Basic education is mandatory for all kids in the United States. There are laws with minimum and maximum age limits for required free education, but this does not make all education equal. The minimum age varies from four to five to begin kindergarten, while most students graduate high school by age of eighteen or nineteen. However, there are kids that begin their education much earlier. Bell Hooks’ “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, Jonathan Kozol’s “From Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid”, and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “How I Discovered the Truth About Poverty” have a common topic, “poverty”. Moreover, each of these readings has a different perspective with a different agenda attached, but “poverty” …show more content…
Hooks pointed out that many of his professors insinuated that there were negative stereotypes of being poor. Moreover, that self-esteem is linked to financial wealth; women he met with were on government assistance, but chose to get further in debt to appear to have money, never wanting to be labeled poor. Hooks was raised to believe that morals and values made one rich; that one could have all the money in the world but still be poor because of their attitude. Who’s accountable for why people in our society are poor? It’s seems a vicious circle that is hard for poor kids to escape. Many people with low incomes are “intelligent, critical thinkers struggling to transform their circumstances” (Hooks, p. 488) There are many resources, such as theaters that are empty all day, to pay it forward and help the less fortunate gain skills from college students and professors sharing their knowledge. Barbara Ehrenreich’s “How I Discovered the Truth About Poverty” questions why negative stereotypes of untrustworthiness in poor people. Because of this mistrust, the introduction of drug testing for government aid was passed. Why are those negative connotations associated with poverty? “Poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money.”
It is not difficult to document that poor children suffer a disproportionate share of deprivation, hardship, and bad outcomes. More than 16 million children in the United States – 22% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level – $23,550 a year for a family of four. (Truman, 2005) Living in poverty rewires children 's brains and reports show that it produces prolonged effects. Also, growing up in a community with dangerous streets, gangs, confused social expectations, discouraging role models, and few connections to outsiders commanding resources becomes a burden for any child. The concern about the number of children living in poverty arises from our knowledge of the problems children face because of poverty.
David K. Shipler in his essay At the Edge of Poverty talks about the forgotten America. He tries to make the readers feel how hard is to live at the edge of poverty in America. Shipler states “Poverty, then, does not lend itself to easy definition” (252). He lays emphasis on the fact that there is no single universal definition of poverty. In fact poverty is a widespread concept with different dimensions; every person, country or culture has its own definition for poverty and its own definition of a comfortable life.
hooks recalls from personal experience the lessons she learned when she was growing up in a poor family. She says that in her household, no one was ashamed of living in poverty; instead, it was a “breeding ground of moral integrity” (hooks 433). hooks remembers her parents and grandparents teaching her about the value and the worth of a person. She grew up knowing that a person’s value was worth more than their material possessions (433). In addition, her grandparents informed her that no matter how many degrees a person may have, it did not prove their intelligence nor integrity (433).
In the article “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor” by Bell Hooks, one of Hook’s primary purposes for this article is how people view the poor in a negative connotation because of the media. In the article Hooks views the lower class and the higher class different than most. She starts off her article talking about the poor are now being represented. One of her first arguments is talking about the labels the poor has and how poverty places a part in that.
America tries to stand for equality, but our system does not properly help the disadvantaged. In “The Land of Opportunity” Loewen’s first year college students do not understand why people are poor and simply think that it is their own fault for being poor. High school students are not learning about social inequality or class structure. The ideas that they are going to College with are not accurate and the textbooks in public schools are partially to blame for this. Coming from a background of poverty, Bell Hooks understands the moral values and work ethic of the poor and the privileged. In “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, Hooks represents the poor to show that in America the image of being rich is viewed from many perspectives
In Gwinnett county the average homeless person is 6 years old (Family Promise of Gwinnett County, 2013). As an educator, this is worrisome because these children in poverty will encounter many difficulties relating to their education. What difficulties are these children facing with and their education? According to Donald Hernandez (Hernandez, 2011), "Consequently, the children in poor families are in double jeopardy: They are more likely to have low reading test scores and, at any reading-skill level, they are less likely to graduate from high school." Growing up in poverty means there is very limited resources available to help climb out of poverty. Resources such as housing, clothing, and food are basic needs that have to be fulfilled for a child to grow up properly (Shaffer, 2014, pp158). When these basic needs are no...
