Poverty in Teaching

Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is poverty.

Schools need more material support, teachers need to be paid better, and of course children need to be fed. Material poverty is a serious problem, no dispute, and we should address it however we can, on a personal basis.

But a focus on material poverty allows us to overlook other sorts of poverties and how we can, on a personal basis, address them. “I have already given, I have already served — isn’t it time for the state and government to care of their own?” Yes, and without taking away from any of that, let us also look at what we have in hand and heart that students need.

So many teachers require, demand, and plead for attention. So many students are distracted, disinterested, bored. What is the problem — is there not enough attention to go around?

Attention is limited by available time, many will sensibly argue, and teachers have little enough of that. While there is truth to this, there is more to attention than time; if we are good at it, in a minute we can give a quality of attention that can change a child’s life, that can feed a person who is starving to be heard.

Students cannot offer us what they have never seen, and real change has to come from us — in action, not admonition. Attend to the voice and spirit of another human and you teach them to do the same. With our ears and eyes and senses and heart, we can offer our students something they are too often lacking, and at the same time, show them how it is done, and take steps to make more for everyone.