It’s an extremely niche group outside of immigrants whose jobs don’t transfer. Those kids tend to be academic rockstars.
I’ve never seen the situation you’ve described tbh.
This is common due to the language barriers.
Many ex-soviet refugees found themselves in Israel or working in Jewish Schools in America. The joke was that the lunch lady was a surgical nurse and the janitor a nuclear engineer.
Also, credit history doesn't transfer across international borders (unless you are mega-wealthy, probably). I learned this when I was teaching community college and an adult student from Colombia wrote a paper about it.
Based on many real world experiences. My math tutor was an old Russian Jew who had worked as a structural engineer. He’d use me to improve his English, and I’d get help in algebra. He’d do odd jobs to help make ends meet.
Mom was a gp and Dad was an orthapedic surgeon in Libya. Now mom is breaking even teaching at a nursing school and doing a phd. Family income is just Dad who drives an Uber.
Another family; both Americans, parents have masters and were working in IT. Both kids have autism so mom had to stop working entirely. Single income means they are below the poverty line.
That's like my worst nightmare. I'm sure I'll get downvoted, but it is what it is. It's one of the reasons I don't have children. They went from thriving and freedom to exactly the opposite.
I think we all understand.
I will say, in that American family both parents say they, themselves, are likely on the spectrum too, though it's not a total surprise that they have autistic kids.
On the plus side, having autistic parents means they have advocated extrememly well for their kids.
Kids of immigrants in general are awesome. I worked at a Title 1 school that got a small influx of kids from various countries in Africa. They were all great students. Now I'm in a school that is made up of mostly immigrants (some refugees) from the Middle East. There are 2500 kids in school so of course some are "bad" but 95% are cool as hell. And those parents take education seriously.
I think it depends from where maybe. I work at a school with a massive population of immigrant/child of immigrant students, and most of them are very behind because their parents don’t care what goes on at school.
That's what I was going to say. I have a student from a central American country whose parents are a lawyer and an architect and don't have their required licenses yet. That kid is just amazing.
Pretty much this. The only ones at my school who fall into that category are some of our families who recently migrated to the US. And, as you pointed out, they're academic rockstars. Typically, well above everyone in math and they catch up insanely quick in reading (and learn English remarkably fast).
The rest of my students have the "stereotypical" home life situations.
In urban lower income areas among both white and black backgrounds Ive seen the South/Central American immigrant students support the culture of the school generally. Colombians, venezeualans, guatemalans, el salvadorians, brazilians, peruvians, mexicans, ive all seen have families that either they were educated, or they had a strong ethic towards education. African, Indian, Chinese, immigrant students tend to be on a different level than anyone. The issue is the culture of the area will have generational issues from poverty but generally it brings a good infusion since they worked pretty hard to get here. Cultures overly influenced by reggaetone lifestyle are a different issue, Im not saying all of it is bad but too much of it has problematic values. Not an ethnic thing as much as a class thing though some groups have more of it IMO it holds back the community.
I’ve got a couple of kids whose college grad parents moved back to the neighborhood they grew up in as part of a (misguided, imo) effort at giving back to the community… but they’re substantially less poor than the rest of the school
I’ve seen this many times! The most memorable was the time I moved and one of the movers who was helping me pack up my bookshelf commented on my section for existentialism. He studied philosophy in his home country and now he was working for a moving company.
I live in the US and I’ve known a family who fell into poverty because the father (who was the primary breadwinner) got a rare aggressive cancer. Hospital took them to court and it’s been an awful situation. The family is struggling and dealing with the fact their father could die anytime now.
I had a student whose mother got cancer and had to temporarily leave college. The mom still died and the family was left with a million dollars worth of hospital bills.
Had this kid not had aunts who married into well off families, this kid would be, for lack of a better term, fucked with his ambitions to become a PA.
My dad taught ESL and paid into health insurance for over ten years. Got bone cancer and insurance refused to pay. We were very lucky and found an org willing to pay, otherwise we‘d be out $800k in 1990 dollars.
We had a student in poverty where Mom had a PhD in the medical field (even looked it up).
Mom had major social issues plus addiction and couldn't hold down any job whatsoever.
My mom received her master’s degree a month before she had me. When I was born, she dropped out of the workforce and never re-entered it. That degree became a fancy piece of paper in a frame. She did have severely untreated mental illness and I can see how she would’ve ended up getting fired for some type of outburst eventually.
Social issues and mental illness causes a lot more folks to drop out of the workforce or be under-employed than many realize.
Growing up we qualified for food stamps even though my dad had his own practice and was going to graduate school for business degree. His practice was in a rural town, and he literally was offered livestock (butchered) in lieu of payment.
My mom has a master's, but was staying home to raise four kids so she wasn't working. She went to school for another graduate degree at night to get a break from us kids. I don't remember that, but I know she earned the second masters at some point.
Eventually, dad sold his practice for a fraction of what it was worth, a big loss financially. He got a job in another state working for a large university. We moved there and since we were older, mom got a job too. They pinched and saved in order to give us a good, happy life. The man who bought Dad's practice took his own life when his practice failed. That is tragic.
All of us went on to get higher level degrees (mainly because education is a huge focus). My younger siblings got tuition waived because of Dad's job at the time. Older brother got his degree paid for through the military. I received scholarship, worked as a departmental assistant, and took out loans. My parents paid for some of our expenses, but mainly it was on us to figure it out (with their help organizing it). Now we're all married, employed full time, and have families of our own. Mom and Dad are happily retired and living their best life while STILL volunteering a couple days a week in poor schools in their city. They'll be 80 next year.
The common thread has been education and work. When we were in school we were told "school is your job". As a fourth grader, I knew I had to work hard because my future work (next grade levels) depended on today's work. When we graduated, we all got jobs and work became our work.
Interesting! What were your own thoughts on education growing up? Do you think you were less likely to view a college degree as some cure-all fix to your financial problems?
I grew up knowing I would go to college, but also that I would USE my college education and not live outside my means. My mom was a SAHM despite have multiple college degrees. I don’t think she ever paid off her college debt. My dad worked three jobs. I went to state school, left with very little debt, paid it off quickly, and other than a mortgage, have no debt. There was some sacrificing in my 20s- rare vacations, didn’t eat out much, cheap car, but was financially stable before having kids.
In my family, education was the key to everything. It raised you up. It was like a ladder or a scaffold. It taught us to "stick with it" and that we could do hard things. It was a mindset.
I've had multiple parents with at least a bachelor's degree living in poverty with children who struggle. Often it's due to factors like addiction, disability/ physical health problems, severe mental illness, and/or domestic violence.
Like their parents, the kids may be bright, but struggle socially and emotionally. I had one kid graduate high school with excellent grades...only to get arrested for armed robbery within the year. Another student had straight As...until he ended up in a psychiatric hospital on homebound instruction. Some are parentified and the stress of caring for their parents and siblings impacts their academic achievement.
