Poverty and Effective Teaching: Culture and Climate

This is the second of several articles on poverty and effective teaching. 

Teachers and schools provide an oasis of stability for children who live in poverty. Schools provide two, and in some places, all hot meals that these children get. Teachers may be the only adults these children have contact with that encourage them to read, learn and think. Yet often it is these impoverished children that wind up in an administrator’s office for some infraction or another (Jensen, 2009, p. 19).  Why? What can schools and teachers do to make learning something that these children strive for and expect from themselves? How can educators avoid losing these children to the streets where they are growing up?

As a researcher, I delved into the literature and found that there are three areas where we need to focus: early intervention, culture & climate, and teacher development. 

Culture and Climate

First, a learning community needs to examine the best way to change the culture from passive to active. Literature on school transformation and school culture far exceeds the limits of a blog post. To help focus on transformative work this blogger sought one of the leading minds on change in education, Dr. Michael Fullan.  Fullan (2001) states that while “moral purpose is job one, relationships are job two because you can’t get anywhere without them” (p. 51).  Developing collaborative and trusting relationships is essential for students, parents and teachers, when a school is trying to create a strong learning community. There are many things that can hinder positive changes to schools. Ten years ago, Hinde (2004) examined school culture and determined factors for and against change in school culture.

Factors that drive success include: sharing of responsibility, willingness to experiment, believing that success will happen, being able to trust the people you work with, having support that is both intrinsic and extrinsic, involvement in decision making and transparency of process (Hinde, 2004, p. 7).  Boykin and Noguera (2011) provide an example of believing success will happen showcasing the work of University Park Campus School in Worcester Massachusetts, “the school is steadfast in its mission to prepare every student for college” (p.161). Support that is both intrinsic and extrinsic, with extra academic support being provided internally and working in partnership with a local college makes a difference for UPCS students (Boykin &Noguera, 2011, p. 162-163).  However change is not always successful.

Factors that work against changing culture, in areas where poverty is a problem include: leaders failing to develop the relationships necessary to support change, or trying to pursue change in isolation (Hinde, 2004, p. 8-9). Machtinger (2007) highlighted other factors in his summary of the High Poverty Schooling in America conference at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2006. Factors that undermine success include: adverse social policy, lack of economic opportunity, poor teacher quality, insufficient teaching resources and a lack of good leadership in schools where poverty is contributing to the achievement gap for students (Machtinger, 2007, p. 3-4).  

From the literature then, good leadership includes: making community connections, developing economic opportunity, driving change in social policy, all of these are factors that help to develop culture and meaning in a learning community.  Students who live in poverty often feel that no one cares about them. Disenfranchisement from their community is an additional stress inducer for children. People (especially young people) need to feel connected. From the summit, teacher quality is addressed as an issue for children who live in poverty.  Effective teaching is the focus of the next installment in this blog. 

References

Boykin, A. W., & Noguera, P. (2011). Creating the opportunity to learn: Moving from research to practice to close the achievement gap. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hinde, E. (2004). School culture and change: An examination of the effects of school culture on the process of change. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://usca.edu/essays/vol122004/hinde.pdf

Jensen, E. (2009). Teaching with poverty in mind. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Machtinger, H. (2007). What do we know about high poverty schools? Summary of the high poverty schools conference at UNC-chapel hill. High School Journal, 90(3), 1-8.