One in four children have witnessed a violent act (Adams, 2013), and 15 million children in the United States live in poverty (NCCP, date). It has been shown through a multitude of studies that trauma, and poverty have a significant impact on children. It is crucial for educators to take this into consideration when developing curriculum, and teaching in classrooms that are filled with students from various socioeconomic status ' and backgrounds. Educators can support students who come from poverty, and students who have experienced trauma by developing strong student-teacher relationships with their students, creating a safe, welcoming, inclusive classroom environment, and setting high expectations for each and every student.
The article, How Poverty Affects Classroom Engagement, talks about seven factors that differentiate middle-class and
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I plan to build these strong relationships with my students by taking an interest in their hobbies, and talking with them about them before, during, and after class. I will make an effort to greet my students by name as they enter my class, and ask them how they 're doing. Also, I will make an effort to attend after school activities such as sports, music, and theater. After attending such events I will take the time to compliment my students on their performances in these activities. (source? Book.). The article written by Jane Adams, explains programs that are designed to teach educators on how to teach in a 'trauma-informed way, instruct educators to build strong relationships with their students by, " … praising progress and speaking kindly. " It is imperative to praise students on the progress and effort they put into their work instead of their intelligence, for it will promote them to enter a growth mindset. In which, students will know that their brains can indeed grow. (Jensen,
As Pollock states, “Equity efforts treat all young people as equally and infinitely valuable” (202). This book has made me realize that first and foremost: We must get to know each of our students on a personal level. Every student has been shaped by their own personal life experiences. We must take this into consideration for all situations. In life, I have learned that there is a reason why people act the way that they do. When people seem to have a “chip on their shoulder”, they have usually faced many hardships in life. “The goal of all such questions is deeper learning about real, respected lives: to encourage educators to learn more about (and build on) young people’s experiences in various communities, to consider their own such experiences, to avoid any premature assumptions about a young person’s “cultural practices,” and to consider their own reactions to young people as extremely consequential.” (3995) was also another excerpt from the book that was extremely powerful for me. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. I feel that I owe it to each of my students to know their stories and help them navigate through the hard times. On the other hand, even though a student seems like he/she has it all together, I shouldn’t just assume that they do. I must be sure that these students are receiving the attention and tools needed to succeed,
Furthermore it creates a rhetoric that states it is the responsibility of the middle class to change the circumstances of those in need. This makes those in the middle class have a pressure they did not choose, and also those in poverty an expectation that they might not otherwise have had. Other than when Beegle states, “If the teacher had been exposed to Poverty 101, she would have the skills needed to find out what motivators made sense to me (342),” she makes no other suggestions on just how exactly the middle class would end the cycles of
Cunningham, a school for children from trauma-based backgrounds and diagnosed with disorders, has increased my knowledge of Individualized Education Processes and Case Studies. It also trained me in how to perform a Therapeutic Crisis Intervention and Behavioral Intervention Plan. As an intern, I assisted 6-8 students in a therapeutic classroom setting, collected assessment data on these students’ behavior, rewarded the children for positive behavior, helped students identify emotions, and aided in changing the negative stimuli in the environment.
I was able to make many connections to familiarities in my personal life and in my career as an educator. The article facilitated a personal reflection of my experiences with loved ones, or students, whom portrayed similar behaviors that were identified as the mannerisms of emotionally abused individuals. Difficult students in my class and in our school, exhibit nearly all of the behaviors addressed in the article, which allowed me to construct many commonalities for the reasons of their behaviors. Furthermore, applying the saying, children learn what they live, was insinuated in one particular study; “a child expects others to treat him or her in the same way that they have been treated” (Wright, 2007). For instance, if a child is taught “to be worthy of love, care, and respect”, then he or she is more susceptible to anticipate equal treatment from others whom they have formed relationships with including friends, teachers, or other adults (Wright, 2007). Additionally, children who have been subject to emotional abuse devise a threatened sense of security and develop a skewed sense-of-self (Wright, 2007). Victimized children have internalized that they are; “flawed, defective, shameful, and unlovable”; and that the adults responsible for their protection are; “untrustworthy, capable of abandonment, abusive, and will not care or meet their basic needs” (Wright, 2007). In effect, a child’s abilities to form healthy and satisfying relationships later in life will be altered (Wright, 2007). The above descriptions clarify that many of my experiences from teaching, are direct implications of emotional abuse in childhood. Students who act out and cause disruptions are gaining attention the only ways that they know how. I have often felt like there has been a sufficient need to “retrain” these students and undue the conditioning that
Rita Pierson has been a child educator for over forty years, teaching junior high, elementary school, and special education. She was also a testing coordinator, an assistant principal, and a counselor, bringing a special energy into every role. Rita Pierson gives this speech to an intended audience of educators throughout the world, showing how relationships can affect a child’s academic studies. I believe Rita’s speech is appropriate for her intended audience because there are some educators out there who do not believe in relationships can alter a child’s view on education.
