Saturday, July 23, 2011

Low SES Schools

As a single parent with two children living on 1000 dollars a month it would be difficult to say the least.  They biggest cost would probably go to rent and utilities.  The apartment would be HUD approved and would constitute about 400 dollars of the budget.  Utilities would be about 200 dollars a month.  This would include electric, gas, and phone.  Cable and internet would not be an option for the cost would be too much to put into the budget.  This although would not matter, for the family could not afford a computer.  Food and gas would constitute the rest of budget and a little, about 100 dollars, would be set aside to pay for things like clothing, medical bills, automotive repairs and special occasion items.   The kids in the family would have to rely on the school for two of the three meals in the day, and they would qualify for free meals. They third meal of the day would not be from a fast for restaurant, it would be meals that are either frozen or from a can.  Nutritional value would poor most of the time.  Throughout the year the kids would rely on the school to provide transportation, to school and home.  This includes during the summer time in which that kids would go to a program that provided breakfast and lunch. The parent would also rely on the school to develop those characteristics that are lost in their parenting.  For example, if it is a single mother then the role of the father may have to be play out by a male teacher in the school or vice versa.  The school may also be relied on with things such as sex education and helping the children deal with personal hygiene issues.
The kids would be more than likely be latch key kids; because the parent would be working long hours at a minimum wage job.  The older of the two kids would watch over the youngest most of the time right after school.  Due to exhaustion the parent would not spend a lot of time working with the children on things like homework.  They would probably spend most of the time just trying to recoup from the day’s work.   Parent teacher conferences would probably not be of priority for the fact that most working poor do not see education as means of getting out of a situation.
As an educator I would make sure that every student had the same supplies need for classroom.  This would include things such as pencil, pens, markers, and notebooks.  I would also make sure that the students in my class were not prejudice towards each other.  Mean that no matter what the socioeconomic background was they were all treated equally.  I would have cooperative learning groups that were diversified to allow student of different economic backgrounds work together. As a teacher, I would also promote I would also allow all the students to have a voice in the classroom by engaging them in inquiry activities and discussions.  The use of the 5 step model would be a great idea.  Robert Moses (1989) describes his five step teaching and learning process. These five steps are: a physical event (mathematical project), a picture or model of the event, intuitive language description of this event, and symbolic representation of the event (Moses, Kamii, Swap, & Howard, 1989).  This model would allow the teacher to bring real world problems to the students with inquiry based solutions.  I believe that having high expectation and connecting with all the cultural and economic backgrounds that will allow the students to succeed in society today. 

Moses, R. P., Kamii, M., Swap, S. M., & Howard, J. (1989). The Algebra Project:
organizing in the spirit of Ella. Harvard Educational Review, 59, 423-443

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