Poverty and Education

In my masters class, we have been talking and reading about how poverty affects our students.  Here is a graph stating that education is a foundation to human development and has a clear multiplier effect with benefits in health, broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction.  I was unable to make this infograph fit so you can read it.  So I will explain what it is telling you.  It states

• that a child born to an educated mother is more than 2x as likely to survive to age five.
• Educated mothers are 50% more likely to immunize their children mothers without an education
• Every extra year of school increases productivity by 10-30%
• A girl who completes basic education is 3x less likely to contract HIV/AIDS 
• Individual earning increase by 10% for each year of school completed  
• Educated women re-invest 90% of their income to their family.  Men invest 30-40%

But Still Today:

• 1-4 women around the world cannot read this sentence
• Girls make up 53% of the children out of school 
• 98% of people who can't read live in developing countries

With this information, we as educators need to remember the importance of teaching to all students.  We need to remember how it is important to get to know each student for who they are and understand that they might not come to school having the same home life as ours or the kid next to them. And with that, we need to understand where they come from to help them grow and learn!