Lecture 10 –

Lesson Element .1: A Poverty

• Elements that Create the Forgotten Half.
• Financial Poverty:
• This is the easiest kind of poverty to understand. It deals with money.
• Many people don't have enough money to make ends meet.
• Without enough money, many people don't have enough to eat, nor a place to stay.
• This is the easiest kind of poverty to solve.
• The national and state welfare systems have done a lot to help ease this problem.
• But even if these most basic needs are met, it does not eliminate other types of poverty.
• Poverty of Aspiration:
• Financial poverty can often lead to poverty of aspiration.
• This is the attitude that it really doesn't make any difference what one does, that they are never going to have the kind of job that will allow them to participate fully as citizens in society.
• This is the type of poverty that causes people to give up and accept themselves permanently on welfare.
• This is much tougher to deal with than financial poverty. People tend to give up on life in general.
• Poverty of Decision:
• This type of poverty can be seen most directly affecting the forgotten half.
• This occurs when people simply don't know how to make good decisions.
• This lack of decision making skills plays a major role in how many of these students get used to living their lives.
• Poverty of Support Systems:
• This makes solving seemingly simple problems quite difficult.
• Example: For the well-off, fixing a flat tire is a simple problem.
• For the poor, it may be a major crisis. No money to fix or repair the tire, no back-up car or means of transportation.
• For a poor person, a simple problem may be a major disruption in life.
• As teachers, we need to realize that not all the students have the same support system available to them, and not all kids come from homes with the same level of aspiration.

Lesson Element .2: A Substance Abuse

• Many of the Forgotten Half Try to Escape Feelings of Inferiority Through Drugs and Alcohol.
• Much of society is not concerned about this problem. Yet intervention with healthy alternatives can and does make a difference.
• Dr. Allen's example about the at risk kids program in Chesapeake highlights the effectiveness of this approach.
• Program killed due to lack of money.
• Substance Abuse Problems are Compounded by Mixed Messages.
• We put signs around schools that read ADrug Free Zones.
• Yet this sends the message that we aren't actively concerned with the problem outside of the school area. It implies a certain degree of acceptance.
• Many parents also participate in things that we are trying to stop the kids from doing.
• Leads to Co-dependence.
• Co-dependence is where a person with a relative or a friend who is having a substance abuse problem often supports their problem unconsciously or consciously, instead of helping the cure. It makes that person part of the problem.
• Teachers have to be careful not to become co-dependent with their students in terms of propping up situations that should be solved.
• Society is going to have to expend huge efforts in terms of both money and prevention to solve the basic problems.

Lesson Element .3: A Institutionalized Racism and Sexism

• Institutionalized Racism and Sexism Directly Affects the Forgotten Half, and Especially those from the Inner City.
• This doesn't mean just the Aflaming racists, but those people who simply act according to what ordinarily goes on in the implicit discrimination within the status quo.
• Doing things the way they have always been done simply props up a racist society.
• Dr. Allen's experience with the Summerville, Massachusetts police is a good example.
• He was arrested and handcuffed in front of his peers and students when he had loaned his car to another student and that student had gotten a parking ticket.
• The student hadn't paid the ticket, but the police were trying to make a point of their displeasure with Dr. Allen.
• Dr. Allen was the Dean of Education at UMASS, and the college had been actively recruiting black students.
• This disturbed the police who felt that their primarily white area was ruined by Dr. Allen bringing in black people.
• They took a petty revenge under the cloak of law to show their displeasure.
• Racism is Still With Us in Society. Affirmative Action Programs Help to Combat It.
• The affirmative action programs of present are not all good.
• Promoting someone who is incompetent is stupid.
• However, giving someone some slack in terms of gaining the competence, helping them get the confidence, or favoring a qualified minority, is the type of affirmative action that Dr. Allen believes is good.
• A good teacher is going to have to be prepared to take on some of the implicit discrimination of our society, and to help the students to deal with it.
• Most white people have either conscious or unconscious feelings of superiority, while most minorities have unconscious feelings of suspicion.
• These feeling come of various conspiracy theories.
• While some of these theories are implausible, they are none the less very real to the people who believe them.
• If you put a person in a social situation, most people tend to gravitate toward each other on the basis of common interest.
• You see this when blacks congregate with blacks, and whites with whites.
• As a teacher, you need to try and create situations that help overcome that remoteness.

