Positionality Statement Of Boys In Poverty

Positionality Statement
The challenges that face boys in today’s society are vast and many. So many I surmise it to be nothing less than a life minefield. Challenges ranging from peer pressure, the scientific data detailing their slower development than that of girls, poverty, abandonment and lack of self-esteem. My particular focus is developing an innovative community school for boys in poverty with a focus on mentorship, life skills development and discipline. The school uses the charter school platform for the governance and adherence to state and local education laws for the formal education. The innovation is founded in the mentorship and life skills development.
My stance as it relates to how boys in poverty is, they are not fully developed
First, let’s look at the source of much of the data used to determine the outcome of boys in poverty. The public school system has been the number one factor in determining how well or how bad boys in poverty are progressing or digressing. The school lunch form is used to identify who is living beneath or above the poverty level. So the boys are labeled based on their parents income, if they are below poverty they often times look the part of poverty based on the families affordability and most times that means attending school in the same impoverished neighborhoods in which they live. This is confirmation bias because school systems have a predetermined scope of data they will use to build a profile. So boys in poverty are deemed as students of concern from their initial indoctrination into the traditional school
It is all they know since they were born. The officials who labeled them as students of concern never pondered the fact of, what if boys in poverty were afforded stability in a poverty, would they still be perceived as students of concern. Factually, any student perceived as a student of concern and treated as such, will not perform well no matter their social economic status. They would not be taught with an open mind but one with preconceived notions of trouble and educational worthlessness. But there won’t be any bias against boys of other social economic status because the consensus seems to be they are better students and easier to