A Framework for Understanding Poverty Ruby K Payne
A Framework for Understanding Poverty Ruby K. Payne, Ph. D.
A Framework for Understanding Poverty Overview • This book discusses the hidden social understandings and misconceptions of poverty. Dr. Payne gives strategies on how educators can address differences in socio-economic status effectively in the classroom. • Dr. Payne has been an educator since 1972 working as a teacher, principal and at the district level. Bibliography • Payne, Ruby K. A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Highlands, TX: Aha! Process, 2001. Print.
Strengths • Resources • Financial – having money to purchase • Emotional – stamina, perseverance, choices • • • Mental – reading, writing, computing Spiritual – divine purpose & guidance Physical – health and mobility Support Systems – friends & family Knowledge of Middle Class Social Rules – unspoken cues and habits of the group • Role Models – access to nurturing adults • Registers of Language • Frozen – always the same (prayers, wedding vows, etc. ) • Formal – standard sentence syntax/specific word choice • Consultative – formal in conversation • Casual – language between friends/non -verbal assists • Intimate – language between lovers or twins/sexual harassment
Strengths • Generational Poverty vs. Situational Poverty • Generational: increasing in numbers, an education is their way out, rarely about a lack of intelligence/ability, stay because no realization that there is a way out • Situational: lack of resources due to a particular event (death, chronic illness, divorce, etc. ) • List of support systems to be implemented in schools (pg. 9496) • Behavior Chart (pg. 103 - 104)/Think Sheet (pg. 105) • The differences between learning vs. teaching • Face as a clock: Understanding different parts of speech the person is focusing on
Shortcomings • Briefly spoke about the hidden rules in the upper class but more comparisons between middle class and upper class would have been helpful, too. • I would have liked to see more specific data supporting theories • More models & case studies would have been helpful (to see it “in action”)
Value to Leadership Development • Teachers must be able to relate to a child’s home life in order to teach them most effectively. • Leaders must understand the population they are working with in order to best meet their educational needs. • Emotional Resources = KEY to the development of the child • Children need to go through the stages in the correct order, otherwise they create a level of inappropriate dependence on others • Tell more stories and show them the differences between casual and formal registers of language • • Identify options Teach goal setting Establish long term relationships Use appropriate discipline strategies • Act as a role model
Value to Leadership Development • We need to teach students how to use the “language of negotiation” by practicing their ‘adult voice’ • We need to use metaphor stories to understand the existing behavior and motive • Structure & choice should be part of the discipline process and this should be seen as a part of every day instruction (especially for those who do not have those relationships at home) • Mediation builds cognitive strategies • If children cannot plan, they cannot: predict, identify cause and effect, consequence, control compulsivity and has an inclination toward criminal behavior
- Slides: 7