The distance between my posts are becoming farther and farther between. The cause is the fact that I am so enthralled in the responsibilities that are all encompassing at RGE as well as trying to manage and juggle my course-load at USF, not to mention being a full time mother of 3 children all under eleven. The reflective process is ongoing daily even though it is not represented in this format so much. I am also engaged in three other blogs that look at my journey through specific lenses. this one tends to be more global.
SO ... the journey continues. I cannot say enough how unbelievably grateful I am for this opportunity. Every day is a journey and a learning experience. I never know what is coming across my "walkie" or email or door. That's just one part of why I love this transition.
The unique need that I have observed is a need to work on building relationships. The students of RGE have very unique academic and emotional needs. The perils of poverty that the students live with are increased stress. This, we know, if we look at the work and research being done on poverty, has challenges. Paul Tough's book explains the research that we are using to understand the effects of poverty. In addition to Tough, there are other people who have shone a light on the struggles that come with living in poverty. Some of that work has been debated as reinforcing stereotypes, so we will not go into specific people and studies (don't want to open up that can of worms) but at the end of the day, we can all agree that students who grow up in poverty have unique needs as a result. They also have unique strengths and that is where our emphasis should be placed. So the conversation always comes to this next place ... You always hear people say that they are "one of these children." This is all well and good a conversation to have, but there are bigger issues.
What happens when you didn't grow up in poverty? AND
What if you did grow up in poverty and are contributing to the problem of reinforced stereotypes?
Both of these questions will foster quite the conversation ...and in many cases HEATED DEBATE!!
Let me preface this by saying ... there is no answer. There are only hypothesis and lived experiences. And since our perceptions are our realities, then since this is MY PERCEPTION it becomes MY REALITY. So therefor, I am comfortable saying this is truth for me. Now, I am a learner FOREVER and am more than willing to have my Pillars of Belief challenged. Simply because this is TODAY's REALITY, doesn't mean that it is TOMORROW's REALITY.
So ... in moving forward, I am making a NOTE that is not in fine print. This is my OPINION. I use research and observations to come to my own conclusions, but I am not a researcher, I do not do meta-analysis of the current research. I approach solid research from a position of Appreciative Inquiry and then connect that with my lived experiences and my global observations and I make what I believe are sound judgements and take positions that are solidly grounded. I am, again, willing to be challenged and watch my positions and opinions evolve. So I may not be a researcher, I can say that I am a Professional Learner always perfecting my craft.
That was a whole lotta foundation to lay before moving forward with this conversation ... but it is necessary because someone somewhere will argue what it is I am going to say. I value those opinions and arguments ...as I would hope mine would be valued. Again, MY PERCEPTION = MY REALITY.
What do I believe about the challenges of poverty? We have to be careful to not reinforce the stereotypes associated with children of poverty. For example, often times if you asked a person to pant a mental picture of what a child of poverty might look like, it would be the face of a black child. This is not a true and accurate picture. See a child of poverty might be a black individual, but if we are breaking down the misconceptions, it is an important piece of information to have that there are millions more whit children living in impoverished conditions that there are black children. What tends to happen that skews our perceptions is that black people who live in poverty are in more densely populated pockets. Donna Walker Tileston and Sandra Darling explain this in greater depth in their book Why Culture Counts: Teaching Children of Poverty.
Another misconception that has to be knocked down is that POVERTY and NEGLECT go hand in hand. THEY DO NOT!! Families that lie in poverty are just that ...families that live in poverty. One cannot make broad and general statements about any family living in poverty except that ...THEY LIVE IN IMPOVERISHED circumstances.
What we do know is that there are certain correlations that can be made looking at the research and the data. What are the truths?
**There is a correlation between stress and poverty.
**There is a correlation between the opportunities that the children from poverty stricken families come with compared to the opportunities that children have that are not from families of poverty.
**The data supports that students of impoverished circumstances have fewer vocabulary words in their schema than students who do not.