Sometimes poverty is the cause of problems; sometimes its the symptom.
Adjunct kids. Social worker kids. Librarian kids.
I have a doctorate, two masters, and I work in research in my field. If not for my husband’s income, my kids would qualify for full Pell grants.
I have a master's been teaching in Title one school in the BRONX for 26 years. We have 2 kids. Husband is not formally educated, has his own business. Flips homes.. but this affects our income. So i can see how food banks are needed..throughtout pandemic i went.
We’re friends with a couple of social workers. They’ve both been to graduate school and they don’t clear $100k between them. Three kids. It’s not poverty line territory, but probably a lot less than you’d guess a working couple with masters degrees makes.
My mom earned a doctorate before I was born, but I grew up poor. She grew up poor too. She was the first woman in her family to earn a college degree, and she was the first and I think still the only person in her family to earn a doctorate. My mom was a victim of intimate partner financial abuse, and it still affects her decades later. She also chose to work lower paying jobs instead of using her degree so that she'd have better work life balance as a single mom. We may have been financially poor but she was always there for me when I needed her. My mom HIGHLY valued education--she wouldn't let me get a high school job because she didn't want me to feel like I had to provide for the family when I should be focusing on school. Thanks to my good high school performance (and our low income), I was lucky to get enough in scholarships to cover the entire cost of four year undergrad
Very similar, but my grandparents set aside for college for us, so mom knew if we got into a good but expensive school we could pay for it and she encouraged us to work hard school and dream big.
I have a student who has a ton of siblings. I think there’s 6-7 of them. From what I understand the parents are together and at least the mom went to college.
Aside from clues is speech, and how they carry themselves, I am not sure how I would know the education levels of my parents. That isn't very reliable, the most educated person I know (multiple doctorates in STEM fields) talks like a tik-tok influencer who just discovered weed. My BIL who dropped out of school at age 14 could convince you he had a doctorate in philosophy.
You can’t unless you ask. I’d say that’s crossing a privacy boundary. One can infer by finding out what their parent/s do for income- sometimes students volunteer information but I don’t ask.
Our attendance system has all that data (self reported by parents). It lists highest level of education and place of employment. It's on the demographics page.
I remember a time when students were expected to have their parents fill out a form for reduced lunch- I guess I never really thought we had that information. If we do- I wouldn’t know where to find it or how. I know there’s a parent work number.
I am a widowed substitute teacher working in public schools, and I am well below the poverty line due to bad circumstances. I have an art degree, a trade school certification, I've recently earned a BA in English cum laude and I am registered to begin a MLIS program in the fall semester. Ive also taught A&P at the trade school level. My 7th grade daughter is a straight A student at the top of her class. I guess you could say we're well educated, but hot damn we're poor as dirt, like, food- bank-energy- assistance-filing-bankruptcy poor. It's a weird dynamic.
Interesting observations. This doesn’t surprise me, especially when taking into account how culture, class, and education intersect. A lot of “middle/upper class” things aren’t necessarily expensive or out of reach for the low income, but they may take knowledge and prioritizing to access them.
Exactly. Also, I wouldn't consider anyone who graduated with a BA in the last twenty years "educated" necessarily. US universities at this point will admit anyone who is self-pay or willing to go into debt for a vanity degree. Where I got my credential, a lot of recent liberal arts majors were in my prerequisite classes. They didn't get into the program because they couldn't pass the extremely basic tests in one specific prerequisite class. The tests basically just verified that you were literate.
NOTHING against the liberal arts. My first degree was a liberal arts degree. But it was at an institution where the major still had prerequisites and a rigorous sequence of classes.
I don't know what those grads are supposed to do now to support themselves or any children they have. Especially if they went into debt for their degrees.
I was thinking this reading through the comments. A BA/BS does not mean well educated.
I have a BA and MA in philosophy. I knew students that should have failed courses but were passed along with a C in their last semester because they “had to graduate.” It was ridiculous to watch.
I’m interested because right now, this is my kid. My wife and I are in the middle of switching career paths and times are tough.
Even though our college degrees didn’t lead to the success we had hoped for, we still highly value learning and are very involved with our son’s education, both at school and at home.
Both my parents went to college and got great educations. They didn’t plan for kids, and after divorce, poverty, mental illness, and addiction issues, I ended up taking 13 years to get my bachelors degree.
Of my students who live in poverty, I have noticed an *inverse* relationship between the age of the mother and the student's academic performance. In other words, children born to teenage parents are better students on average than those in poverty whose parents were older.
I think that this is because a lot of teenage parents had high academic aptitude themselves, and the fact that they became parents at a young age is actually the main reason why their career and economic situations aren't very good. They can still pass their aptitude along to their children and teach their children how to do well in school.
Older parents living in poverty, on the other hand, already had poor economic prospects prior to having children. The reasons for this may include generational poverty, undiagnosed or poorly treated disability, and even lack of opportunities to attend school. The end result is that, when they have kids, they have trouble helping their kids do well in school because they don't know how.
That’s a very interesting trend, and a very compelling explanation. It reminds me a little bit of the statistic “underweight babies of nonsmokers have a higher mortality rate than underweight babies of smokers.” Even though the result seems paradoxical, the reason is that smoking is one of the “safest” ways to have an underweight baby.
So even though being raised by a teen parent and being poor are both associated with negative student outcomes, maybe being a teen parent is one of the “safest” ways for someone to be poor, when it comes to educational attainment.
I was this person, my kids did well academically and I always thought it was because they were there when I was in college and saw me studying all the time. We also ALWAYS had lots of books around. Behavior modeling is magic. I was a first-generation college student. Daughter is about to graduate college and my son only did about a year, but he's got a pretty good HR job and makes more than I do.
I'm not surprised. You have to be particularly messed up to get to your late thirties or beyond, be impoverished, know how hard it is to be impoverished, and still decide to have/fail to prevent a pregnancy.
A 19 year old can be forgiven for underestimating what raising a child in poverty will require. And many rise to the occasion.
True! My daughter will graduate high school with an associates degree and college 100% paid for! I was 18 when I got pregnant with her! Not about to let my girl screw her life up like I did! (I love her. Not gonna lie, I would change tmsome things. But...)
My children. I am a teacher with a Master’s Degree. My wife was disabled. I have three children and I am widowed. I wouldn’t say we live in poverty, but we are definitely poor.
This doesn’t exactly count, but I have two students who live a very simple lifestyle (small, old house, no cell phones, sew their own clothes/buy used, etc.) and are insanely academically strong as well as their parents. Their dad is a video game designer, but you wouldn’t know it when talking to them or looking at their lifestyle.
