Homeless Students Who Achieved Academic Greatness

“Who Gets to Graduate’ by Paul Tough, publish May, 2015 in the New York Times discusses. The story of a young girl’s mindset on college. It begins with her starting in college and first failure on a test. It highlighted the doubts she had in her abilities. This opening introduces the article’s man discussion, which involves low income students who want to earn a four year degree but experience “troubles” along the way. It then discusses statistics that show dropout rates are highest with low-income students. The author included ability versus economics status.

Eleanor J. Bader article “Homeless on Campus” describes the lives of homeless people that are trying to get a degree. She shows the reader examples of homeless students going through hard times. The reader can see the desire to succeed from the homeless students. They work harder that every other student because they have to find a place to sleep. They also have to take care of others in some situations. Bader also mentions that community colleges should provide sleeping areas for students that find themselves in that situation. Bader does an astounding job of using literacy devices to exemplify to the reader how homeless students struggle to continue school.

"Homeless on Campus" by Eleanor J. Bader is a report on students who were or are homeless while going to college. The text also includes why the students are homeless, how they are getting out of being homeless, and how colleges aren't recognizing the homeless population that go to the school. Bader wants to advocate for the students that are homeless and are going to college at the same time. She wants to inform her readers that there are students who attend college who are homeless. Bader achieves her purpose by using real-life stories and background information on homelessness on college campuses. According to Bader, oftentimes colleges don’t help students who are homeless because there’s a low awareness of it and they don’t want to serve the poor.

With the number of homeless students on the rise, schools encounter new educational challenges that include:

I see myself, and want others to see me, as a compassionate individual. During high school, I tutored incoming freshmen in history and biology. I was once in their shoes, so I knew how important it was to have someone to help me out with what I was struggling with. In my junior and senior years of high school, I volunteered with the Bloodcenter of Wisconsin and the Red Cross, assisting donors when they felt uncomfortable, and donating blood myself. I also knitted scarves for the homeless with my church. Doing things for others comforts me because I know it makes them breathe a little easier. When I was a senior in high school, I talked a close friend out of committing suicide. I have never been homeless, but I have been a struggling

” I told you, you were stupid”, said John Almy’s mother in his story “Alphabet Soup”. This is a point in the author’s life that haunted him forever and made him think he could never succeed in school. Many students may have similar episodes in life that have discharged them from doing well academically. I have had some low points in my own past but today I am determined to earn success by working hard and learning from my mistakes.

The homeless are impacted far more by everyday issues than those who are not. Often times, homeless children can be sick four times as much as middle class children and have superior rates of acute and recurring illnesses. In addition, they experience emotional and behavioral problems can hinder with learning at almost three times the rate of other children. “Homeless children between 6 and 17 years struggle with high rates of mental health problems. For example, 47% have problems

Do you know the reason why so many college students in the United States are currently homeless? As of the moment there are thousands of college students roaming around the streets, due to not having the necessary resources they need. Now days, it is common for a college student to be left homeless, be evicted, thrown out their homes, or found living in a abandoned buildings which isn't suitable as a living environment. These students don’t have the available funds to be able to pay for somewhere to live in or know when their next meal will be. Every college student in order to be successful needs a safe environment that they can call home and get there regular nutrients.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness; "families experiencing homelessness are generally similar to other housed families living in poverty" (End Homelessness, 2016). These are just some of the issues that can cause homelessness. This paper will discuss how school aged students are affected by homelessness and the available interventions that are available to those in the homeless community.

Everybody loves a good success story. When the underdog, usually a lower class high school age student, defies the odds and comes out on top, beating his circumstances to get where nobody thinks he should go, everyone goes crazy for it. So crazy that Hollywood gets in on the act, with movie productions such as The Blind Side, Life of A King, and Slum Dog Millionaire. Sadly, these stories are not commonplace, in fact, they are very few and far between. More often than not, students from lower class families struggle to get by, as a result putting school to the back burner. Less than 75% of students in lower income households graduate high school, and even fewer go onto college (http://nces.ed.gov). From this group, excuses began to come out, the main reason underlies them all; they have become a product of their circumstance. The position they were in restrained them, forcing only one path, a

I was nearly sexually harassed by a security guard who gave each student a very thorough body search, but that wasn’t nearly as traumatizing as seeing young black men fight over territory that inner-city kids call “hoods” leading to very serious injuries that left blood evidence in the school halls. It was then I realized what poverty is and how these “hoods” were poisoning the mentality of the black youth. Instead of thriving academically and putting forth effort, many students skipped class religiously and never came to school with as much as a pencil .

Homeless families with children represent the fastest growing segment of the homeless population; in fact, they constitute about 40 percent of all people who are homeless (Stronge 7). In addition, the most recent estimate of homeless children and youngsters by the United States Department of Education is 744,000 (Stronge 7). These statistics are indeed quite frightening, and they go to show that children constitute a large part of the homeless dilemma. The part of that dilemma that seems most taxing is that of educating such homeless children. How can these kids become active members of society if they are unable to receive a proper public education, the same education that is provided for so many other kids under the Constitution?

When Liz Murray was a child her parents were both drug addictive and she became homeless at the age of 15. Her thought process was that it was safe to live on the streets than in a home where there was more cocaine and heroin than food in the kitchen. Liz’s mom died at age 41 of AIDS and before she died, Liz promised her mom that she would excel in school. Liz worked extremely hard in school and she wrote a personal essay that won her her an Ivy League scholarship to Harvard. Now Liz is 33, she has new job where she is helping youth struggling with homelessness. Also, Liz was accepted into the graduate program of the spirituality and mind/body Institute where she met Lisa J. Miller.

Students who are homeless, are often sent to school without breakfast or lunch. A 2008 study shows that malnutrition can reduce the brain's capacity to learn, and poor students quickly end up falling behind their classmates (Johnston). Not only are homeless children at a disadvantage because of their physical health, but according to Ellen Bassuk, they are also twice as likely to suffer from mental illness. Authors Kidd and Kral suggest that “76% of youth that are homeless indicated that they have attempted suicide, have felt rejection, low self esteem and isolation". The lack of stability and transience among homeless youth also make them more susceptible to different forms of abuse. As indicated by the graph below, 45% of homeless youth have reported experiencing physical abuse, 38% have reported experiencing emotional abuse, and 17% have reported being forced into sexual activity. Dealing with these traumatic experiences on a daily basis causes these students to suffer in the classroom setting. It is vital for teachers to intervene and provide homeless students with what they need to overcome these barriers and experience improved opportunities for

With the current recession and foreclosure crisis, more families are facing homelessness than ever before. This presents additional struggles for children and the schools who educate them. Since many of the students have no fixed place to stay, they could bounce from school to school providing no stability for education, or in some areas these children are transported back to their original home school sometimes causing kids to be on busses for long commutes. When children face a lack of stability in the classroom it is easier to fall behind, and teachers might only begin to see deficiencies in skills after observing work for a while it could lead a student to fall further behind every day.