Health Based on Wealth

A high percentage of babies DIE within their first year of life

There are 47 MILLION people without health coverage in America. 

The US is 30th in life expectancy 

yet.... 

We spend 2 TRILLION dollars per year on medical care 

 

What's wrong here? SO much is wrong. 

         The episode "In Sickness and in Wealth" dives into the issues of these statements and why America is failing in terms of health. In short, your wealth depicts your health. More money= better health and less money=poor health. More money= longer life expectancy and less money=shorter life expectancy. Economic stresses make people fall ill which means that those who do not worry about their economic status are less likely to become sick. Low rate Americans have twice the amount of disease as the affluent. The video states that social conditions make bad health and such examples of this are neighborhoods and that social determinants shape the health outcomes. The higher up on the ladder you are, the less likely you are to have health problems and your life expectancy is greater. Those at the bottom of the ladder struggle the most with health and their life expectancy is four years less than those at the top. In Kentucky, traveling to different districts gives a view of how health is different depending on the wealth of the location. Those in wealthy areas are healthy and feel good for their age. Those in low income areas suffer from health issues such as diabetes and some of their health issues may be from financial stress.

           In Flint Michigan we see how those on the lower part of the ladder are unfairly affected by the quality of water in their town. Their health is compromised because of the led and unfortunately, the residents do not have the money to up and move out of town. They are stuck there but not by their own fault, the state is failing them by not stepping up and helping solve the crisis. There are long term health issues associated with this crisis that those that live in other towns do not suffer from because of their economic status.

 

Capitalism creates injustice in many different ways. As we saw in the video, your wealth depicts your health which means that those who are unfairly treated due to capitalism suffer financially. Due to the fact that they suffer financially, they likely suffer by not having healthcare and poor health.

                                

Capitalism creates unequal health outcomes due to lack of healthcare and due to employees being overworked and underpaid. The company gets bigger and the employee puts in more hours but does not see a pay raise. The employer (capitalist) has more power than their employees which means that they call the rules and the employee must obey in order to keep the job. Vivek Chibber states, “But in fact, the worker will always be more desperate than the employer. She typically has very little savings to tide her over, is living hand to mouth…” (8). Due to capitalism, the worker is stuck obeying the unequal rules because the employer will quickly replace them if they refuse to obey.

Unfortunately for the employee, long work days are not good for their health. The financial, mental, and physical stress does damage to a body. This only increases when the company grows bigger and the employer wants their employees to work faster doing twice the amount of work because hiring more workers is more money out of their pocket.

As ELA educators, it is crucial that we are aware of the different types of situations that our students come from. During the pandemic, stress is high for the students and their families. The stress from parents/guardians may be affecting the student and as educators, we must how to support them through these trying times. 

It is also likely that parents are working still because they need to provide for the family which means that during the day when school is in session, the student does not have help at home like they would in the physical classroom.

Depending on the economic status of the family, students may not have all the resources they need which requires the teacher to be flexible. The student or someone in their family may become ill and it is important that the teacher understands that time off may be required in order to restore good health. Unprecedented times call for flexibility and understanding!

                  

 

Check out this website for ways to support students during the pandemic! Teaching tolerance has some great resources for educators.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where I'm From

I am from kid cuisine meals

and pink jelly sandals

McDonald's happy meals,

and the kids toy with it

 

I am from a home

where Barney was on the television everyday

yelling at my mom

to "pretty please but Barney back on"

singing along to the "I love you song"

 

I am from a "swamp yankee family"

where driving 20 minutes is f  a   r

and Rhode Island is the only place they know.

I am a granddaughter

with a grandmother

who poured her soul into teaching

saying "you'll be perfect for this one day"

 

I am from a blended family

where having two bedrooms at two houses,

a step-mom and a step-dad,

is normal to me

 

I am from parents who put me first,

who support my hopes and dreams,

no matter their relationship to each other

 

I am from the moments

where family time matters most

where blood does not always define who is family

but that of love,

can define a family.