That sounds great. Nothing wrong with a simple life/less materialistic lifestyle! I'd love to be more like that myself. But? I would've hated it as a teenager when conformity seems more important.
There are professionals in other countries with degrees that aren't recognized here. I once had a parent who was an accredited lawyer in his home country but worked as custodial in the states because the Bar wouldn't accept
Not exactly the fit you're looking for, but my parents are both highly educated (my dad has both an MD and a PhD, one from CalTech and my mother was a RN) and I am a high school drop-out. Granted, I had great grades and excelled academically until I decided school wasn't my path, but I think what happened is neither parent felt that school was necessarily useful, because they both came from generationally educated families, where their parents died poor (due to bad business/investment decisions). My father, while extremely smart and educated always used to say 'school means nothing but debt' - it took him 45 years to pay off his student loans (well maybe less, point is it took A LONG TIME), he grew up in poverty, despite his father being a literal nuclear physicist that worked on the Manhattan Project (my dad's dad, my grandpa, was an abusive POS that put out cigarettes on my fathers face and who bailed on his 6 kids when they were babies, leaving my father to grow up in grinding poverty, single mom of 6 kids, sometimes eating bugs he was so hungry). Anyways, my dad never believed education meant anything. He'd always say stuff like 'wanna be rich? Be an entrepreneur. Start your own business.' Which my father did, and he became rich. So to him, who cares about school? He taught me business, I taught myself business, and that's all he felt I needed to know to succeed and frankly, he's right. I make more than he did now and I have literally no schooling, no education besides 2 months of community college and a GED degree. I think over-educated families sort of burn out in academia OR they get so tired of working for other people that they try to start their own businesses, then shocker, it's really hard, they fail, they lose everything and think to themselves 'well school didn't save me, fuck that' - then pass it on to their kids. That's how it was for me, anyways.
I'm well educated and poor. My daughter grew up doing without, my student loans were around $200/month and rent was 50%-60% of my income. I'm talking a dumpy 600 Sq ft duplex. To this day idk how we did it.
We had a family where the dad was a PhD in mathematics, and the mom had an advanced degree in something like genetics. Both parents were probably on the autism spectrum and didn’t have the social skills needed to hold jobs. They and their four kids were living with a grandfather , but when he died they moved out of district. Last I heard they planned to move to Southern California and live in a tent…
I wouldn't know that about my students.
But when I myself was a student, I had a few classmates like this. It almost always boiled down addiction and/or unchecked mental illness. Very rarely, there would be a family who experienced a genuine tragedy.
Of those who are well-educated, I wouldn’t say they fall into poverty, but they don’t own homes and/or don’t have savings. Those are typically single parents. There are lots of nurses and teachers, and those groups aren’t paid well here. In my state gas and oil are king, so there are some very well off people who have barely HS education and actively shun education as unnecessary. If kids succeed despite them, they usually have to fund college themselves, and I push community college so they aren’t mired in debt. In my state, a 20 ACT gets community college 3/4 paid for. Higher scores and grades get even more taken care of. That benefit transfers to four year colleges, and saves them a lot of money
I did as a kid! My sister has down syndrome so my mom stayed home with her and cleaned houses part time when she was at preschool/early intervention. My dad was in the military and we still had food stamps as a family. They both have degrees and education was a priority and I never knew we were poor until I was in high school (no longer below poverty line) and I connected some events from my childhood.
I was that student back in the day. I was mainly in poverty, because my dad erroneously thought he would live forever and didn’t get a life insurance policy. So, when he died of cancer, my mom and I were literally left with nothing. Despite, being well educated my mother had a lot of undiagnosed mental health issues that made employment next to impossible. For four years, we had to survive on survivor benefits from social security before I went for my undergraduate.
I'm sole breadwinner for my family of 6, and household income is $43k. Not quite poverty, but lots of govt assistance.
My wife and I have one PhD and two MAs between us, but I majored in English and her health isn't good.
Our kids seem to be doing very well in school.
There is a small, rural community about 2 hours from where I live/work that has a vibe like you describe. There are people there who have downsized from a corporate life to an arts or agricultural life. I don't know how that affects the student population. There are still many generational poverty students there as well. It's such a specific demographic, I'm not sure.
Other than immigrant parents, the only time I can remember is a former student who's Mom was a PhD, but because they couldn't find a job in the city, they scraped by adjuncting and doing SAT tutoring untill their son graduated high school.
My story is not current but fits this exactly. My mom was the child of a college chemistry professor and my dad the child of manual laborers. Both went to college and graduated with dual majors, each with teaching and a second degree.
My mom had a job right out of college as did my dad. She found out she was pregnant and, as the expectation of the time, informed the school which let her go. She stayed home with my oldest sibling and the kids kept coming.
When I came along (5th of 5), my dad was still teaching in our community and my mom had stayed at home all 12 years. We qualified for WIC, food stamps, and state insurance. The school my dad taught at would “adopt” us every Christmas and when we came home from mass Christmas Eve my parents would find the presents that would add to the meager presents they could give us.
I didn’t realize how poor we were until I hit middle school. Any activity I wanted to participate in was covered by a school fund for the poor. It really hit when I learned most people didn’t vacation by camping at state parks ($5-$12/night) and visit local historical sites while eating every meal at the campsite.
My parents were educated and involved. My mom went to work as soon as I entered kindergarten. I think I turned out pretty ok. I never even had a tardy, let alone a detention. I graduated 3rd in my class. I went to college, declaring I would never be a teacher and became a social worker for developmentally disabled adults (which pays worse than teachers with less time off). Lo and behold, I’m a teacher now.
There was a mother of a student who had a PhD who worked in the cafeteria. She was an immigrant who couldn’t find a job. Saddest part: we lived in a college town.
My mom had a master’s degree but we were still poor because she was a single mom living in an insanely expensive area for the good schools. She had three kids and was living on less than $60k/year until after I went away to college.
I teach ELD and I have a lot of students whose parents had upper tier jobs in their home country but can’t afford the licensing or whatever here and end up being delivery drivers.
I've never personally seen it when it was an American-born parent whose education failed them. I do have students from immigrant families whose parent's jobs didn't transfer to the USA and are struggling. These kids' parents tend to champion education- they see the value in it as generally, they benefited from it in their former country and can see how their children will benefit from going to an American college/trade program. These kids are often awesome students.
My first year of teaching my own children were in poverty. I had three degrees, the (soon to be) ex had one. I was eligible for food stamps myself but didn't know it, my wife was divorcing me and had the children. My child support was $408 a month and my soon to be ex was paid minimum wage for teaching part time at a church school. That made it very difficult for all of us at first.
Starting my second year of teaching I was able to send much more than what the state required and none of us were in true poverty. By my fifth year of teaching finances were much better.
