Effect of Poverty on our Students.

Poverty has a devastating effect on students. I have had more than one student drop out in my career because of poverty. As much as we would like to believe any child with the will to finish high school can do so, the truth is far different. There are numerous situations I have observed as a teacher where I too would have dropped out of school to take care of a family member, and I might add, it would be the honorable thing to do. Many students work 40 hours a week and attempt, in a state of exhaustion, to go to school. They are often times supporting little brothers and sisters and a single mom to help pay the rent and avoid being homeless. 

Try being homeless and doing homework. Yes, there are homeless students living in shelters. Every teacher should spend a few nights in a shelter, grade some papers while they are there, do some college homework, then try to shower get dressed and catch a bus to school. Your former perspective of the student that is struggling might change when you find out he or she is homeless. Try living for a month without any money to eat out, never seeing a movie, no change in your pocket and getting your clothes from Salvation Army or Good Will. The on-going struggle wears the most determined person down. Poor students are simply trying to survive the day.

What students born into poverty need more than anything else to survive is compassion? They do not need a pep talk that says “You can do it! Yes you can!” What they need to know is that their teacher truly understands what it means to be poor – that maybe their teacher spent a few nights in a homeless shelter and tried to teach school the next day. Any child can be homeless. It is not a choice. If we, as teachers want students to develop empathy toward others, then we have to go beyond a textbook. How much we are willing to go will have a corresponding effect on the empathy we learn and the subsequent empathy we teach our students.