The Use of Rubrics and Writing

        As a pre-service teacher, I have spent plenty of time learning how to write rubrics and what makes a "good rubric". It was not until last semester when I spent time with the rubrics in my SED and MLED class and used them to grade my peers work. I began to realize how the rubric was not satisfying me in terms of grading work in a fair way. While I was not grading essay writing with this rubric, it was work that consisted of a fair amount of writing. I noticed that I always leaned toward the middle of two numbers if the rubric was scaled on a numerical scale from say, 1-4 (1 being unsatisfactory and 4 being satisfactory). Grading was not enjoyable because I stressed over the fact that I was unhappy with picking one number and moving on. My point here is that it is easy to create a rubric as an assignment and move on, but actually implementing that rubric to students is completely different.
       My viewpoint on rubrics has shifted since I had practice with implementing them rather than strictly creating them. One rubric cannot possibly cater to each student in the classroom and this is what Wilson discusses in her article on rubrics. A rubric also does not speak explicitly to the work of the student. Wilson states, "No matter how elaborate or eloquent the phrases I was invited to circle, the feedback they offered to students was still generic because they weren’t uttered in reaction to the students’ actual work" (63). A rubric is created to assess an assignment and therefore, each student is graded based off the same scale which is why Wilson states that it is not a form of personal feedback to each student. Written feedback from the teacher is a better way of speaking to the student about their writing. The feedback should be specific to each student and to offer feedback on their writing which a rubric cannot achieve. Students will learn the most from meaningful written feedback as opposed to a rubric with numbers that will essentially end up defining them. I think about what I am going to do as a future teacher who is handed a curriculum rubric that I am expected to implement in the classroom. In this case, I think it will make the most sense that I offer written feedback along with the rubric to my students so that they know my personal thoughts on their work.

       I was taught to follow the sandwich outline when writing essays which is known as the five paragraph format. Three paragraphs to explain the idea of the paper was always a struggle for me. I was the student in high school who had to always cut my essay down to meet the paragraph and page limit. My peers would sometimes make fun of me that I was a nerd because I wrote too much but I did my best to just ignore them and be happy with the fact that I could write that much rather than struggle with not having enough to write about.
       I want my students to know that I care more about the words of their essay and their ideas rather than if they met the paragraph requirement. In fact, I do not want to provide a paragraph limit. I want the students to focus on their topic and produce strong and coherent writing. Michelle Kenney, author of The Politics of the Paragraph, shares her experience with this in the classroom. She states, "It’s important to develop a strong argument, no matter how many paragraphs or sentences it takes" (Kenney). She believes, as she told her student Erica, that she cares less about the amount of writing she produces and more about the topic she writes about. For Kenney, it is quality over quantity, which is how it should be. 


      As I read Christensen chapter 2, I connected her thoughts on responding to student work to the conversation of rubrics as discussed in the above paragraphs and by Wilson's article on "Why I Won't be Using Rubrics to Respond to Student's Writing". I discussed above how written feedback is more beneficial to the student and Christensen makes note of this as well in her work. She states, " I try to make my notes a conversation to the writer" (66). While offering feedback for improvement to the students, Christensen tries to maintain a balance of conversing with the student while pointing them to areas of improvement. This is so much more important than a rubric.

     Implementing narrative into multiple units is something that I want to practice in my future classroom. I think it is beneficial to give students the time to write narratives in relation to the specific topic we will be covering in the class. Christensen discusses how she teaches about injustice while connecting it to the current text they are reading. She states, "Students write about times when they were allies, perpetrators, targets, or bystanders during a critical moment in their lives" (61). Through narrative, she will discuss injustice with her students and allow them to think critically on a time where they witnessed or were affected by injustice. This can help the students become more aware of their social worlds, their identities, and who they want to be in their society. I think that narrative writing can be useful in a multitude of ways in the classroom and is a way to break up the typical essay writing that is required of the students.