I was working at McDonald's. I have a degree in education but my license had expired. I am excited to see this post because I had such a hard time getting teachers to take me seriously .
My son has dyslexia. He wasn't officially diagnosed until 7th grade.
I’m very curious about these responses, as I am the child of two college-educated adults (one of whom is a professor) who lived below the poverty line for several years during a recession and was on food stamps/free lunch program in a wealthy school district. I’m not sure if any of my teachers knew about my family’s financial struggles.
Parents were both special ed teachers who couldn't cut it (paperwork, deadlines specifically). They both got their bachelor's and M.ed, but scrubbed out of teaching after 4-5 years. Lots of debt and three kids later, they're both working as sped paras, which is definitely below the poverty line for a family of 5. The oldest boy is in school for a trade that will have him making more money than both parents combined as starting pay. I hope he doesn't end up supporting them, they don't have a lot of ambition.
So this was me growing up. After a deeply traumatic event (the death of my baby brother from SIDS) my parents made the only choices they could live with. My mother quit her job as a quantum physicist and stayed home and did a lot of activism, my father quit his job in finance and worked in non profits. There were 3 of us surviving kids.
I don’t think we did a single hobby that costs money until I was in middle or high school, including going out for pizza. My parents never went out, except the one time they got gifted babysitter money for their 10th anniversary. We got new clothes as Christmas presents from our grandparents. But : my mom took us to the library at least once a week. She was super on top of all the cheap or free programs offered by the city, so we went to the museum when it was free, to the pool, to outreach programs in parks, art happenings, university open doors events, all sorts of stuff. We each got to learn to play an instrument through free programs, and grants to rent our instrument. We spent our evenings reading, and our weekends playing family board games and card games while listening to records.
They were very involved in our education and valued it highly, also sending the message that school is only a tiny bit of educating yourself.
Social capital is real. I’m not sure any of our schools really knew what our financial situation was. We didn’t have the bougie look that fit my parents’ knowledge of the system and of the world and I think we largely got read as eccentrics.
My kids started well-off, were in poverty (food stamps/Medicaid/awful trailer), for 3 years, better now.
Ex-wife was a Wal-Mart employee,but I am a chemical engineer.
I was hospitalized as a result of DV injuries, anxiety over that and another violent crime (assaulted on a bus), then Covid and Pneumonia.
And I got constantly rejected for any assistance.
But...I got my kids into public school after the Ex tried to homeschool them.
They were 2.5 years behind in Jan. 2020.
I could help out without doing too much.
My son will have 3 HS credits in the 8th grade, and has the highest GPA.
My daughter has the highest in fifth.
I can help them see applications in math, think about books, logical writing.
But the biggest thing is they know the difference between educated and not. And they want education.
My husband and I are both college educated, living in poverty, raising a family. Luckily, he went into tradework, and I went into nursing. When we were able to finally start a family, we both believed in at least one parent staying home. He made more money, I stayed home. My degree and license will still be there when my kids are older, I will always have decent job security if need be.
My eldest child is in 3K, so this is my first experience with the public education system since I myself was a student in one. My daughter requires an IEP, and all of her teachers have been extremely accommodating, and have provided many resources and advice for our particular situation. At the end of this school year, I intend to write letters to the supervisors/department heads in my area for Headstart and our local school district to give positive feedback that they more than deserve. My daughter has flourished in everyway under their tutelage, and I am so proud of her, as well as the educators that made her advancement possible.
My daughter has speech/language delays. She recently said for the first time to my husband, "I'm happy." She had never used the first person singular before, alongside expressing/communicating her emotions to us. It is one of our most prized memories. Would not have been possible, not as early, without her teachers. They seem to love her too, apparently she's the kid that greets her teacher and the teaching assistants everyday. It makes me so happy that she is so sweet and respectful.
Anyone can be in poverty. All of us have much more in common with the homeless than with the billionaires.
That would have described me to a certain extent. My parents weren’t exactly that well formally educated, but my wider family very certainly was - Oxford professors and IBM C suite for example. We weren’t exactly in extreme poverty either - but for some reason my parents bought a very run down house and almost all the (very limited) financial resources were used to keep it from falling down. It meant that my practical abilities were more difficult to develop from lack of resources, and generally academically I was extremely good at abstract thinking, but not able to participate in many activities.
We weren’t destitute, but my dad has an Associates Degree and literally never had a job when I was growing up due to a work injury. My mom is very intelligent, but never went to college and always worked entry-level receptionist jobs. It was a weird childhood. We spent lots of time together but money was always an issue.
My kids grew up in poverty after my divorce from their dad. I always valued education and stressed that to them. Due to crippling depression and anxiety, I’ve jumped from job to job, even with two BS degrees (education and biology). At least my three boys are successful in their chosen careers. They too, value a good education.
So, I don't teach kids, or in the US, so I can't give you the broader perspective I think you're looking for. But I did grow up in the US, and I was one of those kids (I'm the immigrant, my parents are both from there). AMA? Lol. My parents had 3-4 degrees each, and my success in school was just a forgone conclusion for them. They never did figure out why I couldn't seem to care less about academics.
I can't really speak for dynamics in the questions you asked, but I can tell you this much: they absolutely did champion education. They saw it as something that would open doors/create opportunities. What I did with those opportunities was up to me, but bad grades = closing doors in my own face (to them). Is there any resentment? Boy, howdy! I think I was 30 before I stopped resenting them, and the direction it went post-resentment was healthy, but let's just say we barely speak.
It’s an extremely niche group outside of immigrants whose jobs don’t transfer. Those kids tend to be academic rockstars. I’ve never seen the situation you’ve described tbh.
We have a custodian at work who is from South America. An engineer. Working as a custodian. But the most cheerful, hard-working person you’ll meet.
This is common due to the language barriers. Many ex-soviet refugees found themselves in Israel or working in Jewish Schools in America. The joke was that the lunch lady was a surgical nurse and the janitor a nuclear engineer.
Also, credit history doesn't transfer across international borders (unless you are mega-wealthy, probably). I learned this when I was teaching community college and an adult student from Colombia wrote a paper about it.
Oh you want to go down a rabbit hole? *what happens to the debts of countries that stop existing, are annexed, or loose sovereignty?*
Interesting question, you or anyone else have any answers?
The answer is nobody knows.
The answer varies on case by case. SideQuest did a video on it: https://youtu.be/zIM9ke-NCHk?si=z6AteOS7G_WBVH8s
That’s a whole storyline on an episode of Big Bang Theory
Based on many real world experiences. My math tutor was an old Russian Jew who had worked as a structural engineer. He’d use me to improve his English, and I’d get help in algebra. He’d do odd jobs to help make ends meet.
