I was chatting online with a group of teachers last night about poverty and education. First of all, it was great to be in a group of folks again. My organizing work used to have me on the road for hours and hours, making this COVID-19 quarantine very difficult for me to adjust to.
I saw the chance to talk about poverty with educators as a great opportunity, and it was nice to get back in the game after being grounded for two months.
Heading into it, I knew there were a few key points that I wanted to make. First, I wanted to make sure they understood that the way poverty is viewed makes it really difficult for poor people to talk about a lot of stuff with people who aren’t poor. There are parts of living in poverty that aren’t safe to say around non-poor folks, so we place them in an invisible suitcase and carry them around with us, only opening the suitcase when we’re with folks who won’t judge the dirtiness of it.
Take, for example, the family whose kids have had to take on jobs because their family unit has drastically changed and their parents need them to help pay the bills. That student probably isn’t going to tell the teacher who is yelling at her for not completing her homework assignment that she worked until midnight and fell asleep before her homework was done so she could get up at 5:30 a.m. to catch the bus for school.
Or the parent who has to work midnights because it’s the only job she could find that paid above minimum wage, leaving her teenager in charge of their younger siblings while they slept and she was at work. That mom probably doesn’t feel comfortable telling people about that because she’s afraid they’ll punish her and risk losing her kids.
Punitive for the Poor
There are a ton of punitive measures in place for poor people, and the education system is no different. Kids without pencils are given violations. Kids whose Chromebooks aren’t charged when they come to school are given violations. Kids who are tardy are given violations. But what if that child without a pencil didn’t want to ask her single mom to buy new ones because the family’s car was broken down and the child knew her mom was struggling with money?
What if the boy with the uncharged Chromebook lived in a house where the electricity had been shut off because his parents didn’t get paid until Friday? What if that kid who always walks into school late but kind of proud of himself does so because his mom has to be at work two hours before school starts and he was proud of the fact that he got there by himself?
And guess what? There’s a huge chance that those circumstances will be packed into those invisible suitcases because they don’t feel as if they can tell the truth without getting themselves or their parents in trouble.
I always wonder if that mom who lets her neighbor use her SNAP card for $25 in cash so she can buy diapers is really committing fraud. Is it fraud when she is doing it to provide necessities for her baby? I think it’s a matter of perception. Some would say — the rules say — that she doesn’t deserve to keep her SNAP card while others understand that she did what she had to do to provide for her kids.
Poor people always have to prove themselves. You have to be poor enough. You have to work enough. You have to take a drug test. You have to have a letter from your employer because your place of business is closed down because of the virus, but the answering machine simply said it was closed; the message didn’t say that it was closed because of the virus, and your story isn’t believable unless you have a letter from an authority figure stating your truth is truth.
The Elite Section
The views around poverty make it appear as if poor people are always up to something or looking to get something past someone. I remember being told at a parent night that our kids’ Chromebooks couldn’t be pawned because they would be tracked. A group of us parents just looked at each other in disbelief, and all of us whispered about whether that was said at the school in the more elite section of town.
I feel as if educators in Title I schools should have to go through some sort of sensitivity training before they are in front of a classroom. Title I schools receive additional funding because their poverty numbers are so high. I know a lot of teachers who do a great job in these schools. And I know some who should just leave and not let the door hit them in the backside while doing it. I don’t know what this would look like, and I have a ton of ideas floating through my head, but I think it has to be done if we’re ever going to see real success.
It’s not just enough anymore to acknowledge there is a lot of poverty in our schools. We need to come up with some method of making school a place that nurtures the children who need it rather than punishing them for stuff that isn’t their fault. Would it hurt to allow a child a 15-minute power nap if he or she falls asleep in class? What if there was a situation at home the night before that made it impossible to sleep? I read on someone’s post yesterday that a bullet came through the walls of their house and into their three-year-old’s bed frame. How would you expect a child to get back to sleep after that?
Like everything else, we need to be more caring and nurturing and less punitive. The kids in school who receive violations for not having a pencil, which is often labeled as “unprepared,” is probably the kid who would get the most pleasure out of the reward trip to the movies because that might be something his family has never been able to afford.
Let’s change the way we think about how kids learn because I bet you that in a nurturing and understanding environment will see far better results than a punitive and tough one.
As always, stay well. Stay six feet apart. And don’t trip over someone’s invisible suitcase.
Onward,
Amy Jo
