melissa+cronin

My name is Melissa Cronin and I graduated from Saint Mikes with my B.A. in Elementary Ed and American Studies in May 08. I spent the past year working as a one-to-one paraprofessional at Charlotte Central School with a student who has cognitive and physical disabilities. I just recently got hired as a 5th grade teacher in Middlebury. I am very excited to be a 5th grade teacher although a little nervous since I did my student teaching in a first grade! I am from 20 minutes north of Boston and spend my summers at our house on the south shore. While I am enjoying my first Vermont summer I have to go home every few weeks to get my fix of the ocean! I am really looking forward to this course.

http://voicethread.com/share/551176/


 * //Childhood Poverty, Chronic Stress, and Adult Working Memory//**

I found this article quite interesting and after learning a little bit about the brain and working memory not too surprising. In chapter 10, Zull points out that "all it takes is a slight distraction to knock something out of our working memory (183). Growing up with the stresses of poverty a person would need to focus on getting his/her basic needs for survival met before anything else can enter into the brain. I am reminded of the earlier chapter that talked about how people who suffer from depression and traumas actually have a loss of memory due to high amounts of cortisol. Table 1 in the artice indicates that people who are poor had a higher amount of overnight cortisol therefore possibly affecting his/her memory. According to Zull, working memory is greatly impacted by pre-existing neuronal networks. He points out that everyone comes wiht their own set of neuronal networks and can't just check them at the door. The problems that arise form living in poverty must inhibit a person from moving on from their experiences.

What really surprised me was that there is no correlation between parenting and "maternal stresses" and a loss of working memory amongst children living in poverty. I would think that the loss of working memory amongst children living in poverty would be due to stresses which are put upon children due to the stress of parents, lack of support by parents, etc.