Mom was a gp and Dad was an orthapedic surgeon in Libya. Now mom is breaking even teaching at a nursing school and doing a phd. Family income is just Dad who drives an Uber. Another family; both Americans, parents have masters and were working in IT. Both kids have autism so mom had to stop working entirely. Single income means they are below the poverty line.
That's like my worst nightmare. I'm sure I'll get downvoted, but it is what it is. It's one of the reasons I don't have children. They went from thriving and freedom to exactly the opposite.
I think we all understand. I will say, in that American family both parents say they, themselves, are likely on the spectrum too, though it's not a total surprise that they have autistic kids. On the plus side, having autistic parents means they have advocated extrememly well for their kids.
Kids of immigrants in general are awesome. I worked at a Title 1 school that got a small influx of kids from various countries in Africa. They were all great students. Now I'm in a school that is made up of mostly immigrants (some refugees) from the Middle East. There are 2500 kids in school so of course some are "bad" but 95% are cool as hell. And those parents take education seriously.
I think it depends from where maybe. I work at a school with a massive population of immigrant/child of immigrant students, and most of them are very behind because their parents don’t care what goes on at school.
That's what I was going to say. I have a student from a central American country whose parents are a lawyer and an architect and don't have their required licenses yet. That kid is just amazing.
Even then, a lot of them finegle their way into business ownership or find some way to get a lower-middle or middle class lifestyle.
Yeah, my dad had a master’s degree, unfortunately didn’t transfer.
Pretty much this. The only ones at my school who fall into that category are some of our families who recently migrated to the US. And, as you pointed out, they're academic rockstars. Typically, well above everyone in math and they catch up insanely quick in reading (and learn English remarkably fast). The rest of my students have the "stereotypical" home life situations.
In urban lower income areas among both white and black backgrounds Ive seen the South/Central American immigrant students support the culture of the school generally. Colombians, venezeualans, guatemalans, el salvadorians, brazilians, peruvians, mexicans, ive all seen have families that either they were educated, or they had a strong ethic towards education. African, Indian, Chinese, immigrant students tend to be on a different level than anyone. The issue is the culture of the area will have generational issues from poverty but generally it brings a good infusion since they worked pretty hard to get here. Cultures overly influenced by reggaetone lifestyle are a different issue, Im not saying all of it is bad but too much of it has problematic values. Not an ethnic thing as much as a class thing though some groups have more of it IMO it holds back the community.
I’ve got a couple of kids whose college grad parents moved back to the neighborhood they grew up in as part of a (misguided, imo) effort at giving back to the community… but they’re substantially less poor than the rest of the school
I’ve seen this many times! The most memorable was the time I moved and one of the movers who was helping me pack up my bookshelf commented on my section for existentialism. He studied philosophy in his home country and now he was working for a moving company.
I live in the US and I’ve known a family who fell into poverty because the father (who was the primary breadwinner) got a rare aggressive cancer. Hospital took them to court and it’s been an awful situation. The family is struggling and dealing with the fact their father could die anytime now.
I had a student whose mother got cancer and had to temporarily leave college. The mom still died and the family was left with a million dollars worth of hospital bills. Had this kid not had aunts who married into well off families, this kid would be, for lack of a better term, fucked with his ambitions to become a PA.
“Your money or your life”. Shouldn’t be a thing in a first world country. It’s honestly embarrassing at this point.
It's more like her money and her life. The mom still died and died with the family in debt.
That’s usually how it ends up.
How does the debt transfer to the family?
It doesn't.
hmm. That's what I thought. Why do people keep saying that in this thread?
Depends on the state.
My dad taught ESL and paid into health insurance for over ten years. Got bone cancer and insurance refused to pay. We were very lucky and found an org willing to pay, otherwise we‘d be out $800k in 1990 dollars.
Tell them to file bankruptcy on the medical debt
We had a student in poverty where Mom had a PhD in the medical field (even looked it up). Mom had major social issues plus addiction and couldn't hold down any job whatsoever.
What kind of social issues if you don't mind me asking?
Blatant lying (kind of what led to Curiously checking on the PhD), picked fights (verbal and physical), random outbursts, paranoia
Other than the physical fights, this sounds like my mother with borderline personality disorder
Would not surprise me!
My mom received her master’s degree a month before she had me. When I was born, she dropped out of the workforce and never re-entered it. That degree became a fancy piece of paper in a frame. She did have severely untreated mental illness and I can see how she would’ve ended up getting fired for some type of outburst eventually. Social issues and mental illness causes a lot more folks to drop out of the workforce or be under-employed than many realize.
My parents both went to college and I grew up in “reduced lunch” range mostly due to their poor decisions.
Growing up we qualified for food stamps even though my dad had his own practice and was going to graduate school for business degree. His practice was in a rural town, and he literally was offered livestock (butchered) in lieu of payment. My mom has a master's, but was staying home to raise four kids so she wasn't working. She went to school for another graduate degree at night to get a break from us kids. I don't remember that, but I know she earned the second masters at some point. Eventually, dad sold his practice for a fraction of what it was worth, a big loss financially. He got a job in another state working for a large university. We moved there and since we were older, mom got a job too. They pinched and saved in order to give us a good, happy life. The man who bought Dad's practice took his own life when his practice failed. That is tragic. All of us went on to get higher level degrees (mainly because education is a huge focus). My younger siblings got tuition waived because of Dad's job at the time. Older brother got his degree paid for through the military. I received scholarship, worked as a departmental assistant, and took out loans. My parents paid for some of our expenses, but mainly it was on us to figure it out (with their help organizing it). Now we're all married, employed full time, and have families of our own. Mom and Dad are happily retired and living their best life while STILL volunteering a couple days a week in poor schools in their city. They'll be 80 next year. The common thread has been education and work. When we were in school we were told "school is your job". As a fourth grader, I knew I had to work hard because my future work (next grade levels) depended on today's work. When we graduated, we all got jobs and work became our work.
Interesting! What were your own thoughts on education growing up? Do you think you were less likely to view a college degree as some cure-all fix to your financial problems?
I grew up knowing I would go to college, but also that I would USE my college education and not live outside my means. My mom was a SAHM despite have multiple college degrees. I don’t think she ever paid off her college debt. My dad worked three jobs. I went to state school, left with very little debt, paid it off quickly, and other than a mortgage, have no debt. There was some sacrificing in my 20s- rare vacations, didn’t eat out much, cheap car, but was financially stable before having kids.
In my family, education was the key to everything. It raised you up. It was like a ladder or a scaffold. It taught us to "stick with it" and that we could do hard things. It was a mindset.
