Imagine having to get up every morning to go to school unable to do well socially, being psychologically affected, and not having the materials needed for class. This excruciation is detrimental and is exactly what happens to the students living in poverty. Many students are unable to learn due to the poverty they are living in. The children have no control over this and need help to succeed in school. The students living in poverty are suffering from real diminishment on a daily basis that prevents them from being able to reach their fullest potential. Each child has certain needs that must be met in order to truly learn and thrive in any situation, especially in the school system; these needs are known as the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The child living in poverty is affected psychologically, thus making it more difficult to go about his or her business due to the fact that “people living in poverty experience depression and related psychological symptoms at higher rates” than people who do not live in poverty (Smith 45). From a sociological standpoint, living in poverty and trying to gain an education has its own difficulties including the way the child interacts and is interacted with. Knowing how poverty affects a child, there should be programs provided to help the child study, gain social skills, time where he or she are free to relax, and to overall have his or her basic needs met. Teachers should also be educated on how to handle, help, and teach in ways that are supportive towards not only children living in good means, but children living in poverty. Although some believe that poverty is more of a governmental or economical issue, it is just as much an educational issue than any. Poverty cannot always be fixed but the way a child copes in school can be helped. 

By definition, poverty is “the extent to which an individual does without resources” (Payne 7). It is imperative that an understanding of what exactly poverty is and what the various levels of poverty are in order to see the many different ways students are affected by poverty. Once this is seen, one will be able to understand just how deep poverty spills into a child’s education. “Typically, poverty is thought of in terms of financial resources only;” (Payne 8) the thing is, though, there are many other resources that play into why someone is considered to be living in poverty. Often times, financial poverty leads to the other diminished resources. These resources include: emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, support systems, relationships, role models, and the knowledge of hidden rules. All of these resources can be a factor in what the child lives with at home. These troubles are what the child brings to the classroom every day; the burden of carrying this weight is heavy. Each resource works together to create a healthy environment. Emotional resources “provide the stamina to withstand difficult and uncomfortable emotional situations and feelings” (Payne 8). Without this resource the child will typically lack persistence. Mental resources are “simply being able to process information and use it in daily living” (Payne 8). Spiritual resources include beliefs. For example, if one believes in God then he or she has a hope greater than the current circumstance. Physical resources include the physical body and its health. Support systems, relationships, and role models are important because they create a sense of community and aids in one not feeling alone. The knowledge of hidden rules “is crucial” because the knowledge provides the child with the ability to understand social ques and the generalized rule in whatever situation he or she may be in (Payne 8). 

Many people believe the negative stigma that often comes with living in poverty. Before delving into being a student living in poverty, there are a few myths that must first be explained and shown to be just as they are stated to be: myths. The “culture” of poverty is extremely misleading. Even though it has been counteracted, “the premise of the culture of poverty paradigm remains the same: that people in poverty share a consistent and observable ‘culture.’ People tend to believe that all people who live in poverty share the same characteristics as every other person living in poverty. The thing is, every individual’s circumstance is different than the next person’s circumstance. While poor and wealthy people are known to have differences in things such as values and behaviors, the differences amongst people of the same level of living are also vast. “In actuality, the culture of poverty concept is constructed from a collection of smaller stereotypes which, however false, seem to have crept into mainstream thinking as unquestioned fact” (Gorski).  Due to these standards, it is important to look at how common myths are not true in order to have a fresh, less judgmental view when it comes to looking at how poverty affects children and how to help them. An extremely common myth that many unquestionably tend to automatically agree to is that the people who live in poverty are unmotivated and have poor or weak work ethics. While they are not as wealthy as some may assume is required in ordered to be labeled as hardworking, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty in 2004, “eighty-three percent of children from low-income families have at least one employed parent” (Gorski). Not only that, but “close to sixty percent have at least one parent who works full-time and year-round” (Gorski). Because many of these people who live in poverty are also living with lower wages from their jobs, many hold down up to four jobs at a time. The Economic Policy Institute actually claims that the wealthier counterparts spend less hours per week working. As one can blatantly see, the many myths of people who live in poverty are simply myths. It is imperative that these people are seen with an eye of grace and understanding. “For educators… to be the best teachers they can be for all students, they need to challenge [these myths] and reach a deeper” level of understanding when it comes to poverty (Gorski).

The areas of poverty coincide with the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This is a “motivational theory in psychology comprising of a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid” (McLeod).  The five needs include physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem, and self-actualization. Each one of these needs is extremely important in order for a child to thrive. Each need has varying components. Physiological needs include food, water, warmth, and rest; safety needs include security and safety; belongingness and love needs includes intimate relationships and friends; esteem needs include prestige and feeling of accomplishment; self-actualization includes “achieving one’s full potential and including creative ideas” (McLeod).  Each one of these needs build upon one another. In order to reach self-actualization, the rest need to be met. If a child is not having these needs met it makes it more difficult to go about daily life, much less succeed in school. When a person is growing, his or her needs are being met because “growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person” (McLeod). If a child is hungry or emotionally distracted because of what is going on at home it will be more difficult for him or her to focus on learning; “if children have all of their physical needs met, they will be more likely to succeed in school” (Lynch). This same thing goes for safety; if a child does not feel safe at home he or she will not be able to focus. All of these needs are necessary to be filled in a child’s life in order for them to fully succeed in school.

