As an educator in a low income school, 95% of my students live at or below the poverty line. How does this translate over into their academic lives? What effects does this stressor have on them? How do they cope with this? As a primary teacher, most of my students are unaware. Their older siblings however are aware and often times have to assume the role of a mini-parent in that parents work long and extended hours. Since our school district is in favor of neighborhood schools our students all live around one another. Since the majority of them are living in poverty, this stress is not as evident. In terms of future development, children living in poverty begin to have experience lower performing schools as well as assume responsibilities within the home. This can be stressful in childhood, especially if these responsibilities equate to financial stress. However, programs such as: WIC, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Welfare, and Head Start help to lessen the stresses of poverty. But in an affluent nation the disparities in income continue to increase as there is a significant gap between the wealthy and those living in poverty in comparison with developing countries.
Other Regions of the World
Wikipedia (n.d.) states a third of the world’s poor reside in India. Most individuals survive off of less than $2/day. Efforts continue from the Indian government to aid in reducing poverty. These include but are not limited to: subsidized housing, access to food, improving access to loans, reducing illiteracy as well as malnutrition, and promoting education/family planning. As a result of this, children in India must experience poverty as a stress. Institutions such as the Caste system still exist in rural areas and may deny some families access to governmental programs. A lack of food results in malnutrition. When the brain and body is malnourished, it does not focus on achieving developmental milestones, but rather survival. Thus poverty experienced here impacts development in all areas socially, cognitively, and physically. To date the efforts that were made as an attempt to reduce poverty in India still exist after being implemented in the 1950s.
References
Poverty in India, (n.d.). In Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Retreived from: http://www.wikipedia.org/
Very interesting post about poverty. Putting numbers to the situation really makes one see the entire picture. $2 a day!!!! I cant imagine only having that much..How would American's survive on that? I think our children would even havea hard time living on those means, and they dont even make the money!
ReplyDeleteYour posting was very interest and I have learned a lot about our own country and more about the issue of poverty. Right now my family lives within our means but we still fall short also.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how many children are in your school, but 95% of anything living in poverty is just sad. It is good we have those programs(wic, food stamps, etc.)to help out but I think poverty still takes its toll on children, everyone. We have a situation in in some of our schools where they want to do away with (for cost reasons) school breakfast and free and reduced lunches-so everyone would have to pay the same for the meals!! For some of these children this is the best/only good meal they will have in a day. I can't imagine taking that away.
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