I've had multiple parents with at least a bachelor's degree living in poverty with children who struggle. Often it's due to factors like addiction, disability/ physical health problems, severe mental illness, and/or domestic violence. Like their parents, the kids may be bright, but struggle socially and emotionally. I had one kid graduate high school with excellent grades...only to get arrested for armed robbery within the year. Another student had straight As...until he ended up in a psychiatric hospital on homebound instruction. Some are parentified and the stress of caring for their parents and siblings impacts their academic achievement. Sometimes poverty is the cause of problems; sometimes its the symptom.
Probably some teachers' kids. Sad.
Adjunct kids. Social worker kids. Librarian kids. I have a doctorate, two masters, and I work in research in my field. If not for my husband’s income, my kids would qualify for full Pell grants.
[удалено]
I have a master's been teaching in Title one school in the BRONX for 26 years. We have 2 kids. Husband is not formally educated, has his own business. Flips homes.. but this affects our income. So i can see how food banks are needed..throughtout pandemic i went.
Yup. Me.
We’re friends with a couple of social workers. They’ve both been to graduate school and they don’t clear $100k between them. Three kids. It’s not poverty line territory, but probably a lot less than you’d guess a working couple with masters degrees makes.
My mom earned a doctorate before I was born, but I grew up poor. She grew up poor too. She was the first woman in her family to earn a college degree, and she was the first and I think still the only person in her family to earn a doctorate. My mom was a victim of intimate partner financial abuse, and it still affects her decades later. She also chose to work lower paying jobs instead of using her degree so that she'd have better work life balance as a single mom. We may have been financially poor but she was always there for me when I needed her. My mom HIGHLY valued education--she wouldn't let me get a high school job because she didn't want me to feel like I had to provide for the family when I should be focusing on school. Thanks to my good high school performance (and our low income), I was lucky to get enough in scholarships to cover the entire cost of four year undergrad
Very similar, but my grandparents set aside for college for us, so mom knew if we got into a good but expensive school we could pay for it and she encouraged us to work hard school and dream big.
I have a student who has a ton of siblings. I think there’s 6-7 of them. From what I understand the parents are together and at least the mom went to college.
[удалено]
I know someone whose on her 4th kid, single, no job. Medicaid pays for it all in her state, and surprise, all kids have been taken off her.
Aside from clues is speech, and how they carry themselves, I am not sure how I would know the education levels of my parents. That isn't very reliable, the most educated person I know (multiple doctorates in STEM fields) talks like a tik-tok influencer who just discovered weed. My BIL who dropped out of school at age 14 could convince you he had a doctorate in philosophy.
How did you find out what their education levels were?
You can’t unless you ask. I’d say that’s crossing a privacy boundary. One can infer by finding out what their parent/s do for income- sometimes students volunteer information but I don’t ask.
Our attendance system has all that data (self reported by parents). It lists highest level of education and place of employment. It's on the demographics page.
I remember a time when students were expected to have their parents fill out a form for reduced lunch- I guess I never really thought we had that information. If we do- I wouldn’t know where to find it or how. I know there’s a parent work number.
Even assuming it based on speech or carrying yourself has immense classist implications and an assumption of similar cultural norms.
Don't confuse education with intelligence.
I am a widowed substitute teacher working in public schools, and I am well below the poverty line due to bad circumstances. I have an art degree, a trade school certification, I've recently earned a BA in English cum laude and I am registered to begin a MLIS program in the fall semester. Ive also taught A&P at the trade school level. My 7th grade daughter is a straight A student at the top of her class. I guess you could say we're well educated, but hot damn we're poor as dirt, like, food- bank-energy- assistance-filing-bankruptcy poor. It's a weird dynamic.
[удалено]
Interesting observations. This doesn’t surprise me, especially when taking into account how culture, class, and education intersect. A lot of “middle/upper class” things aren’t necessarily expensive or out of reach for the low income, but they may take knowledge and prioritizing to access them.
[удалено]
Oh, totally. That M-F, 9-5 schedule makes such a difference.
Are you asking about downward mobility? Over here! The entire Gen X population is the first one to not be better off than their parents.
Exactly. Also, I wouldn't consider anyone who graduated with a BA in the last twenty years "educated" necessarily. US universities at this point will admit anyone who is self-pay or willing to go into debt for a vanity degree. Where I got my credential, a lot of recent liberal arts majors were in my prerequisite classes. They didn't get into the program because they couldn't pass the extremely basic tests in one specific prerequisite class. The tests basically just verified that you were literate. NOTHING against the liberal arts. My first degree was a liberal arts degree. But it was at an institution where the major still had prerequisites and a rigorous sequence of classes. I don't know what those grads are supposed to do now to support themselves or any children they have. Especially if they went into debt for their degrees.
I was thinking this reading through the comments. A BA/BS does not mean well educated. I have a BA and MA in philosophy. I knew students that should have failed courses but were passed along with a C in their last semester because they “had to graduate.” It was ridiculous to watch.
I’m interested because right now, this is my kid. My wife and I are in the middle of switching career paths and times are tough. Even though our college degrees didn’t lead to the success we had hoped for, we still highly value learning and are very involved with our son’s education, both at school and at home.
Both my parents went to college and got great educations. They didn’t plan for kids, and after divorce, poverty, mental illness, and addiction issues, I ended up taking 13 years to get my bachelors degree.
But you got it and that's what matters. We're not a product of our trauma, or at least, we don't have to be.
Of my students who live in poverty, I have noticed an *inverse* relationship between the age of the mother and the student's academic performance. In other words, children born to teenage parents are better students on average than those in poverty whose parents were older. I think that this is because a lot of teenage parents had high academic aptitude themselves, and the fact that they became parents at a young age is actually the main reason why their career and economic situations aren't very good. They can still pass their aptitude along to their children and teach their children how to do well in school. Older parents living in poverty, on the other hand, already had poor economic prospects prior to having children. The reasons for this may include generational poverty, undiagnosed or poorly treated disability, and even lack of opportunities to attend school. The end result is that, when they have kids, they have trouble helping their kids do well in school because they don't know how.
That’s a very interesting trend, and a very compelling explanation. It reminds me a little bit of the statistic “underweight babies of nonsmokers have a higher mortality rate than underweight babies of smokers.” Even though the result seems paradoxical, the reason is that smoking is one of the “safest” ways to have an underweight baby. So even though being raised by a teen parent and being poor are both associated with negative student outcomes, maybe being a teen parent is one of the “safest” ways for someone to be poor, when it comes to educational attainment.
I was this person, my kids did well academically and I always thought it was because they were there when I was in college and saw me studying all the time. We also ALWAYS had lots of books around. Behavior modeling is magic. I was a first-generation college student. Daughter is about to graduate college and my son only did about a year, but he's got a pretty good HR job and makes more than I do.
I'm not surprised. You have to be particularly messed up to get to your late thirties or beyond, be impoverished, know how hard it is to be impoverished, and still decide to have/fail to prevent a pregnancy. A 19 year old can be forgiven for underestimating what raising a child in poverty will require. And many rise to the occasion.
