Lesson 3: We Need Better Language to Describe Poverty
I recently worked with three groups of 8th and 9th grade students. All of the groups are comprised of students of color from families in poverty, which means they qualify for free or reduced-price lunch under a California program whose cutoff is for a family of four is an income of under $30,615 (free), or under $43,568 (reduced-price). Students from families like these who qualify for free and reduced lunch are generally the students we talk about when we talk about children in poverty.
My three student groups all meet this criterion. In addition, they all are highly motivated and academically proficient, with supportive parents who have enrolled them in an after-school college-prep enrichment program. They must all be alike, right?
Wrong.
In fact, these three groups of students seem markedly different. The first is a racially diverse group that includes Latino/a, African-American, Pacific Islander and Indian students; several of the parents and many of the students’ older siblings have attended college, often very prestigious colleges. They live in the Westside of L.A., a socioeconomically diverse area, and attend an honors magnet school that includes middle- and upper-middle class students of all races. This group is both more academically advanced and more sophisticated than the other groups. Some of the students have travelled with their families to other cities or countries, not just to visit family but for tourism. They read at or above grade level and their writing is generally fluid, with some complex sentences—a quality that in my experience indicates frequent outside Lesson 3: We Need Better Language to Describe Poverty | Gatsby In L.A.: