Summer 2005, Volume 10 Number 2

Table of Contents

“Kids” newsletters are replete with inspirational accounts of teachers who educate their students about poverty and hunger and take action with them to alleviate the problem. These stories help educators maintain their resolve to address such a difficult issue. However, we also need to acknowledge that teachers are not always successful when including this social problem within the curriculum, and students may not respond favorably to dealing with the issue of poverty and hunger. I have struggled with this issue for the past 10 years as I work with students who are preparing to become elementary teachers. Perhaps my experiences will be of use to educators who find challenges when teaching about poverty and hunger.

In my social studies methods course and the concurrent clinical teaching experience, I encourage preservice teachers to include real world, social issues such as poverty, racism, and sexism in the social studies curriculum and to recognize that elementary students come from diverse cultures and social classes, including poor and working class backgrounds. These goals correspond to the overall aim of social studies education to encourage children and youth to become good citizens, understand their rights and responsibilities, and take action to strengthen the “common good.” (National Council for the Social Studies, 1994). My intentions also account for the realities of schools. As recently as 2001, 16% of American children were living below the official poverty level and 38% of children were considered poor because their families earn up to 200% of the official poverty level (Anyon, 2005).

Poverty among students cannot be ignored. It affects children’s cognitive development, health, and behavior, often due to lack of family resources and parental emotional stress (see Anyon, 2005 for a review of this research). Most of my students have not experienced poverty personally, which may make the issue more difficult to teach because of a lack of understanding or, if they have known poverty, they find it a very painful topic to address. The majority of my students (86% from the past two years) are similar to most teachers and preservice teachers in identifying themselves as being from the middle or upper middle class. A small minority (8%) claim to come from poverty or the working class, and a few recall the powerful effects of poverty or surviving on a limited income. These students remember their single-parent mothers working three jobs while they cared for three younger siblings at a young age, earning money to help pay their family’s bills, not having enough food to eat or items they wanted, never taking vacations, and living in a house trailer or a small home.

Although I recognize the issue of poverty and hunger is difficult for preservice teachers to address as learners and as teachers, I utilize various resources and strategies to make the issue relevant and engaging. I use a lesson from the curriculum guide Finding Solutions to Hunger: Kids Can Make a Difference, introduce children’s and young adult literature which deal with the social issues of homelessness and poverty (see http://www.socialstudies.esmartweb.com for an annotated bibliography), show current statistics on poverty among school-age children, and ask my students to reflect on their own culture, social class, and discrimination experiences.

At times, the schools and elementary classroom teachers who work with my students discourage attention to social issues or children’s social class backgrounds, even though 30% to 60% of their student body qualify for free or reduced meals. For example, one teacher prepared a memo explaining that the preservice teachers from my class did not need to know the percentage of students who qualified for free and reduced lunch in her classroom because it was irrelevant for the social studies unit my students were preparing to teach her students. This unit focused on the economics topic of purchasing goods and services in the local community, which is obviously affected by the families’ economic resources! Upon investigation, I discovered that the school policy was to keep hidden the number of students who qualified for free or reduced lunch, even from the school’s teachers. Eventually I learned that approximately 30% of the students at this school could be considered low-income because they qualified for free or reduced lunch, important information for teachers concerned about providing appropriate educational experiences for their students. For most area schools, it is rare to find classroom teachers who supervise my students’ clinical teaching experiences who encourage them to keep the children’s social class backgrounds in mind when they teach their social studies units. 

