Full Circle: From Being a Student of Poverty to Teaching Students of Poverty For most of my life, my existence has been in areas of great determination, yet with great poverty. The experience I bring to bring to education is starting to seem like a rare one-relocating the hometown I was reared. Teaching students who come from impoverished homes will be familiar as I was raised in the very same town. The familiarity will still have obstacles, but the obstacles do not outweigh the rewards. Adding to that perspective is the fact I am now raising a child here as well. Weaving these three distinct experiences together I hope will empower me to a more caring and astute educator of students living in poverty. As a student of poverty, the disparities …show more content…
My family and I initially did not become immune to the cycle of poverty and its affects. However, through perseverance, we have managed to become a slowly emerging minority in our area: college educated parent who is gainfully employed. Being a college educated parent in a poverty-stricken area helped to have my own child start to break some of the cycles. My engagement with the schools is strong and I am always willing when time is available. There’s no intimidating factor that I feel toward my child’s teachers; I feel like a team member dedicated to my child’s overall success. With that being said, becoming an educator to students of poverty is essential in helping the cycles of poverty the students are in. Taking a parental role to future students will hopefully help me better relate to how poverty affects their academic and social achievements (for which I can understand their experiences). The social and interpersonal interactions among parents may overcome the negative contextual effects of living in a disadvantaged school neighborhood during school. Unfortunately, the most practical way to accomplish this is not quite understood (Li and Fisher, 2017). I optimistically feel that being both educator and parent in a poverty area can help build bridges between the parents I grew up with, and the colleagues I will come to trust with our children. It can be a delicate balance, but it must be done