Wow, as this year draws close to end I am exhausted and quite frankly perplexed. I have been teaching 1st grade for 11years. The past 5 I have been in a school with 97% poverty. This year has been extremely difficult! I have class of only 14, 9 boys and 5 girls. At the start of the year 11 were barely @ grade level or below. My deck was stacked; but, I had plenty of hope that I would succeed in helping them all. My experience at the school in the previous 4 years had been successful; although none of those classes had more than 3/4 of the class low achievers.
What surprised me most was the lack of independence that this group had. This would prove to be the bane of their existence in first grade. The class was extremely needy, I used all the strategies that I have used in the past to increase independence with little or no avail.
Low academic performance was a negative factor in my classroom this year; yet, behavior was far more detrimental. I experienced many of the typical bad behaviors that were easily controlled with positive discipline. But I found it to go far beyond these...
I decided to research how poverty affects behavior and academic performance. My past years experience found that even though poverty was a factor, for the most part first graders were first graders. Once again this year was different. In speaking with other teachers and staff at the school; many experienced the worst year of their career. One, who had been a part of our school community for over 20 years, told me that she had always loved her job even with all the challenges. This year was different for her, she had told her husband the other night that she didn't think she could continue with her job.
Teaching with Poverty in Mind, a book written by Eric Jansen, shed some light on the risk factors of poverty. He uses the acronym EACH: Emotional and Social Challenges; Acute and Chronic Stressors; Cognitive Lags; Health and safety issues. The risks factors seem insurmountable and are becoming more dominate. The excerpt listed effects of these risk factors such as: reduced cognition, creativity, and memory; impaired attention and concentration; diminished social judgement; reduces motivation, determination and effort; reduces neurogenesis (growth of new brain cells). These effects are reflected in my children and are in the majority. It also gave new and interesting ways to empower students. It suggested restitution, that students who disrupt class will be expected "make it right" by doing something positive for the classroom.
Researching the topic of the affects of poverty on academic performance and behavior has given me some tools to use in future classrooms.
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109074/chapters/How-Poverty-Affects-Behavior-and-Academic-Performance.aspx
Wow, great post! I find it to be incredibly interesting because I teach in one of the wealthiest schools in the state and I too, have seen a major change (for the past few years-but mostly this year) in negative behaviors. Kids have always been kids, but they are changing. They are far less able to pay attention than even 4 years ago. As a whole, they want things to be easier and are less willing to work hard and remain persistent. How much do you think technology has played a role in this trend? Do you see the same shift in your school?
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Good question Amy! I believe, (can we include TV?), it has played a huge role. A child in my class who is a highly motivated student, was bouncing off the walls! His focus was way off. I asked him what was up he said "I can't get my games out of my head!". True story!
ReplyDeleteEvery child in my class shared their favorite Christmas gift, almost all of them said xbox, dss or the like... They play them in their beds at nite. We CAN'T compete with the fast pace of electronics. Technology cuts across all the barriers of SES. Scary!
The other side of the coin, entitlement! I taught at a private school in VT and this was reflected in even my 1st grade students.
The psychological challenges we face, as teachers, are becoming more extreme. I believe it to be a reflection of society as a whole.
At times I feel so much powerlessness...
I agree completely! We've got a pretty interesting mix of students in middle to upper middle class and students below the poverty line. I think the challenges have come from all sorts of causes, certainly including technology. Like you said, it is a reflection of society: we're getting over-advertised and over-stimulated from every direction that its hard to pay attention to anything, let alone sit in class for 45 minutes (or longer!).
ReplyDeleteThe hard part is being the slow catalyst in changing education to meet the new challenges. A lot of times, the most we can do is make small changes in our own classrooms: adapt to meet the changes; try to understand; and like you've done already, research...and then hope others do the same!
For me, it is important to focus on some of the small milestones. I took a child to our district tech fair. She often is very serious, hard worker, very smart and sad. She doesn't smile much:( She smiled a the time at the tech fair... she was so grateful. She must have thanked me 1 million times:)
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