Diverse Socioeconomic Field Experience

Great Essays
This paper will be discussing a recent fifteen hour field experience I participated in which I observed students of diverse socioeconomic groups. I will be discussing how I have a better understanding of how a student’s socioeconomic status influence their behavior and actions in the classroom. I will discuss any prejudices/discriminations I observed in the classroom based on socioeconomic diversity. I will also describe how this experience has made me determined to try to create a positive learning environment for students with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in the classroom.

Keywords: Experience, socioeconomic group, diversity
Diverse Socioeconomic Field Experience Report My field experience was completed at Isanti Intermediate
…show more content…
I have read about how socioeconomic statuses affect the students in the classroom, but actually experiencing it in the classroom made me realize how real the problem can be. As I interacted with the students, it became quite obvious which students were of the lower socioeconomic status (LES). In discussions, students gave lots of information about themselves and their family lifestyle. Many students discussed how their families lack income (could not afford school supplies, snacks etc.), lack time (not getting home early enough to do homework because they are at some sort of daycare facility), lack food choices (it is quicker and cheaper to pick up candy for snacks at the gas station), lack of family (a few of the students were in foster care), etc. Many of those students realized that school is a very important part of their lifestyle (needing to learn to get a better job, etc.), but for most of them it is a struggle to be academically successful. I spent my time working with students who needed extra help to understand the work and to catch up with homework. Majority of those students could be classified …show more content…
I learned that I have to make sure that I reflect/address any issues that I might have that could hinder classroom cohesiveness. I realized that if I have a better understanding of students with lower socioeconomic status and I learn how to address the issues they are facing I can promote better self-esteem for them and help build positive relationships with classmates without biases, discrimination, or prejudices. After researching socioeconomics in the classroom I learned many things that I can do as a teacher to enhance a positive learning environment to lower socioeconomic groups. I learned that giving students extra physical activities reduces issues associated with poor nutrition, incorporate daily vocabulary activities to improve vocabulary deficits, try to make connections to the student’s world, try to use positive affirmations every day, set high reachable goals, focus on core academic skills, teach coping skills for daily stressors they may encounter, and offer yourself as a strong, positive caring adult they can depend on (Jenson,

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    American Dream In Crisis

    • 1902 Words
    • 8 Pages

    AP Government Book Assignment By Tristan P. Myers “Our Kids, The American Dream In Crisis” By Robert D. Putnam “Our Kids, The American Dream in Crisis,” is an interesting piece of text that compares past and present day life stories of multiple teenage children along with their families’ outlooks of the American Dream. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, author Robert D. Putnam provides an analysis that we could all relate to. Robert D. Putnam immediately informs the reader the prime reason for writing this book. Putnam writes, “...in modern America one barrier would loom much larger than it did back then: class origins.…

    • 1902 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Diversity is a key element for a proper learning environment; students must be amongst people of other backgrounds to be exposed to the variation in the real world. In the scientific community, collaboration with others is necessary, and often, they come from an alternate way of life. Working with someone who may be different in many ways has numerous benefits; they may be able to propose ideas that you had not previously considered, or they could inform you of something that has the potential to assist you later in life. Living in a diverse setting not only an educational benefit, but it also aids in the preparation for the real world. We live in an extremely diverse location, with people immigrating from various places around the world.…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The New Jim Crow Analysis

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander discusses ways the way the American prison system has become a cycle for many prisoners instead of a system for them to regret their criminal actions while A Talk to Teacher by James Baldwin features his own first-hand experiences with racism within the American education system. Both authors, who are black Americans, discuss racial microaggressions in times where racism is thought to be nonexistent. When people think of racism, they generally think of times such as pre-Civil War America and apartheid in South Africa. Nonetheless, both Alexander and Baldwin discuss their experiences with racism in a nation recognized for its supposed equality. Alexander and Baldwin both decide to make statements to contradict…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Dear University of Texas, Austin Office of Admissions, I write this letter to you in regards to your race-based affirmative action program that has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court as of 2013. Just a few years ago, a woman by the name of Abigail Fisher challenged your affirmative action program created to increase the enrollment of minority students. The Supreme Court decided in favor of this program, and by doing so, upheld the use of race-based affirmative action in higher education, specifically in your institution (“Equality” 1). I believe that after the Supreme Court’s decision, rather than continuing the use of race-based affirmative action, you should have taken a closer look at your admission process and made changes accordingly.…

    • 1939 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    1. Describe the context in which this artifact was developed or collected and what you learned from this experience. This artifact illustrates my progress in developing skills to prepare this quantitative study furthermore, the findings from this study demonstrated that taking a social-emotional approach to education is more effective when the strategies are developmentally informed and also practiced through whole school implementation and direct instruction. Thus, it all must be grounded in the needs of the diverse student communities. Ultimately, social-emotional learning is a necessity to ensure all students are receiving an equitable high quality education that is pertinent in today’s society because students of color and of low income…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    White Teacher Talks

