Growing Up Poor

The condition of poverty in rural areas is not well known or well studied. Most of the studies on poverty are conducted in urban areas. This presentation was about poverty in rural western Maine and how it can affect the academic performance of adolescents. Knowing this information as a future teacher is important because roughly 36% of my future students will live in this economic condition. Humans develop physically, cognitively, and emotionally or socially during adolescence and poverty can affect that development in a variety of ways. A few ways that were mentioned are late onset of puberty, sex at a younger age, increased or more likely abuse of alcohol and drugs, poor school performance, cognitive delays, delays in brain development, aggression, depression, anxiety, loneliness, and parent and adolescent conflicts. Three theories of development that were covered were nature vs nurture, family stress model, and Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model. The nature vs nurture argument stresses that a student's genes predispose that person to developing certain characteristics. The nurture or environment is an activator to whether or not those genes are expressed. The family stress model states three things happen in a chain reaction to one another, financial strain= disrupted parenting= negative outcomes. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model basically says that everything in a student's life interacts and affects the other ones. The student has separate environments such as home, after school programs, school, or work and what happens in one effects how the student acts in the others. Along with this a student's personal history affects their present but also their future. This is a lot to understand about just one of my future students. Also with so many things affecting a student, how can a teacher impact positive change when school is only one environment a student occupies? The teacher just has to try to make an impact in another environment in a student's life. Another idea to consider is Phenomenology, which is ones own reality. What may seem to be a small problem to me, an outsider, could be the biggest deal for a student. As a teacher, I have to be sensitive to that.

The main things I learned from this presentation was to consider the whole student when I look at any issue, even if it seems to be strictly school related. Like a student who did not do his or her homework. The presenter gave an example of a student who did not do it because he did not have a pen at his house and had no way of going out and getting one. Another thing I learned is to look for other environments in a student's life that I can positively effect. Lastly, I should always ask myself, what is a student's reality? If I know where a student is coming from and how they perceive things I can better understand him or her.