Today's news is full of speculation and debate about the national debt, taxes and potential cuts to vital programs that serve those in need. However, the conversation often seems overly caught up in the finer points of politics and media coverage rather than the real people that these decisions affect. I think it's fair to say that American attitudes toward the poor are more often than not, disdain and fear. There's a common myth that people are forced into poverty because they are simply lazy or inferior, the truth is it is harder to feed and clothe your family than ever before. Poverty in this country is not accidental, it is a direct result of funneling wealth upstream; the rich get richer and the poor suffer. " The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want " Mark 14:7.
Throughout the history of mankind no person has been given the choice as to which tier of the societal pyramid they are born into. Regardless of religion, ethnicity, or country of origin each civilization has created their own social stratification, which in turn results in a combination of social and economic inequality. As long as the disproportion of wealth and opportunity exists so has the search for a workable solution. While there has been grand solutions theorized by politicians and figureheads like Karl Marx, there are those who wish to inspire thought and provoke action through works of literary fiction. “The Lesson” (1972), a short narrative by Toni Cade Bambara, tells the story of young children from low income families as they are
More often than not, the homeless are viewed as weak and helpless. They are seen in movies as street beggars, and are vehicles of pity and remorse to touch the hearts of the viewers. Moreover, the media trains its audiences to believe that homelessness comes from the fault of the person. They are “bums, alcoholics, and drug addicts, caught in a hopeless downward spiral because of their individual pathological behavior” (427). In reality, it is the perpetuating cycle of wealth that keeps them in at a standstill in their struggles. The media only condones this very same cycle because it trains the masses to believe that people are poor due to their bad decisions. This overall census that the poor are addicts and alcoholics only makes it easier to drag their image further through the mud, going as far as calling them “crazy.” This is highlighted in shows such as Cops, or Law & Order. With the idea that these people are bad news it is easy to “buy into the dominant ideology construction that views poverty as a problem of individuals” (428). Although some of the issues of the poor are highlighted through episodic framing, for the most part the lower class is a faceless group who bring no real value to the
“All Kids Should Take Poverty 101” could have been a wonderful piece if the age of those taking Poverty 101 had been older, and if the focus had been more on how those in poverty can end the cycle on their own. However Beegle’s desire to teach children empathy and awareness is a noble
According to Schwartz-Nobel, America will lose as much as 130 billion in future productive capacity for every year that 14.5 American children continue to live in poverty (Koppelman and Goodhart, 2007). Sadly the seriousness of poverty is still often clouded by myths and misunderstandings by society at large. This essay studies the issue of poverty and classism in today's society.
Several citizens in America may not empathize with many social conflicts which transpire in America. Unfortunately, when poverty is mentioned people of diverse gender, race/ethnic, and age can relate to poverty in America. Although several societies have not experienced the undesirable measures of relative or absolute poverty; several people know poverty exist through many channels, such as the media, social networking, history and charities.
For decades, the United States educational system has provided opportunity for millions of Americans to attend school. However, the gap between the lower income and middle-class students continue to narrow in terms of who will drop out and who would succeed. The articles I chose speak both of issues regarding education and inequality and the growing gap of educational success between the haves and the have nots. In addition, how race and lower class play a large factor on those who succeed and those who do not.The articles also bring to life possible factors such as funding towards a child’s education, in particular the early years, parent involvement and race.
Throughout the nation, education inequality affects many minority students that have low-income which reinforces the disparity between the rich and the poor. The amount of children that have a socioeconomic background of poverty in the United States is estimated to be 32.4 million (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2011). Since many of these children are from
Living in poverty exposes children to disadvantages that influence many aspects in their life that are linked to their ability to do well in school. In the United States of America there are an estimated 16.4 million children under the age of 18 living in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). “The longer a child lives in poverty, the lower the educational attainment” (Kerbo, 2012). Children who are raised in low-income households are at risk of failing out before graduating high school (Black & Engle, 2008). U.S. children living in poverty face obstacles that interfere with their educational achievement. Recognizing the problems of living in poverty can help people reduce the consequences that prevent children from reaching their educational potential.