When a child lives in poverty he or she is affected in psychological ways that is in unimaginable ways. According to the American Psychological Association, “chronic stress associated with living in poverty has been shown to adversely affect children’s concentration and memory which may impact their ability to learn” (Effects of Poverty).  When anyone, let alone a child, is stressed it is going to be difficult to concentrate on things at school when circumstances at home are causing the stress to occur. When a child lives in poverty he or she is at “greater risk of behavioral and emotional problems” (Effects of Poverty). 

If this child is in school and acting out, it may not be completely his or her fault but actually due to life at home. These behavioral problems may include “impulsiveness, difficulty getting along with peers, aggression, attention-deficit disorder, attention-hyperactivity disorder, and conduct disorder”  (Effects of Poverty). Each of these behaviors can make it difficult for a child to academically participate and succeed. Another psychological affect that is more on the physical side of behavioral problems includes violence. Someone who is living in poverty is more likely to be living in an unsafe neighborhood; these neighborhoods are typically more unsafe than neighborhoods that are not impoverished. These “unsafe neighborhoods may expose low-income children to violence which can cause a number of [psychological] difficulties. Violence exposure can also predict future violent behavior in youth which places them at a greater risk of injury and mortality and entry into the juvenile justice system” (Effects of Poverty).  These outcomes are because of the psychological effects on the child because he or she is in poverty at home, not because the child in inherently bad. Not only are there the physical aspects of being psychologically affected but there is the more emotional side, the side that is often left untreated, unheard, and unseen. This is often what hurts a child most. These emotional problems can include “feelings of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem” (Effects of Poverty). Children have enough trouble going to school and feeling good about themselves. Add poverty in the mix and all of the baggage that comes along with it and it is just about impossible to go to school every day feeling good about oneself. Not only that, but when a family is experiencing poverty there is often pressure that builds up, especially on a married couple. This can cause difficulties and disputes between the mother and father that is often witnessed by the child. This causes the child to stress feel emotionally strained. Not having the support from the parents that is necessary for a child to strive can be psychologically detrimental to him or her. More often than not, the child places blame on him or herself and makes him or herself believe that he or she is at fault for the current poverty standing of the household. In return, this causes so much stress psychologically that the child can even begin to feel worthless. Furthermore, when a child goes through the school day without the material he or she needs to be prepared, it eventually begins to wear on him or her. Some of the child’s peers will even pick on him or her for not having the “best” clothes or the “best” school supplies or, when it comes down to it, the “best” grades. The constant spilling out of degrading words from other students most definitely leads to psychological problems, all of which stem from the fact the child is living in poverty. Poverty is so much more than just not having money. Poverty affects children in their minds, thus hindering their learning. 

Sociologically speaking, poverty also makes school for difficult for a child. The way a child interacts with peers on a social level is affected in a negative way. Both household income and symptoms of depression, which children are at greater risk for if they live in poverty, have effects on a child’s “understanding of emotions and lasting effects on children’s social competence in early childhood” (Winer). A huge deficit that tends to occur is how a child will miss out on certain social cues. These social cues can be known as the “knowledge of hidden rules.” These “hidden rules” are a crucial part of living; they are about the “salient, unspoken understandings that cue the members of a group that this individual does or does not fit” (Payne 9). This indicates that there are certain “patterns of thought, social interactions, cognitive strategies, etc.” (Payne 3) that are picked up on when it comes to which “class” (i.e. upper, middle, or lower) an individual lives in. In a classroom, other students, consciously or subconsciously, pick up on these social ques that a child living in poverty may give off. Not only that, but there are social ques that people seemingly pick up naturally in any social setting. Students who live in poverty have a greater difficulty picking up on these social ques due to living in a different situation where these ques may not have been automatically taught through simple social interaction. Lastly, since emotions are typically affected negatively by poverty, children have more of a difficulty in social settings due to the psychological effects. The behavioral problems and having more trouble controlling things such as anxiety makes it more difficult to interact with fellow students. All of these things, of course, makes it more difficult to simply be in school.

Physically, poverty can be detrimental to a child trying to go to school to learn. The biggest impact poverty has is on nutrition. Many, many kids go to school hungry. This hunger makes it difficult to focus and learn in school and these kids should not be expected to just go on and try their hardest every day when all they can think about is when they are going to get their next meal. Not only that, but these kids often do not have access to proper care for when they are sick. “When children do not eat regular, well-balanced meals, their bodies are more susceptible to a variety of illnesses, like untreated ear infections and asthma” (Lee). These illnesses lead to an increase number of absences that a child must take from school, which causes them to fall behind the class. Add how improper nutrition leads to poor health to the emotional problems these children often have and health care becomes very important, yet usually unavailable. 