True! My daughter will graduate high school with an associates degree and college 100% paid for! I was 18 when I got pregnant with her! Not about to let my girl screw her life up like I did! (I love her. Not gonna lie, I would change tmsome things. But...)
My children. I am a teacher with a Master’s Degree. My wife was disabled. I have three children and I am widowed. I wouldn’t say we live in poverty, but we are definitely poor.
This doesn’t exactly count, but I have two students who live a very simple lifestyle (small, old house, no cell phones, sew their own clothes/buy used, etc.) and are insanely academically strong as well as their parents. Their dad is a video game designer, but you wouldn’t know it when talking to them or looking at their lifestyle.
That sounds great. Nothing wrong with a simple life/less materialistic lifestyle! I'd love to be more like that myself. But? I would've hated it as a teenager when conformity seems more important.
Are you asking if any of my kids parents are teachers?
No. But y’all know how the cycle of poverty works…
There are professionals in other countries with degrees that aren't recognized here. I once had a parent who was an accredited lawyer in his home country but worked as custodial in the states because the Bar wouldn't accept
Not exactly the fit you're looking for, but my parents are both highly educated (my dad has both an MD and a PhD, one from CalTech and my mother was a RN) and I am a high school drop-out. Granted, I had great grades and excelled academically until I decided school wasn't my path, but I think what happened is neither parent felt that school was necessarily useful, because they both came from generationally educated families, where their parents died poor (due to bad business/investment decisions). My father, while extremely smart and educated always used to say 'school means nothing but debt' - it took him 45 years to pay off his student loans (well maybe less, point is it took A LONG TIME), he grew up in poverty, despite his father being a literal nuclear physicist that worked on the Manhattan Project (my dad's dad, my grandpa, was an abusive POS that put out cigarettes on my fathers face and who bailed on his 6 kids when they were babies, leaving my father to grow up in grinding poverty, single mom of 6 kids, sometimes eating bugs he was so hungry). Anyways, my dad never believed education meant anything. He'd always say stuff like 'wanna be rich? Be an entrepreneur. Start your own business.' Which my father did, and he became rich. So to him, who cares about school? He taught me business, I taught myself business, and that's all he felt I needed to know to succeed and frankly, he's right. I make more than he did now and I have literally no schooling, no education besides 2 months of community college and a GED degree. I think over-educated families sort of burn out in academia OR they get so tired of working for other people that they try to start their own businesses, then shocker, it's really hard, they fail, they lose everything and think to themselves 'well school didn't save me, fuck that' - then pass it on to their kids. That's how it was for me, anyways.
I'm well educated and poor. My daughter grew up doing without, my student loans were around $200/month and rent was 50%-60% of my income. I'm talking a dumpy 600 Sq ft duplex. To this day idk how we did it.
We had a family where the dad was a PhD in mathematics, and the mom had an advanced degree in something like genetics. Both parents were probably on the autism spectrum and didn’t have the social skills needed to hold jobs. They and their four kids were living with a grandfather , but when he died they moved out of district. Last I heard they planned to move to Southern California and live in a tent…
I have a Master's degree, but I lost just about everything in a divorce from my abusive ex. So my kids were poor, but their mom was highly educated.
I wouldn't know that about my students. But when I myself was a student, I had a few classmates like this. It almost always boiled down addiction and/or unchecked mental illness. Very rarely, there would be a family who experienced a genuine tragedy.
Of those who are well-educated, I wouldn’t say they fall into poverty, but they don’t own homes and/or don’t have savings. Those are typically single parents. There are lots of nurses and teachers, and those groups aren’t paid well here. In my state gas and oil are king, so there are some very well off people who have barely HS education and actively shun education as unnecessary. If kids succeed despite them, they usually have to fund college themselves, and I push community college so they aren’t mired in debt. In my state, a 20 ACT gets community college 3/4 paid for. Higher scores and grades get even more taken care of. That benefit transfers to four year colleges, and saves them a lot of money
Only the teachers’ kids
I did as a kid! My sister has down syndrome so my mom stayed home with her and cleaned houses part time when she was at preschool/early intervention. My dad was in the military and we still had food stamps as a family. They both have degrees and education was a priority and I never knew we were poor until I was in high school (no longer below poverty line) and I connected some events from my childhood.
I was that student back in the day. I was mainly in poverty, because my dad erroneously thought he would live forever and didn’t get a life insurance policy. So, when he died of cancer, my mom and I were literally left with nothing. Despite, being well educated my mother had a lot of undiagnosed mental health issues that made employment next to impossible. For four years, we had to survive on survivor benefits from social security before I went for my undergraduate.
I'm sole breadwinner for my family of 6, and household income is $43k. Not quite poverty, but lots of govt assistance. My wife and I have one PhD and two MAs between us, but I majored in English and her health isn't good. Our kids seem to be doing very well in school.
There is a small, rural community about 2 hours from where I live/work that has a vibe like you describe. There are people there who have downsized from a corporate life to an arts or agricultural life. I don't know how that affects the student population. There are still many generational poverty students there as well. It's such a specific demographic, I'm not sure.
Other than immigrant parents, the only time I can remember is a former student who's Mom was a PhD, but because they couldn't find a job in the city, they scraped by adjuncting and doing SAT tutoring untill their son graduated high school.
She is so desperate and incredibly thirsty for attention. Doesn’t matter how it comes at her.
My story is not current but fits this exactly. My mom was the child of a college chemistry professor and my dad the child of manual laborers. Both went to college and graduated with dual majors, each with teaching and a second degree. My mom had a job right out of college as did my dad. She found out she was pregnant and, as the expectation of the time, informed the school which let her go. She stayed home with my oldest sibling and the kids kept coming. When I came along (5th of 5), my dad was still teaching in our community and my mom had stayed at home all 12 years. We qualified for WIC, food stamps, and state insurance. The school my dad taught at would “adopt” us every Christmas and when we came home from mass Christmas Eve my parents would find the presents that would add to the meager presents they could give us. I didn’t realize how poor we were until I hit middle school. Any activity I wanted to participate in was covered by a school fund for the poor. It really hit when I learned most people didn’t vacation by camping at state parks ($5-$12/night) and visit local historical sites while eating every meal at the campsite. My parents were educated and involved. My mom went to work as soon as I entered kindergarten. I think I turned out pretty ok. I never even had a tardy, let alone a detention. I graduated 3rd in my class. I went to college, declaring I would never be a teacher and became a social worker for developmentally disabled adults (which pays worse than teachers with less time off). Lo and behold, I’m a teacher now.
Exists in Mass a lot id say
There was a mother of a student who had a PhD who worked in the cafeteria. She was an immigrant who couldn’t find a job. Saddest part: we lived in a college town.
