Blog Action Day - theme this year is Poverty

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Bassill on October 12, 2008 at 2:55pm

As students and teachers begin to blog about poverty I encourage you to view the maps at http://mappingforjustice.blogspot.com and think about where poverty is most concentrated in the city or state where your students live, and ways that this puts different challenges on students and teachers in those areas that may not be present for student and teachers in other areas.

Then, you might use some of the links posted here and here, as background reading to understand poverty better, and to understand how this influences kids and learning.

Perhaps this can result in students forming groups that connect the resources of students and communities beyond poverty, with schools and non-school tutor/mentor programs in neighborhoods with poverty.

Such blogging can also help students living in poverty to see examples of programs that have helped students from similar backgrounds move through school more successfully, and maybe some of these students will form leadership teams that help their peers and younger siblings avoid the gangs and other negative influences that might prevent some from focusing on learning and aspirations.

If such groups become on-going, the repetition of a blog action day focusing on poverty every year could result in a growing level of understanding and involvement. It might also get the attention of public leaders, policy makers and business leaders, so they do more to make sure every child has full support, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, to reach their potential.

I hope people will post links to their blog articles so that this or another site becomes a place where many of these articles can be read.

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Permalink Reply by Vincent Mespoulet on October 12, 2008 at 5:10pm

May i suggest to you a wonderful book ? William T. Vollman, Poor People, Ecco/HarperCollins, N.-Y, 2007. I'm very impressed. I have just read the french translation... I plan to use it during this school year with my Grade 7th...

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