Taking account of class in the classroom

We talked in class last week about the impact of poverty on people's lives and some of the stereotypical assumptions educators make about poor children and families. As Sue Books explained in the chapter we read from her book, people in the U.S. aren't poor due to character flaws or an absolute scarcity of money--instead, poverty results from the structure of our capitalist economic system and wrongheaded policy choices.

Here's a good (and fairly short) article from the latest issue of Teaching Tolerance that echoes that critique and takes it one step further with suggestions on what teachers can do to transform their practice in ways that will take account of poverty without making assumptions or sweeping generalizations about students.

(Note: The link above will take you to the home page of Teaching Tolerance. Click "The lastest issue of Teaching Tolerance" (under the artwork of the girl's face), then you'll see a link to the article on the right--it's called "The Question of Class" by Paul Gorski.)