Wealth and Poverty

Something was different at the school cafeteria. 

The menu included a vegetarian meal of elbow macaroni with cheddar cheese and broccoli. There was also a choice of a 100-percent-beef burger (without pink slime!) on a whole-grain bun. And there was ginger-carrot soup, whole-grain breads, leafy green salads, black beans and shredded cheese.

John was in my eighth-grade class. He was a rascal and my favorite kind of student. He was rambunctious and smart as a whip. And he and his family lived in poverty. His favorite memory of middle school is when I gave him detention time after school.

“Why’d I get this?” he exclaimed.

“Because you’ve racked up four deductions for talking and disrupting class,” I calmly said.

He looked down at the detention slip, “Well, OK then.”

It’s one of our favorite stories.

I’m standing at my customary position in the cafeteria during lunch duty one day, watching students pass by, lunches in hand, heading to their usual tables. Some students say hello to me. Others give a quick wave. Some avoid eye contact at all costs.

"When you went downtown, did you see a hobo?" The tone was mocking with a giggle at the end.

I cringed. Turning around, I saw one of my students: a young girl with freckles and a polka dot bow in her hair. She was a student who always had a smile to share, was the first to offer an extra pencil if anyone lacked and was always willing to help others. The callousness of her remark was out of character. I wondered if she was repeating something that someone else had said. Perhaps she just thought hobo was a funny word. 

My nana is laughing as she tells me one of her favorite childhood stories. As her cheeks lift into a smile, I can see the teenager who boldly told her teacher that threats to visit Nana’s parents about her behavior are ineffective. “You see,” she said, “they don’t speak any English.”

As dean of students, I’m sitting at my desk passing time one morning when my radio crackles. “There was just a fight in the courtyard,” says a teacher. “I’m bringing both of the students in right now.” I sigh in frustration and turn to watch the security-camera footage on my computer. Sure enough, there are two students facing off in the courtyard. Oh no, I think. Please don’t let that be who I think it is.

I am intellectually aware of Paola’s poverty.
Nine out of 10 students at our school come from families whose income level meets the federal poverty guidelines. Paola, an immigrant from El Salvador, is one of them. The first-grader lives in a small apartment with her grandma, mom, sister and uncle. Combined, the adults earn less than $26,170 a year.

America is a place where hard work will move you ahead. Here, you can go further than your parents did and provide your children with more than you had. Few people believe in this dream more ardently than my students. The American dream is what has sustained them through nine difficult years in Philadelphia’s public schools. They arrive at my school with some pride to have been admitted to small, safe, selective school in the heart of Philadelphia’s historical district. They take subways and ride buses (sometimes for more than an hour) out of their neighborhoods and into bustling center city. And they arrive with their grit, a fierce determination to get the grades, no matter the cost. They have their hearts set on college because in America, college is the gateway to the middle class. They have an enduring faith in America and in the transformative power of education.

Like many of us, I sometimes overuse the word “need.” I have a tendency to say that I need the new iPhone or I need a pedicure, even though those are clearly things that I want, rather than need.

My greatest lesson on distinguishing between a want and a need came with my first-grade class when I was a new teacher. Volunteers from the business community came to teach for a day through the Junior Achievement program. As a new teacher, I was overwhelmed and relieved not to be responsible for lesson plans for the day. I was nervous, however, about how an idealistic businessperson would deal with 20 extremely needy first-graders living in one of the most violent parts of Oakland, Calif.

Nearly 14 million children live in low-income or poor families in the United States.

One of those was Devin.

He had been in my English class during my first year teaching. His uniform was old and faded. He (like 95 percent of the school) was eligible for free or reduced lunch. He didn’t have much in the way of supplies. It was unclear if he really didn’t have the materials, or if he simply didn’t care.