Poverty and learning: What's my problem with this USA Today article?

As some of you may have seen, I work with children and I get a little disgusted when I read things that just don't make sense. My blog today addresses an issue that really tweaked my bad attitude:

How damaging and irresponsible is this article from USA Today about how poverty dramatically affects children’s brains? As a person who came from a family that has experienced its fair share of poverty (even to the point of homelessness), I have to take offense at some of the assertions made in this article by Mr. Greg Toppo. This is a classic example of the old chicken and egg debate. Which came first, the poverty or the impaired brain function? To say that poor kids are more likely to have lowered brain function is just ridiculous. How did they come to this conclusion? Did they ever think that the impaired brain function might be the reason for the poverty and not the other way around?

To say that poor children aren’t necessarily as sharp as kids from middle class families is just prejudicial. It has been proven time and again that kids can rise above their family circumstances if they are given the right opportunities to learn and grow. I don’t believe that poverty has anything to do with their capacity for learning or their ability to function in society other than its impact on their ability to fit in with middle and upper class kids on a superficial level. If a poor child were to read Toppo’s article, they would definitely get the wrong impression and feel as though they were doomed to failure. Of course, from the sound of it, maybe poor kids aren’t capable of reading articles? It’s simply absurd to write something like this and put it out there as a substantial finding.

Poverty causes a lot of things, but the inability to learn and think is not included in that list. Those things come from a lack of exposure to what they need to know to succeed. Instead of doing studies on how a lack of money translates into cognitive dysfunction, they should be putting their funding into finding ways to get the necessary resources out to schools that have no money. Poverty is the lack of money and resources. It is a direct result of kids who get lost in a system that fails to recognize that no matter what their economic status is, all children do not learn things the same way. It is a direct result of a failure to provide adequate funding to schools so that they have what they need to encourage all children to learn. A child who is not getting their needs met due to the conditions of poverty is more likely to be preoccupied by a rumbling stomach or the lack of clean, suitable clothing to wear to school, but they are by no means, unable to figure things out.

Poverty also causes things like determination, spunk and ambition. How do you explain that? Tell me why a poor kid wouldn’t be able to achieve the same things as a rich kid if they were shown the way. Guess what, poor children develop differently because their parents don’t have the time or ability to sit down and read to them or play games that reinforce their learning. Why? Because they are working or worrying about how to pay the bills or they were never shown what they needed to learn themselves, that’s why. Put anyone in a house for eighteen years where no one has time to talk, let alone read and you will get the same result: some level of deficiency in that person’s ability to learn or take an interest in learning. Hell, half of us can’t think straight until we’ve had our morning coffee. What if you couldn’t afford to have coffee? Would that mean you were disabled? This study implies that poor kids were somehow born with a deficient brain. The reality is that parts of the brain may be under stimulated due to circumstances created by poverty. I’m no scientist, but I believe that there’s a big difference between the two.

I’m sorry, but I think the USA Today article is a bunch of bull. The people who did this study must be in league with the same people who created the performance indicator system that so many companies now use to measure their effectiveness. They enjoy making people pay attention to things that really never mattered and having them measure insignificant details. This takes your attention away from some of the bigger problems like where the money for the schools is actually going and why we can’t do more to work with students who need a little more attention. As always, inducing panic in the masses equals job security for the privileged few.

Until next time.


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Going to extremes almost never works...

I was just reading an article about a family who appeared on the television show, Extreme Makeover: The Home Edition. Unfortunately, they are now facing foreclosure on the home that was built for them. The Harper family apparently used the home as collateral on a loan for $450,000. It makes me wonder, as I always wonder while I am watching the show, what makes the Extreme Makeover team believe that a family whose home is in such disrepair to begin with will be able to sustain the upkeep on a home that is valued so much higher than the one that they started with? Additionally, why can't they simply restore the homes to a decent, livable condition without making such lavish displays of them. I realize that doing it this way would be in direct conflict with the title of the show, but really, isn't any significant improvement to some of these houses kind of extreme?



I thought, at one point, that I liked the show. That was before I started listening to the stories behind the families they were selecting. There may have been one or two truly deserving families in the whole lot of them. I'm sorry, but to me, a qualification for help does not include having lots of children and not being able to afford taking care of them. This is a seemingly optional plight. In my mind, if you are going to have more than a couple of kids, you should be prepared to have at least a couple of jobs. If you can't get at least one job, then well, why would you endeavor to support anyone except yourself?

But, you may whine, these individuals are big-hearted people who want to share their love with children, doesn't that count for anything? My answer: How much do they earn in a year just spreading their wonderful love around? Does it bring in enough money to pay a mortgage? Forget mortgage, can you afford a tank of gas?

But, you may persist, they can't find work that will pay the bills. All the jobs out there are minimum wage. My answer: Bullshit. There are jobs out there. You might not like what's available, but they are out there. Use the skills you have or go out and get new skills. Even if you have to start at the bottom, work your rear end off until you get to where you need to be. In the meantime, don't bring any kids into the world or otherwise encumber yourself unless you can afford to do so. Don't people kind of have an idea of what their income potential is long before they start having children? If not, then maybe they're having their children way too early. Just a thought.

I know, I know, I sound like one of those terrible Republicans. Trust me, I'm really not. I'm just a person who has worked in Social Services and who has witnessed more than my fair share of people who are down on their luck. These families as well as just about everyone else I've ever met, fall into one of two categories. They are either truly unlucky, but willing to try anything just to keep their heads above water or they are unlucky, but simply not willing to do anything to improve their situations no matter how bad it gets and they wait for someone else to fix their problems. The latter group will never figure it out. You can fix and fix and fix things for them, but they will always have other problems that keep things from ever being right. The more you bail them out, the more they need to be bailed out.

Lest you think I'm a heartless witch, I assure you that I have absolutely no problem with helping people find resources and allowing them to work it out on their own. I really think that works best. I'm a firm believer in the "teach a man to fish" philosophy. I'm not sure that throwing a huge fish at people does anything but stuff them full and leave them to lay around and digest it giving little thought to where their next fish might be coming from. Shows like Extreme Makeover not only give them the fish, they practically chew it for them. I'd like to see a show that does an extreme makeover on someone's poor attitude. When they show me that they can change a slacker into a productive member of society, then I'll be impressed.

Until next time...

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