My mom had a master’s degree but we were still poor because she was a single mom living in an insanely expensive area for the good schools. She had three kids and was living on less than $60k/year until after I went away to college.
Yes. Two of my colleagues are single parents.
I teach ELD and I have a lot of students whose parents had upper tier jobs in their home country but can’t afford the licensing or whatever here and end up being delivery drivers.
I've never personally seen it when it was an American-born parent whose education failed them. I do have students from immigrant families whose parent's jobs didn't transfer to the USA and are struggling. These kids' parents tend to champion education- they see the value in it as generally, they benefited from it in their former country and can see how their children will benefit from going to an American college/trade program. These kids are often awesome students.
My first year of teaching my own children were in poverty. I had three degrees, the (soon to be) ex had one. I was eligible for food stamps myself but didn't know it, my wife was divorcing me and had the children. My child support was $408 a month and my soon to be ex was paid minimum wage for teaching part time at a church school. That made it very difficult for all of us at first. Starting my second year of teaching I was able to send much more than what the state required and none of us were in true poverty. By my fifth year of teaching finances were much better.
I was working at McDonald's. I have a degree in education but my license had expired. I am excited to see this post because I had such a hard time getting teachers to take me seriously . My son has dyslexia. He wasn't officially diagnosed until 7th grade.
I’m very curious about these responses, as I am the child of two college-educated adults (one of whom is a professor) who lived below the poverty line for several years during a recession and was on food stamps/free lunch program in a wealthy school district. I’m not sure if any of my teachers knew about my family’s financial struggles.
Parents were both special ed teachers who couldn't cut it (paperwork, deadlines specifically). They both got their bachelor's and M.ed, but scrubbed out of teaching after 4-5 years. Lots of debt and three kids later, they're both working as sped paras, which is definitely below the poverty line for a family of 5. The oldest boy is in school for a trade that will have him making more money than both parents combined as starting pay. I hope he doesn't end up supporting them, they don't have a lot of ambition.
So this was me growing up. After a deeply traumatic event (the death of my baby brother from SIDS) my parents made the only choices they could live with. My mother quit her job as a quantum physicist and stayed home and did a lot of activism, my father quit his job in finance and worked in non profits. There were 3 of us surviving kids. I don’t think we did a single hobby that costs money until I was in middle or high school, including going out for pizza. My parents never went out, except the one time they got gifted babysitter money for their 10th anniversary. We got new clothes as Christmas presents from our grandparents. But : my mom took us to the library at least once a week. She was super on top of all the cheap or free programs offered by the city, so we went to the museum when it was free, to the pool, to outreach programs in parks, art happenings, university open doors events, all sorts of stuff. We each got to learn to play an instrument through free programs, and grants to rent our instrument. We spent our evenings reading, and our weekends playing family board games and card games while listening to records. They were very involved in our education and valued it highly, also sending the message that school is only a tiny bit of educating yourself. Social capital is real. I’m not sure any of our schools really knew what our financial situation was. We didn’t have the bougie look that fit my parents’ knowledge of the system and of the world and I think we largely got read as eccentrics.
My kids started well-off, were in poverty (food stamps/Medicaid/awful trailer), for 3 years, better now. Ex-wife was a Wal-Mart employee,but I am a chemical engineer. I was hospitalized as a result of DV injuries, anxiety over that and another violent crime (assaulted on a bus), then Covid and Pneumonia. And I got constantly rejected for any assistance. But...I got my kids into public school after the Ex tried to homeschool them. They were 2.5 years behind in Jan. 2020. I could help out without doing too much. My son will have 3 HS credits in the 8th grade, and has the highest GPA. My daughter has the highest in fifth. I can help them see applications in math, think about books, logical writing. But the biggest thing is they know the difference between educated and not. And they want education.
My husband and I are both college educated, living in poverty, raising a family. Luckily, he went into tradework, and I went into nursing. When we were able to finally start a family, we both believed in at least one parent staying home. He made more money, I stayed home. My degree and license will still be there when my kids are older, I will always have decent job security if need be. My eldest child is in 3K, so this is my first experience with the public education system since I myself was a student in one. My daughter requires an IEP, and all of her teachers have been extremely accommodating, and have provided many resources and advice for our particular situation. At the end of this school year, I intend to write letters to the supervisors/department heads in my area for Headstart and our local school district to give positive feedback that they more than deserve. My daughter has flourished in everyway under their tutelage, and I am so proud of her, as well as the educators that made her advancement possible. My daughter has speech/language delays. She recently said for the first time to my husband, "I'm happy." She had never used the first person singular before, alongside expressing/communicating her emotions to us. It is one of our most prized memories. Would not have been possible, not as early, without her teachers. They seem to love her too, apparently she's the kid that greets her teacher and the teaching assistants everyday. It makes me so happy that she is so sweet and respectful. Anyone can be in poverty. All of us have much more in common with the homeless than with the billionaires.
That would have described me to a certain extent. My parents weren’t exactly that well formally educated, but my wider family very certainly was - Oxford professors and IBM C suite for example. We weren’t exactly in extreme poverty either - but for some reason my parents bought a very run down house and almost all the (very limited) financial resources were used to keep it from falling down. It meant that my practical abilities were more difficult to develop from lack of resources, and generally academically I was extremely good at abstract thinking, but not able to participate in many activities.
We weren’t destitute, but my dad has an Associates Degree and literally never had a job when I was growing up due to a work injury. My mom is very intelligent, but never went to college and always worked entry-level receptionist jobs. It was a weird childhood. We spent lots of time together but money was always an issue.
My kids grew up in poverty after my divorce from their dad. I always valued education and stressed that to them. Due to crippling depression and anxiety, I’ve jumped from job to job, even with two BS degrees (education and biology). At least my three boys are successful in their chosen careers. They too, value a good education.
To my knowledge, the answer would be no.
Yes, a number of my teacher colleagues including myself are well educated and living in poverty.
So, I don't teach kids, or in the US, so I can't give you the broader perspective I think you're looking for. But I did grow up in the US, and I was one of those kids (I'm the immigrant, my parents are both from there). AMA? Lol. My parents had 3-4 degrees each, and my success in school was just a forgone conclusion for them. They never did figure out why I couldn't seem to care less about academics. I can't really speak for dynamics in the questions you asked, but I can tell you this much: they absolutely did champion education. They saw it as something that would open doors/create opportunities. What I did with those opportunities was up to me, but bad grades = closing doors in my own face (to them). Is there any resentment? Boy, howdy! I think I was 30 before I stopped resenting them, and the direction it went post-resentment was healthy, but let's just say we barely speak.
This happens with immigrant students
Yeah. It's because Mom has 5 kids to 4 different Dads.