2.5 Problems that Impoverished Learners Face at Schools
2.5.1 The Community as a Cause
Children who grow up in a poor family often contend with a home environment that is unsafe and not beneficial to learning. These children’s lives are often in danger. They are exposed to drug dealers in their neighbourhoods who have no regard for other people and their wellbeing. Children may risk their lives seeking protection if a gunfight breaks out in their neighbourhood. According to Crain (2008), cases have been documented where children have become statistics just by walking home from school or getting off the bus in a violent and drug infested neighbourhood. This daily occurrence of violence causes these children to abandon school or neglect their homework and schoolwork because they live in homes where the parent or parents are often negligent (Crain, 2008). In addition, these children become the masters of their own destiny: they see the desolation around them and become hardened to that lifestyle. This is a type of programming that they go through which has dire consequences for these children of poverty. The girls turn to prostitution and boys become runners for the local drug dealers (Crain, 2008). South Africa loses too many youngsters to gangs, guns and drugs because we have become too unconcerned as a society. When we begin to look at poverty as the adversary, we will begin to see what an impoverished family goes through on a daily basis (Crain, 2008). Working with children from impoverished neighbourhoods, providing positive reinforcements and alleviating some of the stressors through visible policing, will minimize the effects of poverty on their young lives and cause them to become assets to society instead of a burden or more fatally, a casualty (Zorn &
Noga, 2004).
25 2.5.2 Home Support and Care- Parental Apathy
According to Epstein (1991), parental involvement has been defined as parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision-making, and collaborating with the community. Factors such as economics, education, time constraints and culture and socio- economic status will determine the level of parental involvement. Good school-family partnerships lead to improved academic achievement, self-esteem, school attendance and social behaviour, which lead to positive changes in the child. Parents are the child’s first teacher. They are an invaluable resource. Co-operation and involvement are crucial in most successful learning environments. A lack of parental involvement can lead to frustration on the part of teachers as well as learners.
According to Dekker and Lemmer (1993), the parents are a child’s first teachers. They maintain that before a child attends school he/she should have been assisted by his/her parents to learn values. Parenthood can be described as loving fulfilment and the chosen acceptance of responsibility towards a being, which God has brought into the life of humankind (Goodwin, 2000). Landman, Van De Merwe, Pitout, Smith and Windell (1990) further describe parenting in the educational situation as consisting of two instruments, that is, the parent and the child. Firstly, parents show responsibility and a sense of duty towards their children by providing supervision, care and protection. It is necessary that the child feels protected and experiences the support of his/her parents. The child, the second instrument of the family, learns the quintessence of good social conduct such as teamwork, neatness, conscientiousness, punctuality, unselfishness and obedience, as mirrored in the love and responsibility of members of the family for one another. A large number of learners in South Africa have special problems which are often related to poverty and these experiences get in the way of progress towards achieving educational success (Le Roux, 1997). Poverty strikes a family for a multitude of reasons, but one of the significant factors is the lack of education and training received by the parents during their own learning years. Some parents in poverty situations attach enormous importance to educating their children in order that they can rise above poverty. Other parents who have not grasped the value of education often fail to see value in their children attending school. The need to simply survive may override the need to secure the future. Even if they do see some value in education, the needs of the moment can outweigh any hope for a positive outcome in the future. Children in poverty stricken families are often obliged to stay at home to care for younger siblings while parents search desperately
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for some form of support or employment (Zotis, 2011). Frequently, children from impoverished homes only have one parent to rely on, placing even more strain on the parent and the child (Zotis, 2011).
Booth and Dunn (1996) maintain that parents play a critical role in both their children's academic achievement and their socio-emotional development. Impoverished children often do not receive the back-up and support they need from family members to find value in achieving in school. Parents, who are struggling to survive, have no time or energy to support their children’s educational needs. Pretorius (2000) postulates that, an underprivileged child usually comes from an insufficiently skilled or uneducated family. They may have been brought up by parents or grandparents whose educational background hasn't endowed them with the ability to enrich their life with books and knowledge. The ability to read is the gateway to education and growing up in a family with parents who may only be slightly literate stacks the odds against the child (Hunter, 2009).
Children raised in poverty are often forced to seek some form of employment as soon as they are of reasonable age. This cuts short their educational experiencein a society that places high value on advanced education and a significant level of technical skills sets. Poverty is a vicious circle from which it can be difficult to break free. Once a child has left the school system to enter the work force it is less likely they will return to any meaningful educational experience. Life has a way of taking over and an impoverished teenager may become an impoverished parent themselves, setting in motion that same cycle of poverty that leaves yet another generation struggling to find the resources it needs to survive (Zotis, 2011).
Poverty also affects a learner’s ability to prioritize and complete homework. This is termed the ‘culture of poverty’, which is most often seen in families where poverty is generational (Hunter, 2009). These families have an outlook on life that is different from that of a middle class family. Unlike middle class families who focus on the attainment of wealth, goals, and similar objectives; the family below the poverty line or impoverished families often place a higher priority on family, entertainment and enjoyment of the social aspects of life, because they have been conditioned throughout life to believe that there is no hope for them to escape their environment. Consequently, a child living in a culture of poverty will often be unable to complete their homework because the home environment is not conducive to studying (Hunter, 2009).
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Tleane (2000) observes that, while some parents show no concern for their children's performance during the course of the year, they expect good results at the end of year. Booth and Dunn (1996) argue that, there is increasing evidence that the quality of parent-teacher associations influences children's school success in particular because high quality associations make it easier for parents and teachers to work together to promote a child’s intellectual development. Goodwin (2000) notes, that, parents can assist their children by supervising homework and monetary dealings and by attending school events. Lack of parental involvement frustrates teachers (Sikhwivhilu, 2003).