Teaching Children from Poverty
based upon Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen
Presenter: Crystal Cooke, School Climate Specialist, North Georgia RESA
Date: October 17, 2017
Time: 9 – 12
Location: North Georgia RESA
4731 Old Highway 5 South
Ellijay, GA 30540
Cost: Free to participants from Cherokee, Gilmer, Murray, Pickens, Whitfield
$25 out-of-area fee for all others
Who Should Attend
Classroom Teachers
Counselors
Instructional Coaches
Administrators
PBIS CoachesFocus
Most educators have grown up in middle class families with middle class attitudes and middle class ideals. Therefore, we often find it difficult to understand and to relate to behaviors, beliefs, and social mores different from those to which we have become accustomed.
We tend to feel that those who come from a lower socio-economic status must have something wrong with them or must be less able than we are. Surely, if they were not so lazy, dependent upon others, or academically/socially ignorant they could rise above their circumstances and make something of themselves.
Teachers often conclude that students living in poverty have little or no chance of making academic progress or achievement and are therefore, not given the time nor the emphasis of those more esthetically pleasing children. These students often prove our point by being the behavior problems, the tiered students, the students referred for special education, and those referred to the office or to the Counselor due to their social ineptness.
Eric Jensen’s philosophy, as explained in his book Teaching with Poverty in Mind, encourages anyone dealing with parents or children from poverty stricken homes to take a more in-depth look at the truths surrounding those whose environment is diametrically different from our own.
Perhaps, a change in our mindset rather than a change in their circumstances can make the real difference!