One of the main issues in the educational system is the mindset of students, especially those in poverty. Students in poverty since the, “...beginning of the Progressive Era...” have had a tendency to not put forth effort in the classroom (Hood). Cultural trends throughout twentieth and twenty-first century America has developed different philosophies on how education should be treated. The overarching theme from all time periods in America is that students in poverty tend to be less happy, less excited about school, and less invested in the future that lies ahead for them because they have no hope and optimism. According to the International Journal for Behavioral Medicine, students who have a low “...socioeconomic status [view] the future as containing more negative [experiences] than positive [experiences]”. These students are considered the trouble makers o...
A child’s environment plays a big factor in mental and physical development into an adult. When buying a new house, we usually hope for convenient transportation, nice restaurants and many good schools for children. But there is not one good factor in Fenger High School. It’s located in the south side of Chicago which is one of the worst-off neighborhoods, due to its high poverty and crime rate. With these conditions, even though the school receives a huge budget from the state government, the students still didn’t do well in studying. They receive low test scores and have chronic discipline problems. Due to the school’s location, education couldn’t fix the problems so principal Dozier had to enforce strong policies in order to make the school a safer place. The Adverse Childhood Experience(ACE) study, introduced by Vincent Felitti and Robert Anda, who work for Kaiser Permanente, the scientists measured childhood trauma
The article, School-Based Group Interventions for Children Exposed to Domestic Violence, contains information about children who are exposed to the trauma of domestic violence have an increase tendency to experience complications with emotional and physical behavior issues, academic functioning, and lack of social skills. Children who are exposed to the trauma of domestic violence are provided care from mental health practitioners in schools. Such examples include school counselors, school psychologists, and school social workers, so with the guidance of these mental health practitioners, they can direct children with services like group counseling interventions that are structured exercises and play therapy. Many schools provide access to intervention services for all children because many children may not have access to resources outside of the school settings. The article provides six objectives
The first difference you see between the middle and working class in education is the selection of primary schools as for some it is the first time they are going to enter into the academic world. At this point the family as a whole are entering into “unfamiliar worlds” (Jackson and Marsden, 1966, page 99) in the process of selecting and applying for schools. The middle class aim is to have their children go to a successful school with a good Ofsted report just like the working class. However it is harder for the working class to get into these schools due to a range of factors. Some of these restricting factors are their knowledge of the system and economic status or wealth; they may not have the facilities for tra...
Rimm-Kaufman, Sara. “Improving Students’ Relationships with Teachers to Provide Essential Supports for Learning.” American Psychological Association. May 2012. Web.
Sitler, H. (2009). Teaching with awareness: The hidden effects of trauma on learning. Clearing House, 82(3), 119-123.
Each of these students exhibited extreme misbehaviors and sometimes violence. I felt like my classroom was spiraling out of control. The five students who experienced the trauma were miserable and the rest of the class didn’t feel safe. I was so busy trying to manage behaviors reactively that teaching was no longer my top priority. The school counselor introduced me to the idea of trauma informed care and gave me some simple ideas to try in my classroom. I implemented them immediately. Slowly my classroom became more manageable and all of the students, not just those exhibiting behavior issues, were learning to more effectively self-regulate their emotions and behavior. I only implemented two simple trauma informed care techniques into the classroom and saw amazing results. I kept the same procedures in place for my second year of teaching, and again students learned to self-regulate. I rarely had students exhibiting the extreme behaviors that I saw the year before. I know there are many more trauma informed care techniques and philosophies, and I intend to use my action research to study their effectiveness in teaching students to self-regulate and to ultimately become more resilient people. I am also interested to see the effects trauma informed care can have on extreme behavior issues and
For millions of children in the U.S., poverty, neglect or abuse is a reality of everyday life, though these struggles are often hidden from view. Adult survivors often feel ashamed about and stigmatized for their childhood adversity. This makes it difficult to recognize that these events occur. While it’s easier to turn away than to face these issues, we can no longer afford to do so. Stress, mental illness and substance abuse – all health outcomes linked to childhood trauma – occur in the U.S. today at very high rates. Most would agree that the effects of childhood trauma can impact a child’s life more negatively than positively. While some may argue that the trauma endured has no effect on their future and that most will “just grow out of
It can be argued that the academic performance of children has nothing to do with their socioeconomic status, because there have been many cases of children from very poor families who have excelled greatly in academics (APA, 2017). Furthermore, many predominantly high-end schools have posted poor results when compared to school with poorer backgrounds. This is despite the fact children from lower socioeconomic classes do not have access to the best forms of learning materials. The high performance of children from poor backgrounds is often attributed to the fact that they are not preoccupied with many activities which would otherwise hinder them from concentrating on their studies (Sacerdote, 2002). Therefore, some believe it is false to say that poor performance is associated with children who come from low socioeconomic classes. Rather, they believe academic achievement is genetic (Sacerdote, 2002).
A child exposed to violence at an early age causes many different effects psychologically, physically and emotionally. From short term effects to long term affects these problems may or may not be reversible. It’s important for families to provide the proper love and care for children as they enter the most important stages of the developmental period of their life. According to the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence, current estimates indicate that as many as ten million children per year may witness victims of violence in their homes or that children in communities across the United States are witness to violence at alarmingly high rates (Edelson). Violence is seen every day from children whether it takes place in the community, at school, video games, movies, and more seriously cases, their own household. Violence affects children during child growth as it puts stress on a child, and can even seriously physically or mentality harm the child.