SAMO #1: Poverty and Education

One thing that I have loved for the majority of my life is reading. I love the way that books can just take you to another reality that can be completely different from your own day to day life. I am very familiar with books, so for my first SAMO, I decided that I wanted to challenge that. I found that I am not familiar with poverty and the effects that poverty can have on kids’ education. So from that discovery, I chose to go volunteer at Bernie’s Book Bank. In December 2009, Bernie’s Book Bank was founded with the mission to provide books for the children who did not have access to them. And according to berniesbookbank.org, during its first year, Bernie’s Book Bank sourced, processed and distributed 140,000 children’s books!

Picture taken by me. This was on the wall of the warehouse.

Selfie taken by me. This is me and Mallory in front of the entrance.

Self timer picture took by me. This was taken right after we signed in.

After weeks of trying to find a date, my friend Mallory and I decided to go volunteer after school on Friday, October 7th. Before this date, we both needed to get permission forms signed by our parents, since we are both under 18. I have never done any type of volunteer work in the past without an adult, so this was very new to me. We rushed straight to my house after the final bell, then I drove both of us to Lake Bluff, Illinois. Another thing about me is that I hate driving, especially in heavy traffic. I get pretty bad anxiety while driving due to being rear-ended a few months ago, so this was another step that I took outside of my comfort zone. It took us around 30 minutes to get there and we had made it just in time. Shortly after arriving and signing in, the staff members took us into the big warehouse and explained what we would be doing.

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In the slideshow above, there are many pictures taken by both me and Mallory of our time volunteering at Bernie’s Book Bank.

Click here to check out Mallory’s SAMO Experience!

Mallory and I began with distributing different books into a huge bin. There were four huge boxes of books that were already stickered and ready to go. We took a pile of books from each of the boxes and placed them on the corners of a large bin. Then we took turns layering ten books from each pile into the bin. The people who worked there had explained that this was done to mix up the books, so that when the books are placed in bags for kids to receive, they get a variety of books with no repeats. After about an hour, we were taken over to the sticker station. For the next half hour, we put Bernie’s Book Bank stickers on the bottom corner of the books. These stickers let the children who are receiving the books know that they can take those books home with them. I really enjoyed my experience volunteering at Bernie’s Book Bank, and I recommend that everyone should try it one day!

I started my research by looking at how living in a low-income neighborhood can impact a child’s ability to learn. The first issue I found is that many kids that live in low-income neighborhoods do not have access to age-appropriate books that they can take home. On berniesbookbank.org they share that there is a ratio of 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children in low-income neighborhoods. This is incredibly low, especially in comparison to middle-income neighborhoods, which contain a book to child ratio of 13 to 1.

“In middle-income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1, in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children.”

“Neuman, Susan B. and David K. Dickinson, ed. Handbook of Early Literacy Research, Volume 2. New York, NY”

Because of this lack of books, the children who live in low-income neighborhoods do not read as often when they are not at school, especially during the summer. And according to booksourcebanter.com, when school is not in session, children in low-income areas actually lose two to three months of reading growth. This in comparison to children in middle-class areas, who gain a month of reading experience during the summer. This creates a huge reading gap, to the point where 12th graders in low-income areas read at the same level as an 8th grader in a middle-class neighborhood. These numbers really shocked me. I had not realized that not having access to books could impact reading comprehension at such a large scale. I also learned that, according to readingfoundation.org, children who are poor at reading can develop social, emotional, and academic issues. Additionally because the majority of school curriculum is centered around reading, children who cannot read at their grade level will struggle. I never noticed before how reading is so important in every single subject. You need to be able to read for every single subject, even those that do not seem like they would have reading. For example in math, how can a child understand the instructions for a question on a test when they can not read?

One large impact that poverty has on education is the effect that hunger has on levels of focus. Shah does not go into a lot of detail about the effects of hunger on education, so I decided to do some further research on it myself. I found that eating improves your cognitive function. On elo.health.com, they mention that quality food improves your mood and concentration.

“I want to learn, and until my basic needs are met, I’m not going to be prepared to learn.”

Shital Shah “How does poverty affect learning?”

This graph taken from the Journal of American College Health shows that college student who typically eat breakfast in the morning on average have higher GPAs than students who do not eat in the morning.

Being able to concentrate is incredibly important to a child’s education. It is almost impossible to remember, learn, or understand something that you are not paying attention to. When kids cannot pay attention to a school lesson, they are less likely to remember what they learned. This also applies to studying for tests. Without the proper energy needed to pay attention, kids in low-income areas are at a disadvantage. If they are unable to remember what they are taught in class, then how can they get a quality education? Many kids in low-income neighborhoods go to school hungry. Savethechildren.org says that there are approximately 12 million children that struggle with hunger in America. Going to school hungry attributes to struggles, such as reading comprehension. 

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This SAMO experience really opened my eyes to how large of an effect that poverty has on education. Especially with literacy comprehension, the reading level gap between middle-class and low-income children is shocking. There was a lot that I did not know, but as Margaret J. Wheatley said in her article “Willing to Be Disturbed,” we need to go into the unknown in order to create change and understand what we are unfamiliar with. Bernie’s Book Bank facilitates the collection, processing and distribution of new and gently used children’s books to significantly increase book ownership among at-risk infants, toddlers and school-age children throughout Chicagoland. In the slideshow above, you can see a fraction of the books that they have in their warehouse. By volunteering at Bernie’s Book Bank, I was able to participate in that process, and hopefully the children who receive the books that I sorted and stickered love them as much as I do.