In this chapter of the book Teaching with Poverty in Mind, the author try and see if there are any factors that actually do correlate with academic performance in elementary school all the way up to high school. One theory that the author looks at is with genes and DNA. The author explains that about 30-50 percent of DNA is being taken up by behavioral genetics, while the other portion is is made up with environmental factors at work. These environmental factors could be anything in the world from where one lives and grows up to the type of relationships that a person could have with people. To go along with this point, the author uses the mnemonic device EACH to explain the risks that children face when dealing with poverty. Individually, they stand for emotional and social challenges, acute and chronic stressors, cognitive lags, and health and safety issues. All together, EACH represents a unique problem with academic success and it is important to understand so that students in poverty could have a better chance at success.

This chapter provided useful information that could help me formulate theories of my own when it comes to graduation rate based on socioeconomic status. Poverty affects many students nationwide, but the educational system is having a hard time cooperating with these students to give them a better chance at succeeding. One fact that I noticed from this chapter is that the author stated that although understanding the concepts of EACH could help many students, it won’t help all students. The author points out that not all children in poverty experience the same behavioral changes, so educators need to be creative in trying to understand these kids and the lives that they have to live with. Overall, I feel that this article made some good points and definitely gave me a more scientific point of view as the chapter looked at behavioral development, something that the other articles have lacked.

Jensen, Eric. “Teaching With Poverty In Mind”. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, (2009): 13-46.