    • 1374 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Reading A White Teacher Talks About Race has helped open my eyes to how much diversity there really is in our education system. It has shown me how race, economic status, exceptionality, and many life challenges affect a student’s attendance, work ethic, and grades. This book also helped me gain perspective on what life may be like for students that face discrimination, such as finding a job, having enough food and shelter, taking care of their children, and much more. One big lesson I got out of this reading was that students react in an entirely different way when they know that the teacher genuinely cares about them and wants nothing but the best for them. The book also showed me how teachers who do not show this caring nature to their students can cause the student’s performance and attendance to lower and that the student loses hope of becoming successful.…

    • 1374 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poverty In The Classroom Brooke Hanlon Poverty In The Classroom Brooke Hanlon Poverty has major negative effects on the engagement of students in the classroom. There are seven different reason students to engage in the classroom. The phrase middle class Its self tells us very little about a person, the same way the word poverty tells us basically nothing about the students in schools. Seven differences between middle-class and low-income students show up at school. Teachers who take the time to understand those differences and how to handle them, help lessen some of the negative effects that are caused by poverty.…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Obscure Segregation in Charlottesville Public Schools It has been 51 years since the Civil Rights Act ended the state and local laws requiring the segregation of whites from colored students in public schools, but a new form of segregation is alive in Charlottesville today. With the ever widening diversity in our country, it is hard to believe that a separatist mentality can still exist, after all we’ve had our first African American elected President of the United States. However, it seems that every step we take forward to end inequality in our country causes many of our neighbors to quietly take steps backward building those walls of the division back up.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bad Boys Analysis

    • 1831 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Inequality has been present since the beginning of civilization. Education has played into this since schooling began; only boys were allowed to be educated while the girls would stay at home. During the early years of the Americas, minorities, such as blacks, Latinos, etc. were excluded from receiving an education as well due to racism, a result of slavery. C. Wright Mills goes into how society and history affects people, and education, today in his The Sociological Imagination. Although education has progressed since then, it is seen in Ann Ferguson’s…

    • 1831 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Health Disparity

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages

    To have great academic achievement, many resources are required. Students at the very least need to be well fed (financial capability of family), and feel safe and welcomed in school. Also, with teachers’ lower expectations from them, they can acquire learned helplessness, which insinuates that they will not succeed regardless of how much effort they put in. People with poor education background have an increased chance of suffering from psychological issues in the future. Lower academic achievement is often associated with a lower social hierarchical standing, as education is often necessary to obtain a decent job.…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Socioeconomic status is an economic and sociological combined measure of an individual’s work experience and of a person or family 's economic and social position, based on income, education, and occupation. Many people are affected because the class they are considered as, it’s a huge cultural lag between the low and high class families. The three classes we categorize people in are the low class, medium class, and high class living. To begin, I am going to start with our low class living individuals, living in this class comes with a lot of major downsides. Education in and out of school for these kids can be very bad and scary for other people.…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    By evaluating how the education system treats and compares poor students of color to their middle class White peers, we, as educators, can see how this negatively impacts students’ confidence and contributes towards the Achievement Gap. This is critical when trying to understand the unfairly balanced educational system in America. The easiest way to determine a student’s academic promise is by comparing him to his peers. If a girl in class finishes her exam faster than anyone else and still…

    • 1380 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Part 1: What experiences – personal, professional, and/or educational – have shaped your motivation to pursue a teaching career in an urban district, and to teach the specific content/grade level to which you applied? Part 2: What is something specific to the content/grade level to which you applied that you believe is worthwhile for students to learn, and why? How might you engage students in the teaching and learning of this knowledge or skill?…

    • 1797 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Socioeconomic status between different schools is also an area that made me change perspectives. Throughout my schooling, I did not look at my school and think that I was getting more than other students were getting at an older school. After completing this course, however, I realized that schools get a different amount of funding depending on the socioeconomic status of the area and students that attend the school. After completing the CBEDS assignment, we found that the school with a higher socioeconomic status had more funding and access to technology than the school with lower socioeconomic status. Persell (2007) states, “children of different social classes are likely to attend different types of schools, [and] to receive different types of instruction.”…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Children who live in a nicer and safer neighborhood can receive a finer education. Unfortunately, children who are poor have lower levels of education since money is sometimes not being funded to the school. Living in poverty makes it harder to obtain food, along with medical care and other factors. Social class affects family structure because the poverty rates for female-headed households are higher than the rate of all families. Children who live with parents who never married experienced greater levels of social stigmatization.…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays