poverty and learning

One nation; three cultures
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader, Thursday, January 25, 2007 – Page 3

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard former teachers or teachers nearing retirement lament about how “kids just aren’t like they were when I first started teaching.”

High school teachers especially get frustrated because they feel like its next to impossible to teach their subject matter because kids these days “just don’t listen anymore... don’t have any respect for adults anymore... you have to teach all of these other things... they don’t have as long of attention spans...” etc. etc.

I believe these well meaning educators aren’t merely “burnt-out.” I believe they’re correct in their observations, but this doesn’t have to be a reason to be discouraged or to give up, it’s just a fact that has to be accounted for and adapted to. I believe the problem is poverty.
As part of our professional development, my school district instituted a number of workshops based on the research of Dr. Ruby K. Payne called “A framework for understanding generational poverty.”

Many of us face situational poverty in our lifetimes, that’s where times are really tight or a illness or job loss has put the crunch on our family. “Generational poverty refers to when a family has remained under the poverty line for two generations or more. Generational poverty creates a completely different culture that what most of us are used to, a culture that impedes not only student learning in school, but survival and success in school and at work in general.
Many of us complain that poverty shouldn’t be an excuse. “We were poor but my parents still demanded that I respect my teachers and worked hard in school,” we’ll say, but perhaps we weren’t as poor as we thought.

There are eight resources that Dr. Payne considers vital to any learner’s success: Obviously one needs financial resources. Having emotional resources means being able to choose how you respond to difficult situations. Mental resources refers to intellectual skills needed for every day life. Spiritual resources are one’s beliefs in God’s purpose and guidance. Physical resources are your health and mobility.

The last three resources are often what makes or breaks someone’s ability to succeed at work and school: Having a support system of friends or family to fall back on when your other resources fall through. Role models who not only demonstrate healthy choices but also are accessible as mentors are becoming fewer and farther between these days.
Finally, Payne believes that each socio-economic class has it’s own set of unspoken (or hidden) rules. If you aren’t familiar with these rules, you’re bound to make cultural mistakes that could cost you.

For example; in poverty, you laugh when you’re reprimanded as a way to save face. It’s a reaction that you’ve been raised with and you’re used to, so you don’t even think about it. Needless to say, this is a middle-class taboo. If you laugh when the principal gives you a detention, you may just get a suspension. Laugh at your boss and you may go from having to stay late to being unemployed.

These are the core values for each group: Those in generational poverty are driven by survival, relationships and entertainment. Relationships are so important that people are practically considered possessions.

In the Middle Class we tend to value achievement. We talk about our work-ethic and we prove that we’ve achieved something by working with the material things we can buy. The truly wealth value their connections, their social, financial and political networks and their status within those networks.
Logically then, the wealthy concentrate on the past, their traditions and legacies. In the middle class we look toward the future, being the first kid to go off to college and doing better than the generation before you. Whereas without many of those previously mentioned 8 resources, those in poverty can see only the here and now.

That kind of thinking translates into speaking and thinking too. Middle class kids can see cause and effect, this leads to that, the plot thickens, reaches a peak and has a resolution.
Poor kids don’t have the same kind of linear, logical, sequential thinking skills. They exist in the moment. They’re stories may consist of unconnected anecdotes. Instead of being plot-driven, communication is character-driven or joke-driven.

One way to help students overcome this is to use analogies and graphic organizers. These give them something to hang new learning on- the infrastructure that they’ve missed.

Parents of all incomes need to make the time to read to their children, especially pre-schoolers. That lays the framework they’ll need for abstract thinking as the get older.

Anyone interested in learning more can read Dr. Payne’s articles at http://www.ahaprocess.com/files/PovSeriesPartsI-IV.pdf

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Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. ‘Ted’s Column’ has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. If you’d like to see any of Ted’s editorial cartoons bigger and brighter, you can visit http://tmal.multiply.com/photos/album/2