Even though most of the preservice teachers in my class initially seem open to a focus on social issues in the curriculum and sensitivity to children who come from poverty, they often resist or ignore them when they develop and teach social studies units in their elementary clinical classrooms. Throughout the curriculum development process, I consistently encourage my students to address social class issues within their lesson plans, but I allow them to make the final decision. Often my students tend to believe that most adult family members who want jobs have them and avoid addressing job loss and facing unemployment when they teach about families. When they focus on economics topics in their social studies units, most of my preservice teachers assume the children in their clinical classrooms are middle class and that they and their families have the disposable income to purchase what they need and much of what they want. They frequently assume food and clothing are purchased from retail and discount stores rather than obtained through food banks, second hand stores, and rummage sales. When my students ask families to reinforce their children’s learning at home, they tend to believe that families have such resources as writing and drawing materials, Internet access, and funds for recreation and educational opportunities, such as visits to museums or historical sites. When teaching children about consumers, producers and banking, two of my students sent a letter to families encouraging the families to take their children to the local bank and set up a savings account for the child. While this is a worthwhile project, it ignores families who have no extra money for a child’s savings account.

In order to move beyond my frustration with students’ and classroom teachers’ reluctance to include poverty within the curriculum, I find it helpful to understand potential underlying reasons. Insights from others educators who have studied students’ resistance to social justice issues are enlightening (see Goodman, 1997). First of all, some students may believe we live up to our democratic ideals and all people have equal opportunities. If children and their families are poor, it is because they have not taken advantage of opportunities. Secondly, preservice teachers may tend to assume we live in a meritocracy with people succeeding due to their talents and efforts rather than through racial, class, or gender privileges. Those who do not achieve economic self-sufficiency are less talented or do not work hard instead of the impediments of sexism, racism, and classism limiting their success. Third, preservice teachers’ resistance may stem from their feelings of uncertainty or fear regarding how to address such a difficult topic as poverty. They may not know how to handle their own feelings if poverty is a painful part of their lives or their lack of knowledge and understanding about this issue. They may be uncertain of their students’ responses to the topic, especially if children share their experiences with poverty or economic struggles. Finally, students may experience cognitive dissonance when their beliefs about living in a democratic and meritocratic society are disrupted as they learn about people who are talented and work hard, but remain poor. Learning that poverty is cyclical and systemic challenges their view of the world as equal and fair.

For educators who also experience resistance or reluctance to addressing the issue of poverty and hunger, I offer the following suggestions.

            1.  Develop a safe classroom environment for students to express their views about difficult topics such as poverty and hunger. As a class, agree on guidelines for discussions and interactions so that students listen to and respect each other’s contributions.

            2. Remember that students’ openness to learning about the issue of poverty and hunger is different from a commitment to teaching about it. Frequently it is a developmental process to move from awareness to understanding to action in developing a commitment to teach about this issue and to address students’ social class backgrounds in their teaching. Continuously raise the issue to illustrate the significance of poverty within families, communities, society, and the world as a whole and its impact on children’s learning and experiences.

            3.  Acknowledge that poverty and hunger are difficult issues to deal with as learners and teachers because of the pervasiveness and complexity of the problem. Encourage students to take small steps in solving the problem, suggest resources and possible actions, and affirm their efforts to address the issue.

Sometimes young children’s responses to preservice teachers’ introduction to the issue of poverty and homelessness provide important affirmation of the topic’s importance. For example, last semester one of my students read the children’s book This is My House (Dorros, 1992) to her kindergarten class (in a school with a 60% poverty rate) as they focused on the topic of “Where We Live.” The book deals with different types of homes around the world, including living in one’s car because of not having a home. The class discussed different reasons why some people cannot afford to live in houses and must live on the streets or in cars. Some of the kindergarteners laughed at this living arrangement, but others asserted its truthfulness, an “eye opening” experience for my student. Perhaps she understood that when we ignore such an important topic as poverty, we neglect children’s experiences, knowledge, and questions.

Resources

Anyon, J. (2005). What “counts” as educational policy? Notes toward a new paradigm. Harvard Educational Review, 75, 65-88.

Dorris, A. (1992). This is my house. New York: Scholastic.

Goodman, D. (1997). Understanding and addressing resistance to social justice issues.                 Democracy & Education, 12, 20-23.

National Council for the Social Studies. (1994). Expectations of excellence: Curriculum standards for social studies. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies.

  Ava L. McCall is Professor and Chair of theCurriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and a member of the KIDS Advisory Board. She can be contacted at mccall@uwosh.edu.

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