Teaching with Poverty in Mind-Chapter 1

In chapter one of Teaching with Poverty in Mind, Eric Jensen goes into detail about his views of poverty.  He feels that poverty is "a chronic and debilitating condition that results from multiple adverse synergistic risk factors and affects the mind, body, and soul" (Jensen 6).  He then goes on to break down poverty into categories: situational, generational, absolute, relative, urban, and rural. Some of the effects of such a debilitating condition include emotional/social challenges, acute/chronic stressors, cognitive lags, and health/safety issues, according to Jensen (7).

A lower self-efficacy seems to be a key component to the educational development of these students. They are poor performers. They do not feel adequate in the social or academic environment that school places them, and they often struggle maintaining relationships and acting in accordance with cultural boundaries and rules.

While the author does not get into answers to these problems in chapter one, he does point out two "action steps" (Jensen 11). These steps are: deepening staff understanding and changing the school culture from pity to empathy.

I feel one key factor in this chapter is the author's use of empathy and sympathy. To often these terms are confused and their meanings differ vastly. To sympathize with a person or group is to agree with their situation and/or response to a situation. However, this differs to empathy which is a passionate understanding of the factors that could lead to a persons behaviors/decisions. To be empathetic does not mean one condones the actions of another. We should not expect any less from our poverty stricken youth. They need rigorous and relevant instruction as much as any child. Understanding ones plight does not equate to the condoning of self-deprecating behavior.