Lesson Element .4: A Assorted Problems

• Curriculum Design in Regards to Frills vs Basics is a Problem Area.
• Sophistication counts in society.
• Kids from the upper-class suburbs not only get the basics, but the frills.
• They are exposed to basics and liberal arts such as art and music.
• Many of the inner-city lower-class students don't have this opportunity for creative expansion.
• In a racist society, if one kid is sophisticated and the other isn't, the sophisticated kid will get the job.
• However, these frills are actually not frills. Music, art, and literature are part of the sophistication of our society.
• There is a proven neurological learning synergy between the arts and sciences.
• Lots of sciences without the arts, you get a technician not a scientist.
• Lots of arts without science, you get someone unprepared to deal with reality.
• To serve the forgotten half, you need to provided good basics and the frills. Otherwise, good basics along is just another type of institutionalized racism.
• We also need to insure that the forgotten half is included in philosophical discussion.
• They may not get this at home.
• Also, the upper-class kids need inclusion in vocational training.
• Everybody benefits from a broad education.
• Role Models and Counter-Productive Incentives.
• Too often the ghetto kid only has as a role model the successful drug dealer.
• Even if the kid plays it straight, his only real option may well be to work in the fast food industry for minimum wage. This poses a real problem of choice.
• Counter-productive incentives also cause problems.
• We sometimes reward people for the wrong things.
• Example: As a teacher you may give a kid an unsatisfactory grade when the kid is actually very delighted with it. It may be cool in his peers view to have bad grades.
• Real Time Mediation.
• Real time mediation in the classroom can help kids of the forgotten half.
• When someone starts to fall behind, that is the time to really pile on the immediate help until the kid has mastered the material, or you know for certain that there is nothing more you can do.
• The problem is that currently, we don't have the resources to provide the real time re-mediation needed.
• Instead of re-teaching the missed skills, we tend to let the kids fall farther behind their more advanced peers.
• This only makes the problem worse, and it eventually reaches a point where you have lost the child.
• Cooperative Learning.
• Cooperative learning is effective, but tough to implement.
• This is sad, because it is one of the most effective ways to learn.
• The problem is that cooperative learning has not been embedded in the instructional expectation of our society.
• We need to change this.
• Because group work is not used regularly or effectively, it becomes something that people worry about or they feel is somehow unfair.
• Personal Support and Social Infrastructures.
• This is a good teacher tactic.
• Teachers need to get more involved in the lives of their students.
• As the teacher gets to know the students, they can discover the special needs of the student and properly address them.
• Analyzing the social infrastructure of your students is very important.
• Each student's situation is unique.
• Much of the support that a teacher could have from the community is lost because the school may not be involved with the community. The school is often in isolation.
• As a teacher, you must keep the parent informed and involved in the educational process.
• Schedules.
• Scheduling is a problem because different types of schedules can accomplish widely varying results.
• Many schools cannot seem to decide on what schedule they should use.
• This causes problems, which is yet another argument in favor of a national curriculum.
• There are two basic types of schedules: Block and Standard.
• Block scheduling has small, intense classes that covers a years material in half a year.
• Standard scheduling has big, slow moving classes that covers the material in a year.
• Virginia places strong emphasis on block scheduling.
• There is evidence to show that you learn more in the block schedule system than you do in the standard system.
• The biggest reason is that most teachers have smaller classes, and as a result, they can give more personal attention to the students.
• However, since all schools do not use block scheduling, this can cause terrible problems.
• A transfer student may find them self a full semester behind or ahead of his/her peers.
• The answer is to standardize the use of block scheduling but many local school board policies keep this from being accomplished.

Lesson Element .5: A Conclusion

• Do not Forget the Forgotten Half.
• This is a bias that will not serve society well.
• The biggest job is not providing people with the vocational skills to make money, it's providing them with the decision making skills with which to make a life.
• Poverty is not confined to simple monetary terms. It includes poverty of decision making skills, and poverty of support systems.
• Poverty Is Multifaceted.
• Poverty includes a lack of aspiration, purpose, decision making, and support systems.
• As teachers, we need to help the kids see beyond the immediate material badges of society.
• Teachers need to provide the kids the tools that will ensure them a successful life.