Understanding poverty

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Presenter Kathy Estes offered facts and hope to the educators who attended the Understanding Poverty workshop.

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McKinley School Outreach Consultant Catrina Khan raised a number of questions during the Understanding Poverty presentation.

Among the approximately 50 educators who attended the Jan. 8-9 “Understanding Poverty" workshop at The Learning Center in Bakersfield, very few had probably ever thought of living in darkness as a cause for failed learning. According to extensive research by Ruby Payne in her “A Framework for Understanding Poverty," children of poverty spend more time in darkness than their more affluent peers. Payne is a nationally known expert on poverty, and her research was the blueprint for the two day workshop presented by Kathy Estes, safe schools coordinator with the San Bernardino County Office of Education.

“Why do children of poverty spend more time in the dark than others," Estes asked the educators. “There are several reasons. If parents have to choose between buying food for their kids or having electricity, they will pick food every time. It’s easier to see entertainment devices with the blinds closed. Closed blinds keep unwanted people from looking in. The bottom line is, if children are not exposed to light on a regular basis, by the time they make it into the education system at age five, they have underdeveloped cones. And that means they cannot visually discriminate. They can’t see the difference between letters and numbers which also appear to move across the written page. They are not able to sound out words because the letters appear connected and blend together. It takes two full years of being exposed to sunlight for the cones to develop."

Estes travels all over California spreading the word about poverty and its effect on educating students. Her stop in Bakersfield was coordinated through the Kern County Superintendent of Schools.

“Why do we hold the workshops," Estes asked rhetorically. “Because our population is changing. We see more students of poverty moving into our communities. It’s not possible to serve their needs if we don’t understand what those needs are. For instance, if they seemingly self destruct or act irresponsibly in the classroom, we have to look at their culture, where that kind of behavior is perfectly logical, serving as a means for survival in their environment."

Poverty cannot be ignored by educators. According to the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, 27.8 percent of Kern County’s school age children, ages 5-17, were living in poverty in 2005. That’s more than one quarter of the county’s public school age children and 10 percent higher than the average for the state.

Estes has been spreading the word that a shift in instruction has to be made in order to connect with children of poverty in the classroom. If not, teaching for success on academic achievement tests will not matter. She said there are constants. Poverty is relative, homelessness is found in both rural and urban poverty and all races suffer with poverty. Payne draws the analogy, “To survive in poverty, one must rely on non-verbal, sensory and reactive skills. To survive in school one must use verbal, abstract and proactive skills."

Despite all the obstacles to learning poverty presents, Estes demonstrated how they can be overcome with specific classroom strategies. Educators learned how to find sources of support and how the role of language and building relationships with students and their families can lead to success.


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