Teaching with Poverty in Mind

What Being Poor Does to Kids Brains and What Schools Can Do About It
Author Eric Jensen

Poor Children versus Middle-Class Children

Effects of Poverty
in Children
Chronic Tardiness
Excessive Absences

Less access to cognitive

enrichment tools at home

Majority of singleguardian homes and

less emotionally
responsive caregivers

Numerous safety
hazards in home
environment and
neighborhoods

Lags in language
skills, working
memory, and
cognitive control

Difficulty forming healthy

attachments and positive
self-esteem

Adverse adaptive
responses in brain
development, causing lags
in self-capacities and sense of
mastery of environment

Lack of Motivation
Inappropriate Behavior
Acute/Chronic
Stressors
Emotional/Social
Challenges
Cognitive Lags
Health/Safety Issues
Learned Helplessness

If life experience can change

poor kids for the
worse, cant life
experiences also
change them for
the better?

Opportunities to read
and write outside of the
classroom setting

Guardianship with predictability/reliability

Two-parent households
with more access to financial resources and
extra-curricular activities

Attentive, conversational
communication in the
home that promotes
problem solving skills

Strong friendships and

trusting relationships
with teachers

Healthy brain development leading to selfefficacy and optimistic

attitudes

How to help All Students fulfill their potential!

Teacher Power
Be the caring,
dependable, adults
to whom children
look for support..

Change Pity
to Empathy

Find the
factors that
cause the
misbehavior..

Taking Action

Stress Adversely Affects Cognition

Neuroplasticity
Brains are designed to reflect the
environments theyre in, not rise
above them.
Neuroplasticity: allows regionspecific changes to occur in the
brain as a result of experience.
Deficits in crucial needs inhibit
the production of new brain cells
and rework the healthy circuitry
in childrens brains.

Ingrained Drives in
students

Acting Out such as blurting and acting before asking

permission could be due to Chronic Stress Disorder (side
effects such as short-term memory, greater impulsivity)
Bad Manners that show a lack of respect for authority can be
Emotional/Social Deficits due to narrow capacity.

ACTION STEPS

1. Reliable relationships
2.

Strengthening of peer
Socialization

3. Quest for important social

status.

See how to use these to

your advantage

Avoid labeling , blaming, demeaning

Demonstrate the responses that you are not seeing in
the child by modeling adult thinking
Teach behaviors: cooperation, patience, empathy,
gratitude, and forgiveness. These are crucial to
running a complex social environment like a
classroom.
Embody respect
Share decision making in class
Avoid directives and discipline through positive
relationships
Embed social skills by implementing meet and greets,
turn taking, and thanking classmates
Implement emotional skill building programs to
improve coping skills/conflict resolution skills

CLASSROOM DEMEANOR

SUCCESS CORNER

BE inclusive and use familial language such Research shows that common characteristics of
successful schools with high poverty rates inas our school, our class.

clude:

ACKNOWLEDGE students who make it to

class, appear clean, and are dressed nicely

Quality Data on student performance: specific,

continuous, accurate, relevant, fast (SCARF)

SURVEY the students setbacks early and

collaborate with outside resources

Increase of teachers control and authority

INTRODUCE responsibility in the classroom

CELEBRATE effort and achievement; give
praise for reaching milestones and grades
EMPOWER students: Increase their
perception of control over their environment
by showing them how to better manage their
stress levels.
DEVELOP opportunities for restitution;
students who throw objects in the class be
assigned a cleaning beautification project
for the room

Pair at-risk children with trained mentors from

the community
Build relationships among staff through team
teaching, celebrations of success, and teambuilding staff development programs or activities

Because our students have

Expanding after-school enrichment opportunities less, we must provide more.

Esparza Elementary School
in the arts, music, and technology
Successful Schools:
The Preuss School, La Jolla, CA
Sampit Elementary School, rural South Carolina
Esparza Elementary School San Antonio, TX