UNDERSTANDING POVERTY

Prior to reading Ruby Payne's book A Framework for Understanding Poverty, I had to be reminded by a family member that I have to always remember that the family and home lives of many of my students affects whether my students are able to carry out my expectations of them. For example, when I complained about the fact that several of my students refused to stay after school to take a retest, I was reminded that some of them hold jobs in order to assist in paying bills. After reading the book, I am again prompted to consider such things, and I have a better idea about why my students do some of the things that they do, and why they don't do some of the things that I expect them to do.

One portion of the book that was particularly interesting to me was the part that discussed some of the possible reasons for a student's disrespectful behavior to a teacher. The book suggested that perhaps some students do not know many adults worth of respect. The book also suggested that a student who is a parent often has problems with teachers that use the "parent voice" with them in discipline situations. This section confirmed my assumptions that one of the problems I was having with one of my students was due to her perception of herself as an adult, and my treatment of her as a child, which she could not readily accept.

When reading the book, the creating relationships section was one of the most important sections for me. I became a teacher because I wanted to have the opportunity to build relationships with young people so that I may encourage and assist them in reaching lofty goals. The chart provided regarding creating good relationships with students will be helpful to me because, up to this point, I have been having difficulties fostering a mentoring relationship with my students because many of them think that I am too strict and unreasonable. The suggestions that I intend to implement more often are giving apologies and being open to feedback. I can think of some moments where I have said something in class to a student that I could have said in a much more tactful way for which an apology would be appropriate for the purpose of helping foster a relationship with the student. Also, although I do periodically mention the fact that I am open to feedback, I need to make sure that the students are aware of that and will feel free to provide feedback on a regular basis.

The discussion in the book regarding hidden rules among classes presented ideas that I had not really thought about. While I do understand that differences exist between the lifestyles of different classes, it was an eye-opener to be explicitly informed that some of the routine things that I take for granted as being understood or observed by just about everybody are only observed by a certain class.

One of my problems with reading the books was the blanket generalizations, even though I am aware that it is necessary for a book like this to address issues in this manner, and despite the fact that the generalizations are probably true in many instances.