements that allow student to stay with the same teachers for two or more years if mutually agreed upon. Teachers and administrators are much more important as role models that has previously been addressed. The development of emotional resources is critical to student success. The greatest free resource available to schools is the role-modeling provided by staff.

30. Create Relationships “Locate a resilient kid and you will also find a caring adult—or several—who has guided him.” --Invincible Kids, U.S. News & World Report

31. References • Payne, Ruby K. (2002). Understanding Learning: The how, the why, the what. Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc. • Payne, Ruby K. (2005). A framework for understanding poverty. Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc. • Payne, Ruby K. (2005). Working with parents: Building relationships for student success. Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc.