Blog #4 Continuation of Blog #3, North Vancouver Students Learn About Global Poverty

After a seminar group discussion in our class last night, I was excited to return to my blog to add comments and thoughts to my post about the North Vancouver Students Learning from their teacher's efforts in Nicarauga. This blog will include parts of our discussion from chapter four of Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education (Dahlberg and Moss, 2005). Our discussion  focused on acting with ethical practice and acting with ethical intent, particularly in response to the following quotes from Gunilla Dalberg:
 
 "Putting everything which one encounters into pre-made categories implies that we make the Other into the Same, as everything which does not fit into these categories, which is unfamiliar and not taken-for-granted has to be overcome...To think of an other whom I cannot grasp is an important shift as it challenges the very practices of our pedagogy. It poses important questions to us as pedagogues. Questions such as how the encounter with Otherness, with difference, can take place as responsibly as possible..." (2005, p.86)

In our group dialogue, we examined what we understood as our responsibility in encounter with the Other. We discussed our own feelings about what it means to "help those in need" and how it feels to be an individual who has gone to "aid those who are poor". We questioned whether or not it is "Othering"  if one  has ethical intent when giving money or time to aid fellow humans. If we consider why we are giving and who we are effecting with that aid, are we not being as ethical as we can be at the time? We felt the importance of learning from an encounter, when one still graples to understand what changed from it also shows a sense of ethical thought and intent. Thinking of ethics as Bauman says "with its ambivalence and messiness"
(2005,p. 89).
       After this discussion, I feel deeply that the teacher I presented is extremely ethical as a person and teacher. Marley Haller goes to Nicarauga each summer to live with the people she feels are her extended family. She does not go for religous reasons, public recognition or because she feels they need her; she goes because these are people she truly loves and wants to spend time with. In turn, the families and children she "encounters" have a relationship of trust and caring with Marley. Hearing how she relates her time in Nicarauga to life in Canada does not create a negative divide between Us and Them by assuming to know what living in poverty feels like. Her desire is for the children in her classes to learn to respect different cultures and not to make assumptions about what they see in pictures and newspapers about poverty(a lesson many adult have never learned). I see Haler'sCanadian students building on their knowledge of what poverty is and  learning how to discuss it and respond to it respectfully, with thought and intention. Does this not relate directly to Sevenhuijsen's statement: "Acting ethically is based on interaction with and attentiveness to others, not derived from an ethical code."? (1998: 64)
    The last thing our group attempted to make sense of was the subjectivity of the langauge of ethics. As we all stand in different discourses with different biases, it is difficult not to judge or feel judged when talking about situations or events that we are emotionally attached to.  We cannot know what the other is feeling or thinking; therefore, we must trust that those listening are doing  with the ethical intent of learning or knowing us better. When discussing poverty and work I have done to help people who require assistance, I am sensitive to how other people view and comment on my work. I am also in a place of problematizing some of the work I have done in my past employment. Has it been  imposed on people with the assumption that they need help. How can I listen better to the voices of those who need help? Who decides that someone needs help and how do they make that decision? Therefore, I challenge myself  over the next few weeks to remind myself  to listen carefully in my interactions; through more thoughtful listening I can only make better desisions and choices in my encounters with families. I will also be honest about my biases and try to think without allowing them to cloud my judgement; with greater awareness of  my personal biases I  will consider the other more carefully and be a more genuine citizen, caregiver and educator.

Blog #3 Teaching By Doing: North Vancouver Children Learn AbouT Global Poverty

     My interest in global poverty has grown out studies in our third and fourth year globalization, pedagogista, ethics and social justice classes. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about my relationship with a teacher at my children's school who travels each summer (at her own expense) to a small, extremely poor village in Nicaragua. Marely Haller lives there for 10 weeks each year, helping villagers replenish school and medical supplies, teaching math classes to the children and working with a local relief program to build permanent homes for families. Back in North Vancouver,each year "The Nicaragua Committee" (a volunteer group of students in grades 4-7) meets with Marley's sponsorship to raise funds and educate schoolmates about Nicaragua's poverty. Marley uses video, journals and real situations to teach Canadian children about the daily living conditions and challenges families living in poverty face. Ms. Haller teaches her grade six class through her lived experiences; the chidlren study Canada's relationship with developing countries in curriculum areas such as current events, humanities, language and math. Her students complete written and oral projects on developing countries and the effects of and possible solutions to worldwide poverty. Students participate in the 30 Hour Famine and Vow of Silence to better understand the harsh realities faced by children living outside the Western World. Marely Haller sees her role as a way to spread knowledge about the need for "universal recognition of others" (Hanson, 2000). She holds herself responsible for caring about others and takes this further by teaching it to the children who will soon lead our country.
     I consider Marley Haller a brave woman. She is vocal about what she feels is the wealthy Canadian citizens' moral obligation to act in response to the conditions of poverty many children live in. (Not just those in Nicaragua, but throughout Canada and the world.) She feels ethically bound to educate "the rich child" about poverty and act to create change. For this, she has been openly criticized by some. I find this reaction to her dedication frustrating as she uses her passion about children in Nicaragua as a method of teaching children curriculum lessons as well as to care for their world and the people in it. Her  leadership has led to students creating posters about pollution and energy conservation, school-wide garbage reduction, furdraising to purchase fresh water wells in Africa, relief money to Haiti, and clean up of our local oceans and beaches to list a few recent school initiatives. Is this not what Levinas and Kearney meant by "investing our everyday actions of generosity or goodwill towards the other..bearing witness to the ethical"...this concern for the other"? (Levinas and Kearney, 1986; 32)



