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JPZenger

(6,819 posts)
Sun May 26, 2013, 12:27 PM May 2013

Teachers Quietly Serve as First Responders to Poverty (Phila. Inquirer article)

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130526_Teachers_quietly_serve_as_first_responders_to_poverty.html

"During a time of massive budget cuts, school closings, and teacher layoffs, it's easy to forget how teachers fill the holes in the lives of the poor, experts say.

"The help that teachers give kids is missing from the public dialogue about teachers these days," said Maia Cucchiara, an urban-education professor at Temple University. Teachers, she said, are too often criticized as robots teaching only to help students pass standardized tests.

"But that misses the reality of the student-teacher relationship," Cucchiara added. "When you have a child in your care and see him suffering, you do what you can to help."
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Teachers Quietly Serve as First Responders to Poverty (Phila. Inquirer article) (Original Post) JPZenger May 2013 OP
So true! Pat Riot May 2013 #1

Pat Riot

(446 posts)
1. So true!
Mon May 27, 2013, 02:18 PM
May 2013

I have seen it first hand, 20-30 years ago. Many teachers contribute not only school supplies from their own money, but food and clothing. Like a teacher who always kept peanut butter and crackers and had lunch in his class with kids who were outcast, bullied. A warm winter coat would appear in the locker of a poor girl who was seen with only a thin jacket.

The bad teachers are a small minority, but those who would place blame anywhere but on their greedy, public-school-fund-cutting, union-busting selves would make it seem otherwise.

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