Wendy Warren, participant in the Memorial Library 2009 Summer Seminar, contributed a chapter to The Poverty and Education Reader: A Call for Equity in Many Voices, edited by Paul C. Gorski and Julie Landsman, published by Stylus Publishing in October, 2013.

The volume is described by the publisher as “a rich mix of essays, memoirs, and poetry,” through which the contributors “bring to the fore the schooling experiences of poor and working class students, highlighting the resiliency, creativity, and educational aspirations of low-income families.”

Warren’s chapter begins with a moment in which one of her students self-identifies as “trailer trash” and evolves into an exploration into stereotypes, dehumanization, and empowered choices with her 7^th grade Language Arts class. Warren describes her application of a number of Holocaust Education pedagogies to provide a structure through which her students could examine their own roles in class-dynamics. Through analyzing propaganda, listening to testimony, and discussing roles such as perpetrator, target, bystander, and upstander, her students were able to empathize with the situations of low-income and homeless people they had previously identified as worthy of fear and scorn.

As Warren writes, “A common stereotype about seventh graders is that they are egocentric, that few are capable of feeling or expressing empathy. Perhaps the truth is that on the basis of this assumption, we too rarely select content that might invite middle school students to tap into their own capabilities to practice empathy.”