Teaching With Poverty In Mind Summary

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The first couple of chapters in Jensen’s book, Teaching with Poverty in Mind, highlighted the number of ways that living in poverty can impact behavior, cognitive function, and academic performance. Factors affecting child development begins during the first nine months of pregnancy and continues into the adolescent years. For example, one’s environment, social relationship experiences/status, and stress are important factors. According to Jensen, in order for a child to grow up healthy they need a, strong caregiver, safe environment, enrichment opportunities, and attunement which are heavily lacking in low SES children (Pg, ). This can lead to emotional and social dysfunction shown through acting out, impulsivity, inappropriate emotional response, and decreased empathy. In school, students may become easily frustrated, have difficulty working with others, and show signs of learned helplessness. Also stress, both acute and chronic, also plays an important part in a child’s cognitive …show more content…
In my school, we have a Discovery Club which provides students with after school homework help and an hour of enrichment activities in different areas. At the older grades, students are able to choose their area of interest whether it be technology, cooking, robotics, planting, etc. while the younger grades are given opportunities in a variety of areas throughout the weeks. There is a greenhouse that students maintain and during the spring students have a plant sale. There are a variety of summer school programs, as well as, summer Discovery for those interested. I currently encourage students, and their families, to apply for the Discovery program and support students during their plant sale. Also, I have previously worked one of the summer school programs. To help facilitate this factor an even greater extent, I could volunteer to work the Discovery program or offer another area of interest such as