Jonathan Perrego 10/29/14
Humber Fraison English 1
Poverty Final Draft In the current financial state of the world we as individuals hear the word poverty quite often. Most people learn in school the destruction caused by the depression in the 1930’s but currently we are in the midst of a recession. A recession is not as severe as a depression but still has massive impacts on all defined by it. The recession has caused an increase in poverty. Poverty is defined as the state of being poor. There has been massive debates over what is causing the increase. One quote by mother Teresa in my opinion sums up the cause in saying, “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” Poverty is caused by our own actions. The reason it is increasing is because we do not take actions on the lesser fortunate surrounding us. Our educational system has fallen below top ten in the world leaving us behind the pack. Without proper education the people are left to make blind decisions with no judgment at any level. Majority of us as citizens live within the middle class, which is in between poor and rich. We seem to judge the actions of the rich rather than deal with the issue of the poor. Not many of us know the true effects of poverty on our country or any country for that matter. We all deal with missed payments but majority don’t know the extreme impact poverty has. Even I did not know until reading a few in depth articles describing the causes and ways to prevent it. In the first article by author Jonathan Kozol he writes of the consequences of an illiterate society. The ability to read and write can vastly effect the outcome of your future life. Kozol illustrates what he believes to be the causes of poverty, of which being illiteracy. In the modern work place almost no job can be properly executed or performed with the utilization of reading and writing. Most illiterate people are not at fault for this because it extends further than their lifetime. Most foreign countries do not have an organized educational system like the United States. This means that gaining an education is extremely difficult unless you are a part of a wealthy family or have access to money. Here in the United States we see an entirely different problem being lack or misuse of education. As most people know the younger population does not use proper English. Instead curse words and vulgar language is put in place of a proper vocabulary. It is the cool thing to do even though it roots back to poverty itself. Poverty usually runs back generations in the afflicted areas. Most poverty stricken people are illiterate which is where the author gets his point. Kozol believes illiteracy is the cause of poverty. Illiterate individuals cannot make educated decision, vote intelligently, or make other decisions in an educated fashion. Most wise individuals had become wise because they have learned from their personal mistakes. Although this is sometimes a good thing, as most of us learn bad decisions lead to a bad life. This raises the question as to why the poverty issue across the world has not been resolved yet. Poverty has thousands of causes but it all breaks down to location, resources, and illiteracy. The second article relates genes to the issue of poverty. Author Alison Glopnik connects how genes connected to poverty can be stopped by affecting children at a young age to stop generations of poverty to come. I can see where she is coming from because I learn in the same way I was taught to in kindergarten from the visual perspective. Glopnik goes deep into the subject explaining how certain genes are very common in people in poverty. By moving into these areas and affecting the younger generations, illiteracy and poverty could essentially be stopped. Future generations of poverty