Payne's A Framework for Understanding Poverty

“But it is the responsibility of educators and others who work with the poor to teach the differences and skills/rules that will allow the individual to make the choice. As it now stands for many of the poor, the choice never exists.

-Ruby Payne

Ruby Payne’s book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty stemmed from the question, “How does poverty impact learning, work habits and decision making?” Payne views her research from a cognitive perspective, which examines the relationship between the environment and the thinking that occurs within that environment. Throughout her book, Payne seeks to understand how poverty affects work habits, learning, and decision-making. Her research uncovered various differences between those living in generational poverty and middle-class citizens. According to Payne, those differences had very little to do with money. In her book, she delves further into these differences and considers how they may contribute to the lack of opportunities presented to poor children when compared with middle-class children. Furthermore, she applies her findings to the classroom so that teachers can become successful in educating children from poverty. Payne suggests that although poor children may not have all the resources that middle-class children have, they are still capable of learning and being creative.

Like any publication about a controversial topic such as poverty, Ruby Payne’s book sparked much conversation, both positive and negative. Some of the criticisms that came up in the literature are rather interesting points. First, Payne believes that poor people lack knowledge of the middle-class. After teachers and educators realize this, she believes they can teach poor children their skills so they can acquire the behavior and norms that comprise the middle-class. This will give them choices, which will enable them to have more opportunities to succeed and escape the limits of poverty. I think that this view encouraged critics to say that her ideas and beliefs are stereotypical about common, outdated opinions about race and class. However, she believes that race and class can be separated, which, in my opinion, is a forward thinking perspective to have. While you may be able to apply certain patterns of findings, it is highly situational and depends on the environment. Stereotyping occurs when observed patterns within a group are compared to each individual in that group, so as to strip each person of their uniqueness. Thus, race and class must be separated and I think that Payne takes that stand, too.

Another criticism is that Payne’s book reflects the deficit model where negative connotations are given to an identified group of people. For example, in her book she says that people living in generational poverty have similar characteristics, where they are physically aggressive, have difficulty monitoring their behavior and do not acknowledge authority. Again, I feel that this is highly dependent on one’s environment. For example, in an economically disadvantaged area, overrun with high crime rates and drug abuse, behaviors of the people in that area may be similar and contingent on the types of experiences they have had, or how they feel they need to behave in order to survive. However, unlike the deficit model, Payne does not believe that the problem lies within the person or group of people of whom she described. Again, her view is that an individual’s immediate environment is highly responsible for one’s behavior, which also effects what someone is able to accomplish in life.

In their article entitled, “Poverty and Payne: supporting teachers to work with children of poverty,” Sato and Lensmire criticize Payne for more or less assigning the role of “savior” to teachers whom educate poor children. But my question is this—what is wrong with educators striving to effect social change? Why shouldn’t students view their teachers as role models or “saviors”? There are countless bodies of literature that have found that close student-teacher relationships, where the teacher is viewed as a role model or mentor, have a positive effect on student achievement in the classroom. In my opinion, education is the key to life success, and doing well in school is the only way children can escape the hardships of poverty. The fact is that children living in poverty, or generational poverty as Payne explains it, have many more obstacles to face and overcome when compared with their middle-class counterparts. Since education is so important, these children need teachers on their side to help them overcome and surpass the hardships they are faced with. In order for educators to have a positive impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, they need to not only understand the backgrounds of their students, but also adopt different styles of teaching and communicating in an attempt to influence and show them that the American dream means that you can make better for yourself, but it all starts with a quality education.