Even at low levels, the presence of lead in the bloodstream has been found to slow a child's development. Children may begin displaying learning and behavioral problems, be unable to remember what they have just been taught, be excitable or hyperactive, have an inability to pay attention, get frustrated quickly, be aggressive or violent, and have a lowered IQ. Children poisoned by lead are seven times more likely to drop out of school.
|
|
How does lead poisoning affect education?
|
Teachers often face the consequences of childhood lead poisoning without even knowing that is what they are seeing. Here are some common symptoms:
- Children who cannot sit still long enough to read a sentence
- Children who seem bright enough but just don't seem to learn
- Children who act out every impulse
It doesn't take many such children in a classroom to disrupt learning for all the students.
Teachers who do not realize that these may be symptoms of lead poisoning may feel overwhelmed with frustration at their seeming inability to teach these children. You need to understand that neither you nor the child has failed. The failure is the community's in not preventing this invisible monster from stealing this child's future.
“After all, it is educators who will face the formidable challenge of trying to prepare future generations of … children for productive life in the 21st century after society has allowed those children to suffer ongoing lead exposure at levels known to undermine their educational potential.”
Jacquelyne Faye Jackson, a research associate at the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley
If you suspect lead poisoning, check your student's file to see whether there is any documentation of blood lead level testing. Not all students have been tested, so there may not be any information. But if there is a report of elevated blood lead either at the present time or in the past, consider the possibility that the behavior you are seeing is not willfulness or poverty or stupidity, but lead poisoning. Just like children with other types of brain damage, children who are lead poisoned can learn. But they need special help, and they may never learn as well, or as quickly.
|
|
|