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Long term effects of divorce on adolescence
Long term effects of divorce on adolescence
Long term effects of divorce on adolescence
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As children, we look to our parents to teach us skills that we need in everyday life, whether it be social skills or how to. Yet for a variety of reasons, some children do not have this personal role model for them to follow and learn from. For these children, their teachers may be the first adult to give them any sort of attention or care. As a result, a teacher can play a huge impact in a young child’s life. The Allentown School District’s high schools are both considered Title I schools, meaning that over 40% of the school’s students come from families that are legally considered low-income (www2.ed.gov). In the ASD, this number is nearly doubled at 88.7% (www.allentownsd.org). Most likely, these students come from homes in which the adults they live with are working most of the day and …show more content…
It is at this point that the school and its teachers ought to step in. The students who do not have the parent support and role models as young children are less likely to succeed in life. Children from single parent homes are more likely to use and abuse drugs (Hoffmann “The Community Context of Family Structure and Adolescent Drug Use”) as well as twice as likely to commit suicide and/or have a psychiatric disease (www.webmd.com). One of the ways that teachers can reach and influence these students is through afterschool programs. 57% of students from single parent homes are enrolled in some form of after school program from grades 1 through 5 (Working Families and Afterschool A Special Report from America After 3 PM: A Household Survey on Afterschool in America 2). Children often learn their social skills from watching their parents interact with others. Later in life, these may influence the jobs that they are offered and received as their potential employer evaluates how they communicate in an interview or in their interactions with others. Raymond
In Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Annette Lareau discusses the extensive amount of research she conducted employing observational and interview techniques. She collected data on the middle class, working class, and poor families. She was trying to understand the impact of a child’s early parental guidance on the child’s life. She was able to conduct this research with 12 families, all of whom had fourth graders. She gathered enough information to conclude the major differences in the parenting styles of each type of family, which was directly correlated to socioeconomic status.
For a positive future, it is only common sense that a generation of healthy children must be raised. A stable family unit and personal attention seem logical ways to rear successful young people. Yet statistics show that in 2003, approximately 37,000 marriages and 21,000 divorces occurred in Kentucky; other states showed very similar ratios, such as Ohio, with about 73,000 marriages and 40,000 divorces (NVSR, Pg. 6). Clearly, many students already have “broken homes” as obstacles, but the homogenous
In many low income communities, there are teachers that are careless and provide their students with poor quality education. These teachers are there just to make sure that they keep receiving their monthly paychecks and act in this way because they believe that low income students do not have the drive, the passion, or the potential to be able to make something of themselves and one day be in a better place than they are now. Anyon reveals that in working class schools student’s “Work is often evaluated not according to whether it is right or wrong but according to whether the children followed the right steps.” (3). This is important because it demonstrates that low income students are being taught in a very basic way. These children are being negatively affected by this because if they are always being taught in this way then they will never be challenged academically, which can play a huge role in their futures. This argument can also be seen in other articles. In the New York Times
A child’s first day of school is often viewed as a rite of passage; the first step on the road to a happy and successful life. This is true for most children from affluent families who live in the best school districts or can afford expensive private schools. But what if a child’s first day of school is nothing more than the first step on the road to poverty and possibly even illiteracy? The documentary Waiting for “Superman” addresses many issues in a failing school system and the innocent children that system leaves behind. Although the documentary spends little time suggesting parents’ roles in their children’s education, it clearly shows that we must make changes to help children from low-income families and improve the teacher’s unions.
School funding is systemically unequal, partially because the majority of school funding comes from the school district’s local property taxes, positioning the poorest communities at the bottom rung of the education playing field. A student’s socioeconomic status often defines her success in a classroom for a number of reasons. Students who live below the poverty line have less motivation to succeed, and their parents are less inclined to participate in their child’s education, often because the parents cannot provide support for their children. Although it’s logical that school districts from poorer communities cannot collect as much funding as the richer communities, persons stuck in these low-income communities often pay higher taxes, and still their school dis...
Poverty has stricken the country with thousands of inner city families facing dilemmas that contribute to their inability to reach a higher economic social status. Each year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issues updates for the U.S. Federal Poverty Measure. These updates report thresholds that determine eligibility for particular federal programs, and also is used to set an income measure which allows the National Census Bureau to estimate the percentage of the population who are indeed suffering from poverty (The 200 HHS Poverty Guidelines). These poverty-stricken homes have very few ways to escape the economic trap that they are in. Forty-two percent of all poor live in metropolitan areas of 300,000 or more (Harris 12). By examining the factors that affect the poverty within America's inner cities, one can easily see the economic damage that each can cause. Three major factors that affect poverty in the inner cities are the lack of educational and occupational opportunities to those who live in the communities, racial and economic segregation, and governmental ignorance and abandonment of the urban communities. Over twenty percent of all children under age eighteen are now living in poverty (12). Impoverished students tend to have much lower test scores, higher dropout rates, fewer students in demanding classes, less well-prepared teachers, and a low percentage of college-bound students (Orfield 56). "More parental involvement in active learning (including programs that teach parents how to help and teach their children) should be fundamental in improving the system" (Dreir 114).
