Courageous Conversation about Race and Poverty

Four Agreements Stay Engaged

Experience Discomfort

Speak Your Truth

Expect/ Accept Non-Closure

What do you think of when you hear the word “race”?

Race is socially constructed meaning to a variety of physical attributes including but not limited to skin, eye color, hair texture, and bone structures of people

Racism is beliefs and enactment of beliefs that one set of characteristics is superior to another set ( e.g. white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes are more beautiful than brown skin , brown eyes, and brown hair).

Racist is anyone who has a hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

Why must there be Passion, Practice and Persistence when discussing differences?

Passion is defined as the level of connectedness educators bring to anti-racism work and to district, school or classroom equity transformation.

Practice refers to the essential individual and institutional actions taken to effectively educate every student to his or her full potential.

Persistence involves time and energy. Persistence at the institutional level is the willingness of a school system to “stick with it” despite slow results.

Reflection

What can you recall about the events and conversations related to race, race relations, and/or racism that may have impacted your current perspective and or experiences?

Reflection

To what extent does being white impact your personal life?

Reflection

Consider your own affiliations, such as your workplace, religious institution, social club and recreational places that you frequent. What is the racial composition? If racial diversity exists, are tensions present due to race or racial differences? In what ways has this been addressed or not addressed? If little racial diversity exist, why is this the case?

Institutionalized Racism- Racism becomes institutionalized when organization remain unconscious of issues related to race.

Anti-racism can be defined as conscious and deliberate efforts to challenge the impact and perpetuation of institutional White racial power.

Educational Equity is raising the achievement of all students while narrowing the gaps and elimination the racial predictability and disproportionality of student groups.

Multi-racial in America

Multiracial in America - U.S. news - Gut Check -

msnbc.com

• Poverty occurs in all races.

Key Point

What are the poverty guidelines?

Personsin Family or Household

2008 2007

1 $10,400 $10,210

2 $14,000 $13,690

3 $17,600 $17,170

4 $21,200 $20,650

5 $24,800 $24,130

6 $28,400 $27,610

7 $32,000 $31,090

8 $35,600 $34,570

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2008). The 2008 HHS Poverty Guidelines. http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/index.shtml

Does the percentage of children in low-income families vary by where the children live?

48% of children in urban areas—9.4 million—live in low-income families. 31% of children in suburban areas—9.9 million—live in low-income families. 47% of children in rural areas—5.2 million—live in low-income families.

Source: National Center for Children in Poverty. www.nccp.org/publications/pub_762.html

© National Center for Children in Poverty. Basic Facts About Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 18.

Type of Area

Understanding Differences

•It is essential to separate cultural issues of poverty from issues of race or ethnicity.

•People of poverty-irrespective of race- have their own unique set of behaviors, beliefs and ways of living that is transmitted from generation to generation.

•Educators must be willing to accept differences in learning readiness and preparation as well as behavioral and communication styles that students bring to school.

•Educators must not assume that all students should come with the types of behaviors values, social and material resources, and world views that may be the norm in middle class.

Acceptance of the Difference that Students Bring

•True acceptance recognizes that the behavior of some may be quite different from what is normally expected.

Recognize Middle Class Values

•It is helpful for educators who come from the middle class to recognize middle class values.

•Most teachers are females who are ethnically and socio-economically different from the students they teach in poor communities.

•Educators may be similar in ethnicity and may have come from the culture of poverty but adopted middle class values and sometimes have difficulty relating to students from poverty.

Reflection

How does your school ensure that all students have equitable opportunities to learn and achieve at the highest level possible?

Discussion Questions

What are your beliefs regarding children and families from the culture of poverty?

How do your beliefs impact your empathy for these children and your acceptance for the differences that may be frustrating?

Visualize the world from which your most difficult students come.

Select a student that you have now or in the past.

Draw a visual representation of that student’s world. Think about his home, his family structure, resources and support systems.

Accommodating Differences in the Approach to Instruction

The culture of poverty fosters a dependence on family and community

To respond…

•The wise teacher will nurture a family relationship in the classroom that encourages interdependence and collaboration among students.

•Educators foster positive relationships with the families of all students

•Accommodation involves going to families if they are reluctant to come to the school.

•Teachers provide meaningful activities that students can do at home.

All Children Can Learn

•Teachers will succeed when they believe and know that all children can learn, no matter where they come from.

•There must be a match between how students of poverty function in the classroom with how they function in their world.

•Learning activities must build on the strengths of individual students.

Consider this….

Why is it important to affirm the strengths of students from poverty?

Affirming Differences

Affirming differences and recognizing strengths within children from poverty will bridge the gap to help boost them to higher levels of achievement in school

Do not place students at a disadvantage

Schools cannot close economic disparities, but they must ensure that differential preparation does not place some students at a disadvantage.

Discussion Questions

How is it that schools are designed to benefit the HAVES and how they continue to make it difficult for the HAVE-NOTS?

How can schools make accommodations that affirm students who come from the culture of poverty?