Summary Of Anne W's View Of Poverty

“Just the way it was”. That was Anne W. viewpoint of poverty when she was growing up and going to school. Anne and I met working for the same school district. She was born fifth of eleven children and started her schooling in the 1960s. Although Book’s writes about poverty in a more modern time a lot of what she writes was still true to Anne’s schooling. Her mother stayed at home and her father was a farm cropper, but never owned his own land. Book’s reminds us that poor people are working people, and to “Consider the role of the working poor in a market economy. Unable to support their own families, they provide a wealth of services to others.(Chamberlin 1999)” (PG. 29) That was true to Anne’s family; her father’s job gave food

At the time she felt like she was getting a great education. She knew she wasn’t one of the rich kids, but still didn’t feel poor. Dentist kids and teachers kids, feed store owner were the families that had the money in Anne’s community. Book’s comments that, “Schools don’t necessarily provide the same experience for all their students. Tracking and ability grouping persist, albeit under a variety of names, such as honors or Advanced Placement class. Students in these classes receive a much different education than students in lower level, less challenging classes. And so we come full circle: ‘Inequalities in family wealth are major cause of inequalities in schooling, and inequalities of schooling do much to reinforce inequalities of wealth among families in the next generation’” (pp. 105-106). At the time, Anne felt as if she got the same education as the other student’s in her school. She knew that she was one of the only kids that had homemade glue, made from water and paste, rather than store bought, but she never thought she had home made glue because she was poor. She treasured the one piece of school supplies she received. It was a pack of 8 perfectly sharp new crayons, and they were like gold to her! Even though Anne didn’t think that she was at a disadvantage I agree with Books when she writes,“Poor children benefit from the same things that help other children: good preschool programs, small

109) It wasn’t until college Anne really realized she was poor. She had to ask her father his gross income for the year for her financial aid paperwork, she said it was like she was hit with a ton of bricks when he said $5,000. She couldn’t believe that she had gone her entire life not knowing how little her father made. Without financial aid Anne would have never been able to go to school. Anne and her family were lucky, but since times are changing colleges are harder to get enough financial aid. Books writes,“Public colleges, which educate more than three fourths of all students in the United Sates, are becoming unaffordable for many families” (p. 108) Fortunately for Anne financial aid helped her through her college years. Once Anne got over the financial hurdle she began to try to take on the academic hurdles she was about to face. She truly believed her k-12 schooling was comparable to everyone's k-12 schooling. It wasn’t until her freshman year of college that she realized how far she was behind in her education. She had to take remedial courses her first semester to catch up, and by the end of that semester her GPA was a 1.4 on a 4 point scale. So although when Anne was in grade school she believed she was getting an equal and fair education as others she quickly