Michael Oher was from an all-black neighborhood located in the third poorest zip code in the country. By the time he was a sophomore, he’d been to 11 different schools, he couldn’t read or write, and he had a GPA of 0.6. In his first-grade year alone, he missed 41 days of school and ended up repeating both the first and the second grade; he didn’t even go to the third grade. Oher was one of the thousands of children that have been identified as having four or more of the at-risk factors mentioned by the National Center of Education and Statistics (NCES). According to the NCES, poverty and race are high on the list of things that negatively affect students’ ability to succeed at school. Other risk factors include changing schools multiple times and being held back from one or more grades. Oher’s biography, The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, proves how socioeconomic status impacts a child’s academic success because placed in perspective, education is not as important as the hardships of reality.
The Southern Education Foundation Study contends poverty is the greatest barrier in obtaining an education (Strauss, 2013). Unfortunately, the education system is not as equal as we presume it to be, as there is a significant discrepancy in the education system between high-poverty schools versus privileged schools. Students in high-poverty schools face many more handicaps in acquiring an education. One such disadvantage is underqualified teachers (Carl, 2013). This means privileged schools are monopolizing all the highly qualified teachers, while high-poverty schools are stuck with inadequate, unmotivated teachers— making students’ success at such schools much more difficult. Additionally in these high-poverty schools, there is not much emphasis
I grew up in a single parent home not having a good relationship with my father. Although I've lived with my mother, I've always been around my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins; and I never really hung out much with my mother. I know being in a single parent home has impacted my school performance and emotions. Some children of single parent homes have challenges related to academics, violence, self-esteem, and emotions? You may ask, how do I know that African American youth (of single parent homes) are having these challenges? I know because I too experienced the same struggles. Reports show that teens of single parent homes have an increase likelihood of dropping out of high school (Ricciuti, 2004). If teens drop out of high school, they will have a difficult time finding a good paying job, and they may get involved in criminal activities. I know some teens that only live with their mothers and join gangs because of their stressful home environments. For example, one teen sells drugs to help his mother pa...
Personal responsibility is the idea that people have full control over their actions. Things like basic health and hygiene can be seen as personal responsibility because they are actions that are carried out independently. In my life, I don’t have to shoulder responsibilities all by myself because my sister helps me balance things out. Although I am still solely responsible for the outcome of my decisions, it is easier for me to act reasonable with help by my side. Personal responsibility to me is the act of taking care of yourself while owning up to any mistakes you made.
Education is an integral part of society, school helps children learn social norms as well as teach them how to be successful adults. The school systems in United States, however are failing their students. In the world as a whole, the United States is quickly falling behind other countries in important math and reading scores. The United States ranked thirtieth in math on a global scale and twentieth in literacy. This is even more true in more urban, lower socio-economic areas in the United States. These schools have lower test scores and high dropout rates. In Trenton Central High School West, there was an 83% proficiency in literacy and only 49% of the students were proficient in math. Many of these students come from minority backgrounds and are often from low income families. There are many issues surrounding these urban schools. There is a severe lack of proper funding in these districts, and much of the money they do receive is sanctioned for non-crucial things. Schools also need a certain level of individualization with their students, and in many urban classes, this simply does not happen. While there are many factors affecting the low performance of urban schools, the lack of proper funding and distribution of funds, the cultural divide between teachers and students in urban districts, along with the lack of individualization in urban classrooms are crucial reasons to explain the poor performance in these districts. Through a process of teacher lead budget committees and further teacher education, urban schools can be transformed and be better equipped to prepare their students for the global stage.
Income greatly impacts a child’s learning ability. In the United States, where a child attends school is based on where he or she lives, which is based upon the income of the family. Typically, families with lower income must send their children to poor quality schools. Schools in low income areas are more likely to have unsatisfactory teachers, or teachers with little experience because of the salary the school can offer. Even though many forms of financial aid are accessible to low income students wanting to attend college, there is no such acclaim available to low income families who would prefer to live in a higher quality school system (Rouse/Barrow, 1-2). Children who live in a home where money is scarce do not have as many necessary resources as their wealthier peers. For example, many low income families lack books, computers, Internet access, and parents with a high education that can assist their children with schoolwork. These children are behind academically, and piling on standardized test after test to measure their progress and teacher worth is not productive (Strauss, 2). The federal education policy has been ignoring the issue of poverty for years now because many school reformers argue that the effects of living in pover...
In the Southern Education Foundation’s (SEF) October 2013 report, A New Majority Low Income Students in the South and Nation, it is shared that a majority of public school children in 17 states, one-third of the 50 states across the nation, were low income students as of 2011. Thirteen of the 17 states were in the South, and the remaining four were in the West. Since 2005, half or more of the South’s children in public schools have been from low income households. During the school years 2010 and 2011, for the first time in modern history, the western United States had a majority of low income students attending P-12 public schools.
Traditionally, low-income students struggle in school. For example, compare the achievement of Lincoln Elementary, where eighty-five percent of students’ families exceed the income limit for free lunch, with Brenneman Elementary, not fifteen minutes from Lincoln, where ninety-six percent of family incomes fall below federal free lunch guidelines. According to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2015 School Report Cards, seventy-five percent of Lincoln students met or exceeded state standards while only thirty-six percent of Brenneman’s students did so (Illinois Report Card, 2015). These schools are just a fifteen minute drive from one another, yet they have completely different socioeconomic statuses and more importantly, academic achievement levels.
Being raised with no father figure has an overwhelming effect on boys who are becoming men. Boys need role models in their life to teach them how to be a man. Without this boys have a chance of growing up to be men with issues. Such as relationships problems, their emotions can be unstable, they may have behavioral issues, and they may grow up not knowing how to be a father to their own child.