Reaching Out

I think that no matter where or what situation you teach in you will have students that are either high risk, live in poverty or are ESL. This is something that any future teacher should be prepared for. As a teacher, you have a responsibility to be a positive role model for all of your students, not just the ones that are high risk, poverty or ESL. But to go beyond that, you need a way to reach out to those students that need more.

For students that live at poverty level, often their parents don't know what resources are out there or how to access those resources. As a teacher you can provide assistance in order to lead these parents in the right direction to access the resources that exist. If a student isn't eating lunch, you could send home an extra free/reduced lunch form. If a student doesn't have appropriate clothing for the weather you can have the school nurse, who usually has resources for these situations, help out. There are community services that help out with glasses for kids, medical assistance, food banks etc. It just may be that the parents don't know about them. Maybe parents don't have the skills to fill out the forms necessary...this is something that I as a teacher can help out with before or after school.

As far as ESL students go, I can try to provide an interrupter for parent teacher conferences in order to encourage parents to attend. I can translate news letters home into their native language so that parents are aware of what is going on at school. Even if you don't have a person at school who is willing to translate these news letters, you can find, online, several websites that translate words or phrases for you for free. It may take a little bit extra time on your part, but it is worth it in the end.