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“The Myth of the Culture of Poverty” While reading the article, “The Myth of the Culture of Poverty,” written by Paul Gorski, I tried to relate it back to Adelaide High School. Although I have only visited the school once, the article gave me ideas of what to look for in a school where poverty is sadly not uncommon. I believe the myth of the culture of poverty is very true. There are many people, who do believe that children, who are raised in ghettos where violence, gangs, and drug abuse is common, shouldn’t be given a nice school, highly qualified teachers, and a chance to get a good education.
I consider people feel this way because they think that the children are so used to poverty, that the children themselves don’t believe they’ll ever be able to “get out. ” While this may be true for a select few, I suppose that most students raised in poverty are crying to “get out. ” I wasn’t all that shocked when I saw some of the facts written in the article. I personally never believed that all poor people were lazy, drug users in gangs. I feel that many people who live in poverty, were normal, middle class.
Somewhere they came across hard times or hardships and were unfortunately unable to pull themselves out of it. I agree with Mr. Gorski that all people should educate themselves about class and poverty, reject the deficit theory and never assume that all people have the technology such as computers, and Internet. However, teachers especially, should make sure that class curriculum is taught under the impression that not everyone has the same resources. If we all understood each other, there wouldn’t be such negative stereotypes and these myths would never become realities.