Getting Started

The best place for me start my project is with parent interviews. This will allow me to get to know the community better as well as -hopefully - giving me some ideas for a project. I conducted just a few interviews with my last year's class and they gave me food for thought. It's fascinating for me to hear about what parents and families consider important for a child's education because sometimes it is completely different from what a school official thinks is important.

For example, two of those three interviewed parents said they would like math taught more in school because they want their child to learn how to handle money for a job or their own bank account. Very practical! Why don't we do that?

Since almost half of my families do not speak English in the home, I am going to need translators. Should I impose on friends? Beg a school tutor? We have a home school liason, but my interviews are not official school business....

How Do You Know If You're In a Big City or Not?

Last week I was riding on the school bus returning from a field trip to the Fresno Fair. The teacher sitting next to me jokingly tried to convince some of the students that the bus was still in Fresno, even though we had traveled through the country and were now coming upon houses in our little town. One student replied, "No, we're not - there aren't any stoplights."

I was struck by this perspective and it reminded me that childrren make their own observations and come to their own conclusions without adult instruction. Their fresh outlook sometimes startles me and it makes me want to listen more as a teacher. There are ideas in their heads that we may never know about if we don't take that time to hear them.

In my classroom I try to let my students problem-solve when issues arise. For example, recently I honestly didn't know how to stack all the different-sized student chairs in my classroom so that the janitor could easily vacuum. I asked two of my third grade students to help after school and together we figured out a workable solution. They are now my "chair experts." The more I invite students into the process of thinking collaboratively, the more I realize that students are very capable (just small and inexperienced) thinking human beings.

I've heard that educators often overestimate children's academic abilities and underestimate their creative abilities. I believe this resource of brain power may go to waste in classrooms where teachers do lecture-style, direct instruction style of teaching all day.

Why bring this up? I'm excited to think about what my students may come up with when we start to discuss poverty. What are their perceptions? What are their solutions? What do they think?

How Do I Deal with the Social Stigma of Poverty?

I'm trying to settle into my new job and learn all the rules, both spoken and unspoken. It hasn't helped that I have been very ill and had to take days off right when I'm trying to make a good impression with this staff!

So I'm starting later with my project than the other students in my master's cohort. Some of them have already been collecting data and I'm trying to learn where to get my copies made! But I really need to focus now, sit down and make some decisions about my project. I have many ideas and probably need to narrow them down and make sure to connect them to the research literature.

One of the first types of data I want to gather is information from parents and guardians in the form of face-to-face interviews. I don't know if this is too ambitious, as I plan to make this a starting point with how I proceed with my class. Interviews are a fascinating process to me, but they take a lot of time.

What I'm really struggling with is talking with parents about poverty. I'm concerned about building trust with this new community while talking about a topic that has a possible social stigma attached with it. Will they see me as a condescending outsider? Will some parents want to prove how they are not poor? Maybe I shouldn't talk about poverty directly. Maybe instead I should ask about their goals and concerns for their kids. Is that avoiding the issue or giving a basis for my understanding of the community?

From Graffiti to Farmlands

For years my morning drive used to be a 5 - 7 minute trip through city streets to go work at a poor inner-city school in one of the largest school districts in California. We dealt with frequent graffiti tagging, homelessness, and once with a gang-related shooting death. These are issues that urban schools face and I never expected nor wished to work anywhere else.

Now my drive to work is a 20 - 30 minute commute through the country. The pace is slower at my new rural school and teachers and children do not seem to be wound so tight.

I want to study poverty and I am sure my new Title I school will provide ample opportunities to deal with the issue with my students. At the same time, I marvel at what I see in my new classroom. For the first time, I have students with braces and no students with silver teeth. For the first time, a girl wore a cheer leading outfit to school and no one is wearing the same t-shirt day after day.

Maybe since this district has only two elementary schools I am seeing children from different social classes represented in my classroom. There must be more economic diversity here than I have experienced before.

I thought I knew what poverty looked like, but maybe I just knew what city poverty looked like. I am having to change my perceptions. I thought moving from one Title I school to another would seem the same, but I find myself dealing with culture shock. Students out here are quieter. Adults are more calm. I hear no yelling!!

Poverty out in the country might have different issues than those found in the city. It's going to be my job to figure out what the pressing issues are here and figure out a way to address them with my new class.

Change is in the air...

I am elementary school teacher who just changed school districts four weeks into the school year. Change is good. I am looking forward to working at my new campus and conducting research in order to finish my master's degree. I want to explore the issue of poverty with my new third grade students and their families in a way that challenges the common assumptions about people who live below the poverty line.

It will also be interesting for me to experience the differences and similarities of working in a small rural district after spending nine years in a large urban one. Both places experience high rates of poverty and I can't wait to get going and start learning alongside my students!