Dahlberg, Gunilla and Moss, Peter (2005) Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education. RoutledgeFalmer; New York, USA
Moss, Peter et al (2000) The 'child in need' and 'the rich child': discourses, constructions and practice, Critical Social Policy 20:(2) 233-254

Blog #2 BC Fails on Child Poverty Report Card

According to First Call's 2009 Child Poverty Report Card the province of British Columbia's living conditions are below the poverty line for almost 19% of our children. While I know poverty exists in B.C., I find myself disheartened by the facts that clearly state B.C. is failing to protect children from the risks associated with living below the poverty line. Looking around my children's schools and our surrounding neighbourhood I can not see outward signs of poverty; however,I know poverty exists here. Perhaps the state of poverty on the North Shore is not on the same scale as some areas of the city but wealth in North Vancouver is by no means evenly distributed. I wonder how much pride plays into the unseen poverty of our community as people hide behind the image of success in today's materialistic world. However, we can't pretend that overwhelmed assistance programs such as the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen,the Harvest Project (with services including food bank,clothing distribution and counselling services) and the Lookout Shelter (short and long-term homeless shelter and area of refuge) are located less than 10 minutes from our front doors.
I find myself wondering what is wrong in our province (one of Canada's wealthiest) that is causing poverty rates to be increasing when in most of Canada the child poverty rates are dropping. Does the fact that our society no longer values the neighbourhood support network contribute to increased financial stress and feelings of isolation?
As we have discussed in class, has a desire for privacy from government led individuals to stop feeling an ethical responsiblity to help each other (particularly when we have more than we need to live comfortably)? If we are truly ethical beings,how can those of us who have plenty distance ourselves so easily from the other when considering the inequity of wealth? How does Levinas' concept of sitting in ignorance in the comfort of not having to take action or responsibility relate to society's lack of empathy towards the needs of others? I wonder if it is even reasonable to consider how I can try to challenge this inequity. Or am I making an assumption thinking that others want or need my help?
Do community support programs work to eradicate poverty or does government(and other power groups)use these programs to make themselves feel that something is being done about poverty in B.C.? Though well-intentioned, do the many programs such as Strong Start,Nobody's Perfect, Mother Goose and well baby clinics really help those in need? Do the parents who are considered "needy" even want to attend these programs or do they feel a negative stigma attached to attending them? Are parents afraid they will be labelled "needy" if they attend these programs; does attendance equal admitting one can't provide for their child"? As stated in Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education, are these programs merely "neo-liberal diversionary techniques to focus attention on parents and children whilst distracting attention from the power relations that create poverty and inequality in the first place?" (Dahlberg and Moss, 2005)
When I last worked in the area of Community Child Care Support, I truly believed I was doing good by meeting my program mandate of "providing programs and materials to support families with young children at risk of readiness issues due to barriers relating to poverty issues", a program termed "reaching the difficult to reach" made possible by the cooperation of many powerful and well-known funders. When I consider what I now understand about ethics and relationship with "the other" I question the integrity and value of that program. While well-intentioned, did those involved in evaluating the needs and outcomes of the program properly consider how that program effected those it served? A major part of my learning from that position was around the fact that there are people who do not want help and that they have the right to refuse help. People are "difficult to reach" for many reasons, one reason may be that they do not want to be helped. Those in leadership need to recognize that they can not assume anyone needs help because they appear to fit someone else's predetermined concept of need. Any family can be made to fit the definition of "in need" or "at risk" in some way so we must be ever careful to be ethical in our offers of assistance. Being available to offer my support to a family is very different than assuming someone needs my support. I am grateful for the maturity in understanding and viewpoint I now have when I consider how I will effect others in my relationship with them.