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HOW TO MANAGE SERVING STUDENTS OF GENERATIONAL POVERTY

Kris Baughman and Rebecca Marcum Parker

Serving students of generational poverty as a school librarian is rewarding as well as challenging, especially during a recession. In addition to giving students library and information technology skills, you can teach them many of the societal norms other students are already equipped with when they come to school. School and reading may not be a priority at home if paying the gas bill and keeping food on the table are daily concerns for parents.

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT

Students from a generational poverty background need clear expectations, examples of excellence, and consistent structure. At the beginning of each school year, and if your population is transient at the beginning of the second semester, review your expectations. Have them posted clearly in the library, and word them in a positive way. Be sure to follow them yourself. It is important to talk to students in the voice of an equal—many of them may be running households and raising siblings at home, and they are accustomed to having an adult role. Model expectations and praise students who exhibit positive behaviors. Explain that every place has rules, and that knowing those expectations is part of being successful. Create relationships with the students that show them you have an interest in them. This entices them to follow your lead. Use humor when possible—lessons and skills stick when laughter is part of the memory of learning them. Expect to have to teach and model even the most basic expectations. Teach students that they control what happens to them via good choices and otherwise. Here are examples of good expectations to post and use:

• “Respect others.” Explain that we must treat others as we want to be treated. I always address the students as “ladies” and “gentlemen” to create the expectation that they will behave well.
• “Listen carefully and follow the directions.” Explain that this means hearing and doing what you ask.
• “Ask questions when you don’t understand.” Be sure students know you are serious about this, because you need to find out if you should start a unit with more fundamental information.
• “Take care of all library materials, furniture, and equipment.” Give specific examples and model what this looks like.
• “Use a right-size, indoor voice.” Model this for the students; in many generational poverty homes volume equals power.

RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARENTS AND GUARDIANS

Adults in generational poverty situations are stretched in many different directions. During a recession, services and charitable funds are less available than in better times. Many parents may be working more than one job and may have limited time available to aid their children. Also, many adults in generational poverty did not have successful school careers and may be leery of talking to school staff. Consider these approaches and ideas:

• Help parents feel at ease. Gear your language choices to what will be easiest to understand, and listen carefully to responses in order to adjust, if necessary.
• If time permits, try to meet parents early in the year to establish the start of a positive relationship.
• Tell parents about your positive observations of their child first, especially if you have a concern.
• Use teamwork language, and reaffirm how much they have to offer in working with their child.
• If they feel that any particular challenge makes them less capable of helping their child, tell them of your own parenting challenges and concerns, if possible.

CHECKING OUT LIBRARY BOOKS

Generational poverty students may not have experienced the best library situations, since such students tend to be migratory and in environments that may not offer consistency. Consequently, these students may have had challenges in the past returning library books. The big lesson that helps students is learning to take responsibility for and communicating about mistakes.

• Have students and parents sign a library contract that covers book care and responsibility, including your library expectations. Write the contract using simple language in case a parent is challenged by reading. Offer translations, if necessary.
• Let students know that there is a solution to every problem. Tell them that situations resolve in a more positive way when they let you know about books lost during evictions, other transitions, or other problems. Do extensive role playing to show students how to communicate this way.
• Keep open lines of communications with classroom teachers so that you learn of challenges students are facing.
• Consider, if the budget permits, forgiving books lost due to circumstances beyond the student’s control, such as an eviction, or allowing students to donate a book to “pay for” a lost book. Tell students that you will forgive the book loss on the condition that, if they ever get the book back, they will return it to the library.
• Allow students with lost books to check out additional books on a “payment plan.” Any time a student with lost books wants to check a book out, ask that he or she pay at least fifty cents toward the lost book(s). If your budget allows, forgive the rest of the cost of the book at the end of the year if the student has made at least five payments, or a number you determine.
• Be willing to advocate at the public library for students with lost public library books, and offer public library book return services to students. Public libraries have become more flexible, and many forgive fines and work with families regarding lost books.

COLLECTION MANAGEMENT

Many libraries are underfunded, especially during a recession. In addition to the standard sources of funding, such as school moneys and book fair proceeds, consider these options:

• Shamelessly plead for donations of goods and services from merchants, especially bookstores. Widen your circle to include businesses outside of your school neighborhood or district; business persons in suburban areas often say they have not been approached by any school before. Most offer something and are happy to have the tax break from the donation. Anything you cannot use can be given to a classroom or offered as a student incentive.
• Ask how much businesses can donate instead asking if they will donate. Make them tell you no. Always be pleasant and appreciative.
• Try not to ever turn down a donation; if others are accustomed to you always accepting what they offer, they will think of offering to donate more often.
• If possible, buy from discount bookstores and garage sales. Ask for discounts or free items. I have often gone to garage sales in suburban areas where the sellers were happy to let a librarian or teacher collect items for free at the end of the sale.
• Constantly talk to family and friends about needs in your library. Ask them to connect you to others.
• Ask students to write letters asking for donations and thanking those who have donated. Establishing a personal connection with donors makes your needs tangible—they then have a child’s face to attach to the beneficiaries of their donations.

Preparing our students for a happy, productive adulthood is labor intensive, and school librarianship during a recession is a challenge. Be open to unconventional solutions. These students’ futures depend on your approach to managing your library effectively and creatively.