"A Place at the Table"

        I recently watched a documentary called "A Place at the Table". This documentary brings to light the level of food insecurity in the United States. 50 Million Americans - 1 in 4 children - are unsure of where there next meal will come from. The documentary showed several families that struggled with hunger for different reasons. One family of seven had an income of $120 biweekly. They did not qualify for food stamps and they were struggling to find ways to make the little food they had stretch. One member of the family, Rosie, was a second grader. She would often depend on friends and neighbors to feed her. She struggled a lot in school because she was not able to focus. She  could only think of how hungry she was and wonder where her next meal was coming from. Rosie described how her teacher would turn into a banana and the students around her would turn into apples. Food was all she could think about. The teacher was at first unaware of the situation. She could not figure out why Rosie would never listen or pay attention. As the school year continued, however, she discovered the issue and did everything in her power to mitigate it. She often brought food from a pantry to Rosie's house and provided her with snacks. For everything she was doing, she still felt guilty for not being able to do more or provide more nutritious food. 

        

       Every Tuesday, I volunteer in a fourth grade class. For the last two weeks, I have noticed that one of the paraprofessionals provides a student with bananas. Last week, I witnessed her check his lunch box to only find fruit. She shook her head and said, "there's nothing filling". I immediately thought of this documentary. For everything she was doing, she felt she could do more. 

       As a teacher, I think that it is important to be aware of the issue of hunger in America. People often think of poverty in other nations, but they do not often consider it here. 50 million Americans do not know where their next meal will come from. 1 and 4 children go to sleep hungry. For many children, the only food they will eat all day is the food they receive at school lunch. How can a child learn if all they can think about is where there next meal will come from?

A Life of Choice

Throughout the world, the emphasis on education greatly varies. The economic status of a country has a direct correlation with how much funding there is to meet the educational needs of their youth. In the Dominican Republic, there was a law passed in 1997 to allocate 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) to education. The government, however, is only allocating 2.4% of GDP to education. This makes the education system in Dominican Republic the third least funded in our hemisphere. The only countries with less funding are Haiti at 1.4% and Ecuador at 1%. Over 1/3 of the population is living in poverty. The only way to break the cycle of poverty is through education, but that emphasis is missing. Although schooling is free in the Dominican Republic, enrollment is minimal. This is due to location, poverty, and the lack of birth certificates. Prospective students are restricted by the inability to travel to school, being forced into child labor to support their family, or there is simply no record of them because their family could not afford a birth certificate when they were born. In addition, without proper funding the Dominican Republic is said to lack 11,000 classrooms, 75,000 teachers, pre-school, room for five to seven year olds that wish to attend school, and programs for the disabled. With this comes the digital divide. The digital divide is the inequality of access to information technology. While schools in the United States are integrating technology in the classroom, schools in Dominican Republic are few and far between and do not have access to technology.  

Nonprofits, such as Outreach 360, have been established to help mitigate the severe lack of funding for education in the Dominican Republic. Outreach 360 is an organization that strives to provide children the opportunity to live a life of choice. Through the education we have received throughout our lives, we have been given countless opportunities. We had the choice to attend college or get a job. We have a choice of major and to stay in school. The children in the Dominican Republic are not granted those same opportunities because of the lack of funding for education. This December, I will be traveling to the Dominican Republic for this organization. The title of my trip is "Shattering the Cycle: Empowering Youth Through Education".  I will be creating my own lesson plans and teaching students English, literacy, and health. Although I will only be there for two weeks, it is the collection of the waves of volunteers that will ultimately lead to change.

I believe that this incredible opportunity will ultimately change my life for the better. In 74 days, I will be immersed in a new culture with different values. I will meet many people with different means than my own. I will see first hand what poverty truly means. I will grow an understanding of what it means to live a life without choice. Above all, I hope to make a difference in the lives of the students I teach and the people I meet along the way.