Overview & Conclusion

A Framework for Understanding Poverty has sold over 1,000,000 copies. This book strives to be an inspection of the social and economic class structure of the United States and seeks to provide those living in middle class and wealth with a better understanding of the challenges that face those living in poverty. It is a self proclaimed "must read for educators, employers, policy makers, and service providers." The goal of the book is to provide the reader with "practical, real-world support and guidance to improve your effectiveness in working with people from all socioeconomic backgrounds."

The author of the book, Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D., received her B.A. from Goshen (IN) College. She earned a master's degree from Western Michigan University and her doctorate from Loyola (IL) University. She has been in the field of education since 1972 and has been a teacher, principal, consultant, and administrator. Ruby Payne founded the company aha! Process in 1994 which works with various organizations (schools, churches, social service groups, etc.) to promote the understanding of the effects of poverty on our children and communities. She spreads this message by speaking to approximately 200 groups a year. aha! Process also publishes Dr. Payne's books, including A Framework for Understanding Poverty.

As we close out this discussion, I hope that the information discussed and shared has benefited you as educators. For your final blog, tell us what you have added to your backpack in order to increase the success of your students. (You do NOT have to respond to another student)

Chapter 9: Creating Relationships

This chapter discusses relationships and their effect on children of poverty. Chapter 9 states, "The Key to achievement for students from poverty is in creating relationships with them."


I believe that this statement is very powerful. When I read this chapter, I began to think of all the students at Madison James Foster and all the students at Robinson that I chat with everyday. I began to realize that just by asking them about their grades or about their day, I am not only investing in their future but I am also building a relationship with them.

Chapter 9 states that the first step to creating relationships with students and even adults is to make the deposits that are the basis of relationships. This chapter lists examples of relationship deposits and withdrawals. They are as follows:

Deposits:

• Seek First to Understand

• Keeping Promises

• Kindness, courtesies

• Clarifying Expectations

• Loyalty to the Student

• Apologies

• Open to Feedback

Withdrawals

• Seek first to be understood

• Breaking Promises

• Unkindness; discourtesies

• violating expectations

• Disloyalty; duplicity

• Pride, conceit, arrogance

• Rejecting Feedback

Do you build relationships with the students at Robinson Elementary? Do you make withdrawals or deposits? If you have a particular relationship with a special student, please share. Don't forget to comment on at least two other posts.

Chapter 8: Instruction and Improving Achievement

In A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Dr. Payne seeks to improve the academic achievement of students from poverty. This chapter seeks to provide teachers with instructional strategies that will lead to achievement. First, Dr. Payne differentiates between teaching and learning and then explains the learning structures of cognitive strategies, concepts, skills, and content. Using information gathered by Reuven Feuerstein, she purports that children in poverty come to school without cognitive strategies. Furthermore, when cognitive strategies are missing there are learning ramifications such as, blurred and sweeping perceptions and the lack of systematic method of exploration, impaired verbal tools, impaired spatial orientation, impaired temporal orientation, impaired observation of constancies, lack of precision and accuracy in data-gathering, and the inability to hold two objects or sources inside the head while comparing and contrasting. Therefore, Dr. Payne believes that for children of poverty to be able to be more successful in school, cognitive strategies must be taught directly. A list of strategies that must be built are given in this chapter, as well as a lesson design and intervention strategies that a teacher could use.

Points to Ponder:· The focus in schools should be on learning.· Instruction in the cognitive strategies should be a part of the curriculum.· Staff development should focus on a diagnostic approach rather than a programmatic approach.· Efforts to promote learning should pay greater heed to what is in the student's head.· Insistence, expectations, and support need to be guiding lights in our decisions about instruction.

How does the points above apply in your school and classroom?

Chapter 7: Discipline

In poverty, discipline is about penance and forgiveness, not necessarily change. In Generational Poverty, the mother has the most powerful position and is, in some ways, the "keeper of the soul." She dispenses the judgments, determines the amount and price of penance, and offers forgiveness. When forgiveness is granted, behaviors and activities return to the way they were before the incident.

Chapter 7 Summary:

• Students from poverty need to have at least two sets of behaviors from which to choose-one for the street and one for the school and work settings.
  
• The purpose of discipline should be to promote successful behaviors at school.
• Teaching students to use the adult voice (the language of negotiation) is important for success in and out of school and can become an alternative to physical aggression.
• Structure and choice need to be part of the discipline approach.
• Discipline should be seen and used as a form of instruction.

The beginning of this chapter described the mother as the "Keeper of the Soul." What do you think this means? Have you found this statement to be true? How does the mother impact discipline in her household or does she?

Please post and comment on two other posts.

Chapter 6: Support Systems

Chapter six is an overview of the support systems that can be accessed in times of need.By reorganizing the school day and schedule, and often by making minor adjustments, educators can build support systems into the school day without additional cost.
Support systems need to include the teaching of procedural self-talk, positive self-talk, planning, goal-setting, coping strategies, appropriate relationships, options during problem solving, access to information and know-how, and connections to additional resources. The seven categories of support systems are
1.) Coping Strategies,
2.) Options During Problem Solving,
3.) Information and Know-How,
4.) Temporary Relief from Emotional, Mental, Financial, and/or Time Constraints,
5.) Connections to Other People and Resources,
6.) Positive Self-Talk,
7.) Procedural Self-Talk.
An explanation of these support systems is followed by a sample list of support systems that can be used in schools to help students of poverty.

Given the information in this chapter how can you use it to improve your school?

Chapter 5: Role Models and Emotional Resources

Chapter 5 discusses the importance of role models and their part in the development of emotional resources. This chapter discusses the difference between functional and dysfunctional.
Are you a good role model to the students around you? Also, do you feel that your students watch you to gain the emotional resources that he or she may need to survive in a life of poverty? Have you ever deposited emotional resources into a student's "Emotional Memory Bank?" Were they positive emotional resources or negative ones? Can you give us a specific example of a time or a situation where you deposited emotional resources (positive or negative) into a student's "Emotional Memory Bank."

Don't forget to respond to at least two other posts.

Chapter 4: Characteristics of Generational Poverty

Chapter four provides an overview of several characteristics that make generational poverty different from situational poverty and middle class. Some examples of these characteristics are background noise, significance of entertainment, matriarchal family structure, survival orientation, belief in fate, and polarized thinking. There is also an overview of family patterns in generational poverty, as well as an explanation as to how these characteristics surface with adults and students and in school situations.

How does this information apply to the school or work setting?
An education is the key to getting out of, and staying out of, generational poverty. Individuals leave poverty for one of four reasons: a goal or vision of something they want to be or have; a situation that is so painful that anything would be better; someone who "sponsors" them (i.e., an educator or spouse or mentor or role model who shows them a different way or convinces them that they could live differently); or a specific talent or ability that provides an opportunity for them.
Being in poverty is rarely about a lack of intelligence or ability.
Many individuals stay in poverty because they don't know there is a choice and if they do know that, have no one to teach them the hidden rules or provide resources.
Schools are virtually the only places where students can learn the choices and rules of the middle class.

Question: Knowing that, as an educator, you are in a position to show students that they have a choice; How are you presenting those choices to your students and how are they receiving them; are you being effective in showing your student s thier choices in deciding their future.