School work becomes difficult to complete for students whose families cannot afford school supplies or have responsibilities to withhold such as taking care of siblings. Statistically speaking, “parents will drop an average of $674 on school supplies a year;”  (Williams). the thing is, these parents do not have the money to afford this expense. Because of this, teachers spend “an average of $578 out of their own pockets to help their students” (Williams).  Financially, families who live in poverty barely have the means to support themselves, let alone a child who is going to school. Even in a public school, there are multiple costs that must be covered for the child to succeed. In school, children are required to bring in things such as notebooks, binders, pencils, crayons, pens, notecards, tissues, and the list goes on. The larger costs include of gas to put in a car to get the child to school, food, and either paying out of pocket or paying for the insurance that pays for the necessary vaccines in order to go to school. Often times, a child goes to school without the supplies he or she needs to participate in the classroom; there are extreme times when a child does not even have a pencil and paper to write with. At home, it becomes difficult for students to complete homework when they do not have supplies or they are busy cooking for siblings, babysitting them, or cleaning while their parents work because “their parents often need multiple jobs to survive month-to-month” (Williams). Sometimes, children even end up picking up a job in order to help provide for the family. These difficulties make it hard for students because they are unable to complete schoolwork due to lack of materials, unable to focus because of all of the stress at home, or they simply do not have the time due to the responsibilities of running the household.

It is dire that schools understand that they need to help students who live in poverty. Schools are there to help children learn, and in order to learn it is imperative that their needs are met. According to Tony Allen, the chairman of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission in Wilmington, Delaware, states in his Tedx Talk video that poverty and education is fixed or nothing is fixed (Allen). This is because, without fixing the education aspect for children in poverty, the cycle is just going to continue and the students will not be able to learn. An organization called Turnaround for Children, TFC for short, “aims to improve low-performing schools by addressing the effects of poverty both inside and outside the classroom”  (Wexler). TFC recognizes that “kids do not leave the effects of poverty at the schoolroom door.” Because this organization holds this belief “the program tries to connect persistently disruptive students at a struggling school with social services they need”  (Wexler). This organization trains educators on how to approach classroom management and provides them with solutions with how to teach children in order to “foster social and emotional skills” as well as “raise academic performance for all students” (Wexler). Making sure that teachers are aware of the issues that are presented each day in their classroom is just one way to move forward in helping these impoverished students. It is essential that educators themselves are educated upon this problem and that there are ways to help; by simply being aware that there are students in their classrooms who are living in poverty can help build that empathetic bond between student and teacher grow. This relationship is important and extremely helpful in simply encouraging the student and letting him or her know that the teacher is there for them as “no significant learning occurs without a significant relationship” (Payne 9). Once a student, nay, once a human, understands and truly knows that his or her teacher respects, trusts, and wants to understand, the student will try even harder to do well for and please the teacher. Another way to help students who live in poverty succeed in school is for teachers to actually pay attention to their students because when they “concentrate on students and their individual needs, [it] helps to create an academic culture that actively engages students to succeed in school” (Conchas 103). It is the teacher’s job to be an advocate and truly care for their children; being in the education field is a unique calling, as educators and administrators are in a “position to understand the needs of children and the communities in which they life. Teachers are among the few people who understand children’s hopes, aspirations, and impediments; however, only a small percentage of teachers take advantage of this fact” (Lynch). Because it is increasingly difficult for students to learn “if they are not eating well, have behavioral issues, and are being raised in stressful environments,” there needs to be improvement efforts, enhanced programs for out-of-school hours, and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle (including both psychical AND mental health concerns) (Conchas 131). The programs for out-of-school hours would provide opportunities for children to get off of the streets into a safe environment where they can complete homework, build community with one another, and even have access to supplies such as pencils and paper. Not only that, but an after-school program holds the ability to have mentors that can engage with students. This wonderful opportunity to have access to mentors who are there to love and support them would greatly benefit students who are lonely, need emotional support, and sometimes just someone who will not judge them or add onto their stressful load of responsibilities. All of these amazing resources could be made available to students through after-school and out-of-school programs all while providing child care for parents who are working to sustain their household. While the promotion of healthy living may seem contradictory since many of these students cannot afford to eat healthy nor do they have the time or a safe enough environment to be active, it is still helpful and important to get the information out there to them so they can be aware and work towards making even seemingly small decisions that are better for their physical and mental health and wellness. 

As one can see, poverty has a vastly detrimental effect on students ranging from psychological, sociological, physical, and financial affects. When poverty is an issue in a child’s life, everything instantly becomes from difficult for them; learning because extremely difficult as the child’s needs are not being met and it is completely out of the child’s control. Because there are so many ways poverty is destructive, these children need advocates. They need schools to have their back so they can feel relief from the stress of their home life and begin to learn and go beyond the structures of four walls. 
