Breaking Barriers

Breaking Barriers: Concrete Tools for Working with Students and Families Living in Poverty

This session will provide participants with the concepts of oral and print culture to enhance skills necessary for educating and communicating effectively across poverty barriers. Most of our educational systems are set up to support students and families coming from a print culture orientation and they often are alienating to students and families who have an oral cultural world-view. How we get our information shapes how we relate to one another and how we experience the world. Many people from generational poverty backgrounds get their information verbally... creating an oral culture thought process. Most students and families from middle and upper class backgrounds gain their information from reading ... creating a print culture thought process. Understanding these different thought processes could improve teaching and learning and create a more inclusive school climate. Opportunities for success in education are enormous when these concepts are understood and incorporated into every aspect of the education process.

Learning Objectives:

• Obtain techniques for understanding and valuing oral and print culture styles
• Understand how to focus and build on the assets of oral culture students and families instead of only seeing problems
• Understand how to include oral culture learning styles in the curriculum
• Explain how to overcome misunderstanding that can arise when diverse communication and learning styles are present
• Discuss why poverty and oral culture orientation are main determinants of education
• Evaluate curriculum and school climate for inclusiveness of oral culture students