In 100 words or more, comment on the following:
Many students who come from poverty feel a sense of no control over anything. School is done TO them; life is inflicted upon them. How does that lack of control affect their readiness for school? How could that same lack of control continue to affect them later in life? What are examples of powerlessness that have you seen in high-poverty children and their parents?
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8 comments:
I have noticed that many of my poverty students who express powerlessness will try to control what they can. “You can’t make me do my homework”, for example. Many times this attitude will be supported by parents, who feel they were picked on in school and now their kid is being picked on in school. Both the students and the parents refuse to follow any sort of rules and insist they can and will do whatever they want, even if it just leads to more trouble for everyone involved. Their explanation for their choices is that it doesn’t matter what they do, so they might as well do what they feel like. This carries on into the future for the students because they are less likely to finish school or get further education after graduation, which keeps them in poverty. These students are raised to believe that it is impossible to succeed because someone will always try to hold them back, so why even try?
Students that feel powerless come to school with a variety of issues. Students are unsure of whether or not they have a home, a meal, or even a parent to go home too have great stress. Their families are struggling to survive, preparing them academically and socially for the rigors of school are the last thing on their minds and many times they lack the skills to even do so if they could. Many of these kids just give up, they have found that adversity can not be overcome, that it will continue to knock you down and stomp all over you. These are the kiddos that become dropouts and follow they same pattern as their parents before them. One characteristic I do see over and over again in some of our families at my school that I come in contact with is what I refer to as "learned helplessness." Kids and adults alike learn that in life it is easier to be helpless and have others do it for them, than for them to earn it/learn it/ do it for themselves. Why do whats hard when someone else will do it for me? I see this as a real problem with our little ones and adults alike!!
A: response to Sheri
I see "learned helplessness" too. Everything is always someone else's fault. Just yesterday, we were working on some discussion questions in class and one my students put a "?" for all his responses because he said he didn't know the answers. That was just ridiculous because we were discussing the questions in class and all the students had to do was write down the answer that was best for them. He didn't want to do the assignment because I wasn't telling him exactly what to write. He had a whole list of excuses as to why it wasn't his fault he wasn't doing the assignment.
A;response to dstark
Oh, the cycle continues!! You make the statement.."students and parents refuse to follow any sort of rules and insist they can and will do whatever they want, even if it just leads to more trouble for everyone involved." How do we get through? This situation can be so brutally frustrating for those that are doing everything we can to help these kiddos and parents!
Initial Response to Question 6B
Many children who are trapped in poverty see this as a permanent situation. Their parents, grandparents, and everyone else they know accept the circumstances. Because they receive little academic, social or emotional encouragement, these children soon develop a very low sense of self-worth. When they do try to improve their circumstances, perhaps by trying to make friends at a new school, their efforts are often met with sneers from their peers. If they are successful, they are oftentimes relocated to yet another school. These children must learn to function under two completely diverse sets of rules: one set for their home lives and one set for school. Children who are unable to understand the rules of society often fall further behind in their schoolwork, and soon feel that there is really no point in trying.
I have seen many examples of powerlessness among my students, especially those who attend Longfellow, West, and Whittier. High-mobility is a big issue! Students who are relocated many times throughout the year will become more and more withdrawn. I have taught children who have moved from building to building and town to town, only to return to the original school by the end of the year. The constant need for attention is also very prevalent among the poor. Because these children most-likely receive little or no attention at home, they will do anything to be noticed at school. Negative attention is still often better than no attention. I have also unfortunately witnessed a great deal of negative self-talk. "Why should I care?" "My parents don't care what I do anyway?" "Go ahead and call my house. No one's there anyway!" The article states that "parenting is the means through which children experience the world." What a tragedy that many of our children have no positive experiences outside of school.
Responding to dstark (Question 6B)
I have seen this scenario unfold many, many times. If only parents were supportive of our efforts, the cycle could be broken. I think sometimes the parents (and students) see themselves as "it's us against the world." Maybe deep down they really feel that they are helping their children by validating their excuses; however, they inadvertently are undermining all of our efforts. Unless we can teach that our lessons have value in the lives of all students, we may never succeed. And there will always be those parents (and students) who will never give in to logic.
By lacking control over their own lives, kids will also lack the ability and initiative to take control of their own learning, and this greatly affects their decision making skills as well. Poverty is a cycle that perpetuates across generations. When people don’t have decision making skills and the ability to predict the outcomes of an action, they suffer greater consequences. This is something I have seen in high poverty children and their parents. Somewhere along the line, the control of their own fates has been lost, and continues to be passed down. In many of these cases there is one institution or another, whether it be the prison system, the welfare system, or life circumstances that force decisions out of necessity, making decisions for people, which further perpetuates the cycle of poverty and helplessness.
in response to dstark and sherri;
you are both so right. There is combination of "learned helplesness" and the need to exercise power in smaller areas of life, such as "you can't make me do my homework" etc. How do we work around this and help our kids get the control back in the areas of life where it matters!?
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