Payne’s A Framework For Understanding Poverty

Trying to teach children that come from impoverished cities is not a new concern for educators. For many years teachers and researchers have tried to research and come up with many strategies that will help these children. Curriculum committees have even tried adopting different curriculum’s that were believed to help impoverished students. When President Bush designed NCLB, teachers, administrators, and districts were all concerned about how they were going to keep the lower socioeconomic class of students succeeding at the same rate as other students. Strategies used in the past were no longer going to be enough.

Ruby Payne has written a book called A Framework for understanding Poverty. Her book is part of a presentation series that she gives to districts across the world. Her presentations are designed for her and her staff to teach the messages of her book. Payne’s message is mainly based on “case studies” she has done over the years. When I started reading an article by Anita Bohn, she claims that Payne’s “case studies,” were “nothing more substantive than a few random anecdotes about children and families she claims to have encountered over the years.”

Payne’s message to teachers and districts is that students in poverty need to be taught based on what is essential and necessary for them. She believes that most teachers are from a middle socioeconomic status, and that does not allow them to understand the true needs of students that are from a lower socioeconomic status. Payne also believes that poverty is more than just a monetary condition. Based on Anita Bohn, Payne believes that being poor is cultural. In this culture there are certain values and rules that people live by. Payne states that the values of being poor are passed down from generation to generation. Each generation teaching the next what Payne calls the “hidden rules of poverty.”

In Bohn’s article she list the questions Payne gives on a quiz called “Could you Survive?” Some of the questions for could you survive the lower class are:

I know how to get someone out of jail.
I know how to physically fight and defend myself physically
I know how to get a gun, even if I have a police record.
Some of the questions asked for if you can survive middle class are:

I know how to hire a private attorney to handle a criminal or civil matter.
I know how to reserve a table at a restaurant.
I know how to set and decorate a table with flowers, place mats, and napkins.
At first read of these questions I was completely shocked at the questions about the lower class, and even shocked to hear what she had to say about the middle class. It felt very stereotypical to judge all people based on a few assumptions. Coming from the field of Special Education I am taught that all children are individuals and should be taught based on their individual needs, not on an assumption or stereotype.

My issue with the quiz aside, originally I had no problem believing in the message that Payne preached. I loved the idea that she focused her attention on children that can so easily be overlooked. She has a very strong message, and approaches poverty from an angle different than any I have heard before. Her words have a way of entrancing you and making you want to get up and change your ways. From what I have read, she is a very powerful speaker and makes the audience feel involved with her personal stories about child. I believe that Ruby believes in what she is preaching. I can tell from all my research that she truly has a passion for children and wants to help teachers enrich their lives.

Believing Payne has a passion for child is not enough for me. It wasn’t until I took a second to look into the actual research that I found some flaws in her message. Her message is not backed up by research. The research she has claimed to do has not been checked or authorized as valid. She is not published in popular journals as a true expert on poverty because her work has not been evaluated.

I believe that we as educators should hear her message, that Ruby Payne is an intelligent individual that truly believes in the message she is preaching. I do not think that teachers should get swept up in the hype she preaches and start changing all of their teaching approaches. The works of Ruby Payne should be heard, thought about completely, and parts of them should be put into practice. Teachers need to be well rounded and able to look at information with a critical eye.