Measuring the impact of poverty in education

This article is written by Jarrett Carter, an instructional designer at School of Communication. Jarrett is involved in high quality online course offering and in addition he trains the faculty who is new in online learning

Poverty do impact a person in many ways but in case of children who go to school, it becomes very difficult for them to face any social injustice for the reason of being poor on a daily basis. An author and researcher Eric Jensen said that there is a large number of students coming from poverty lives in a state of stress. And to reduce such an impact in the classroom a teacher should be empathetic and must understand that the kids do not get to choose their parents or living standard. Jensen further said, depression, stress and anger can be enhanced by the factors such as unhygienic conditions at home. Such stress and depression reduces the capacity of the brain to process information. To solve such issue for the sake of students there should be a culture of encouragement and respect for each other. Teachers themselves should treat all the students whether rich or poor, equally and make students to respect each other. Such culture of equality will improve the mindset of the poor students and will reduce their depression.

A major problem seen in many schools is grouping. These groups are made in such a way that students with same background are in the same group and they often talk to the students with different background. This problem can also be solved by teachers as they have got the authority to decide who will sit with whom and who will be grouped with whom to make an assignment. Such decisions should be made in such a way that the whole class becomes familiar with each other. In this way such grouping can be reduced and it will make the poor students self-confident and secure. It has been observed that the children between the age 5 to 12 years know the state of poverty. Professor Margaret Hangerman of Mississippi State University said "Kids know that there are poor kids and rich kids". This awareness is somehow related to schools as they get to know kids of every background at school. The discrimination is not noticed at home as they are surrounded by the people with same background in the area where they live. Poor people do not live in ellite areas therefore their kids are not much aware of the environment outside their area but at school such awareness is created.

The core idea is that a kid’s personality is made at school so the teachers must make that his/her personality is not affected by some kind of complex. They must consider them a part of an average society without regards to rich or poor state. Students who consider themselves as part of the place where they study, they will survive easily at that place. On the other hand, if students are discriminated on the basis of financial background, their self-morale will go down at a rapid pace and they will not be able to perform at their best.

James Walker is a creative writer at best assignment writer. He has been associated with this company for past 7 years.