After reading Ruby Payne’s A Framework For Understanding Poverty, we were asked to complete a reflection detailing how we feel poverty impacts education and whether or not we agreed with Payne’s suggested ways to help students in poverty. While I did not necessarily agree with all of Payne’s points, I did feel she correctly noted the importance of forging a relationship with your students. Reflection:

Poverty in the education world can be difficult to understand. Students may come in to classrooms well dressed with new name-brand shoes, but go home to broken families with out-standing bills and little to no food on the table. Before reading Ruby Payne’s book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, I be remiss to not admit that I did not have a good grasp on what poverty looks like.  I attended a school district with a total enrollment of 7,500 students where 13% were eligible for free and reduced lunch.  While we may have had students classified as living below the poverty line, it was not nearly as prevalent as most schools throughout Indiana. Before coming to Butler or entering the Education program, I had never needed to consider poverty for anything other than what I thought it was: lack of food, shelter, money, or clothing. I never realized it has lasting impacts on learning (especially literacy), socialization, and youth until reading about it in literature and then seeing it first hand in the classroom.

It may be easy for people to assume poverty has a distinct form, and we would like to think we know what it looks like.  But the truth can sometimes hit closer to home, and have more permanent consequences (especially in terms of education) than we may initially anticipate. Prior to reading Payne’s work, I reasoned students in poverty had little motivation in the classroom because they were drawn by outside things, for example: the need to work. But now, I can see the flaws in my opinion. Not only did I lack empathy for the unique differences in any one impoverished persons situation, I did not even have a grasp on what poverty is.  Payne offers a definition of poverty as “the extent to which an individual does without resources” and she continues on to identify that resources can fall into any number of the following categories: financial, emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, support systems, relationships/role model and knowledge of hidden rules (Payne, 7). Obviously, this can be much more extensive and complex than a student who just qualifies for free/reduced lunch.

I was surprised by what I learned in reading Payne’s book, and shocked at her wording at certain points. She was direct and never beat around the bush forcing the reader to come to conclusions about how poverty affects the classroom (or work place). I appreciated one quote from the book, “we can neither excuse students nor scold them for not knowing; as educators we must teach them the rules that will make them successful at school and at work” (Payne, 3). I think this is a valuable point for any educator, principally those concerned with teaching a subject requiring strong literacy skills.

Payne explains students from poverty come with little to no concept of hidden rules and as a result may not have the schema to know how to handle certain situations; therefore, they may act in ways which others may deem inappropriate or annoying. But, in reality they are dealing with the uncomfortable situation in the best way they can. Furthermore, I would suspect for students who are missing valuable resources at home, reading and literacy is not much of a priority and as such, falls by the wayside. For most students then, the exercise of this undeveloped skill becomes an uncomfortable activity causing much anxiety. Teachers must take caution not to let these students continue to fall through the cracks, but also, as Payne points out, cannot reprimand them for having less developed skills.  Through reading Vatterott’s work concerning emotional and social development, any kind of public admonishment for students in the early adolescent stage can cause lasting harm and further retreat into the protective exterior they may have built for themselves. I would assert teachers have to walk the fine line of recognizing the affects of poverty by building relationships to help students gain the skills they need to be successful.

Working in the future as a teacher, I hope to take what I have learned from Payne and use it effectively in the classroom. Through offering some valuable tips for identifying students in poverty, as well as how to help those students understand the hidden rules of a group, Payne has answered the difficult implications of poverty with practices which may prove useful. Although I do have difficulty agreeing with some of her points, I would say that this book has suggested one of the most crucial tools in education: to forge a relationship with your students. Ultimately, for many students learning and attempting new things in the classroom is a scary endeavor which can only be complicated by the effects of poverty. Payne acknowledges a point near the end of the book I whole heartedly agree with and hope to bring to my classroom some day: “the key to achievement for students from poverty is in creating relationships with them” (Payne, 109). In any area of education– reading, science, math — a teacher should never underestimate the power of taking a dedicated and vested interest in the education of a student.

References

Payne, Ruby K. A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Highlands, TX: Aha! Process, 2005.

Vatterott, Cathy. Becoming a Middle Level Teacher: Student-focused Teaching of Early Adolescents. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2007.

Comments are closed