They are living in their future, and their future is today. Poverty's stigma When Craig Campbell tells students at the Rains-Centenary Elementary School that he has never been to jail, their eyes widen. Campbell is a Department of Social Services case worker in the Marion 3 School District. He works out of the school, where 95 percent of the children live in poverty, but he spends most of his time paying home visits. It is a state of mental inhibition that is the result of the lack of transportation, of industry, of expectations.
Poverty stifles children's learning even before they get to school, scholars say.
Often, it leaves behind a paralyzing low self-esteem. We have a moral overtone that we have assessed to poverty - you are poor because something is wrong with you, because you are lazy, because you are not a good person. Gardner lifts his arm and pretends holding a boom box up to his ear. You cannot ignore me. Often, he says, all they want is to know that someone cares.