Ruby was in town
by Jim Jacobs
The Zephyr, Galesburg
Sometimes
the petite blond from Texas leaned across the podium in front of Hegg
Auditorium like she was chatting with an old friend; other times gesturing to
emphasize a point, sprinkling serious talk with humorous anecdotes,
occasionally checking her watch because she had a plane to catch.
Dr. Ruby Payne was in Galesburg last week. She came to town to
tell local educators how to understand poor kids.
Payne is the self-appointed expert on schools and poor
children, and because I taught 35 years at a school that has lots of boys and
girls who live in poverty, I was eager to hear what she had to say. Thanks to
an invitation from Sharon Gonzalez, Galesburg High School Assistant Principal, I
got the chance.
For over a decade, Payne has crisscrossed the world giving
lectures like the one she gave here – at hefty prices. Joel Estes,
District 205 Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, kindly
got me an interview with Payne a few minutes before she spoke. She was
approachable and forthcoming, admitting she averages $17,000 for a full day's
work, although she said: "Sometimes I do it for nothing. I believe you
should give back." Reportedly, Payne was generous to 205.
Fact is, Dr. Payne has created a poverty industry. Centered in
Highlands, TX, aha! Process, Inc. includes a publishing company, training
center, and a staff of 25, all dedicated to her theory about poor kids and why
they're such a "problem." Her theory goes something like this: Middle
class people and poor people don't understand each other, but poor people need
to learn how to act middle class; therefore, teachers need to instruct poor
kids in middle class ways.
If I sound skeptical, it's because I am. Frankly, it's a
stretch to believe that a person who rakes in seventeen grand a day, 150 days a
year, understands what it's like to go to bed hungry or be set out on the curb
because you can't find a job to pay rent.
A good friend who teaches at GHS chided me for my skepticism.
Teachers need to understand that many students come from poverty, I was told. I
absolutely agree, especially considering fifty percent of District 205 students
are poor. Also, I give 205 credit for discussing socioeconomic class.
However, it's not enough to talk about poor children: poor
children have a right to be educated, and usually they're cheated. Sadly, Payne
only devoted a small portion near the end of her lecture to strategies for
teaching students who live in poverty. She explained that she had discussed
strategies earlier in the day. But what works with students should be her
focus, not a few sentences tacked to the end of a speech.
I confess I agree with Payne on some things. For instance,
teachers generally don't understand poor kids. Also, poor kids need to learn
how the capitalist system works, so they can exploit it, because it usually
exploits them. Payne is right when she implies that standardized tests have
been detrimental to poor children because they give a blurry snap shot, instead
of a complete picture of a student's day-by-day performance. She's right
to remind us there's human capital in relationships; it's called
"networking." Poor kids need to know how to network. For sure,
teachers need to help students build what Payne calls a "future
story" – a vision of what they want their life to be like down the
road. Even more important, educators need to help poor kids figure out how to
make that story become a reality. Like Payne, I believe people should take personal
responsibility, but not just poor people – affluent people, too. Finally,
I give Ruby Payne credit for trying to turn her theory into practice, taking it
to educators instead of spouting it from some think tank; what's more, her
book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, contains some
useful suggestions.
However, PayneÕs poverty theory has flaws that shouldnÕt be
ignored, and I brought some of these up with her during our interview.
First, I asked why Framework
hardly mentions parents? In my years of teaching, the parents of poor children
had been one of my most valuable resources. She said more references to parents
are in her new book published two weeks ago. Payne also explained that she
wrote Framework Òreally fast.Ó It
wasnÕt meant for researchers. ItÕs Òa practical guide for practitioners.Ó
HereÕs the problem: If Payne wants to give teachers a practical
guide to help students in poverty succeed, then it's essential that she bring
parents into the process. Reginald Clark in his book, Family Life and School Achievement: Why Poor Black Children Succeed or
Fail, reveals when a parent is involved in the child's academic life, the
child is bound to do well. Furthermore, it is the duty of educators to get
parents involved, not wait for parents to come to them. Educators who
successfully teach poor children, forge a partnership with the parents. They
are the teachers who seek the parent's counsel while providing ways for a
parent to help a child learn.
Another criticism of Payne comes form Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, an
educational consultant with the firm African American Images. In his book, An African Centered Response to Ruby Payne's
Poverty Theory, Kunjufu faults Payne for making no distinction between the
poverty experienced in white rural America from black urban poverty. Sure,
Kunjufu is competing with Ruby Payne for the same consultant dollar, but I'm
also convinced he's right. When asked about his criticism, Payne said she
simply doesn't have time to talk about race and poverty.
Payne should read The
Other America: Poverty in the United States, by Michael Harrington. She
cherry-picked a quotation from him out of another source and stuck it in Framework. However, she must not have
read the fourth chapter of Harrington's 1960's classic where he tells the
reader that poverty among African Americans is "unique" because it is
based on a "long history" of "an interlocking base of economic
and racial injustice."
Of course, poverty isn't racial: being black doesn't mean
you're poor. In fact, more white Americans live in poverty than African
Americans. However, what Ruby Payne doesn't recognize is that poverty
experienced by African Americans has very different origins and manifests
itself in ways subtlety divergent from poverty among white Americans. Same can
be said for Hispanic groups and Native American Indian tribes – different
history, different experience, different culture. When Payne runs away from the
political construct of race, she deprives herself of the valuable resources
available in those communities suffering from racism. Resources that could
expedite her cause, not burden it.
A frequent criticism of Payne's work is that she perpetuates
stereotypes. She denied it, telling me that her work is an analytical study of
class that looks at how people think. She went on to say, "Stereotyping
occurs when you apply the patterns in a group to everybody in the group. But
your brain is going to process in patterns, and they can be informed or they
can be uninformed."
Payne believes she's not fostering stereotyping; however, I
think she is. A social theorist should make it clear that social patterns are
generalizations punctuated by significant individual departures within a group.
Ruby Payne doesn't make this distinction enough.
I brought up the case study of Walter, appearing in chapter
four of Framework. Walter is
convicted of molestation, and his mother excuses him. In the book, Payne says
of her, "She leans on the self-righteous defense of being moral and
Christian, but not in the middle-class sense of Christianity." I asked her
if she was saying that the middle class view of Christianity was superior to
the view held by poor people. She answered, "What is misunderstood by the
critics [of my theory] is that one set of rules in one class is better than
another. I have never said that. They're just different."
That's a good answer. Problem is, Payne gives such a litany of
anti-social behaviors connected with poverty, I donÕt see how
"uninformed" people can help but have stereotypes reinforced.
According to Ruby Payne, poor people are confrontational and fight, obsessed
with sex, are loud talkers with limited verbal skills, and like dirty jokes.
But that description doesn't jibe with my experience.
Three years ago I worked with people whose children attend
Cooke School. They were trying to persuade the board not to close that
building. Most of the children who attend Cooke come from poor families. The
children are poor. The parents are poor. But these folks had no problem
expressing themselves; they had no language deficiency. Nobody cussed out the
District 205 administration or threatened to fight the superintendent or school
board president. Instead, they made their case, and five of the board members
voted to keep Cooke open. And Cooke is thriving.
The poor people I've known in my life are the people who work
hard every day. They clean up messes and empty bedpans in nursing homes. They
carry our trash away from our houses. They prepare and serve our food and make
up beds in hotels. They are the people who work two and three jobs to keep
their family together. All I ask of Ruby Payne is to tell audiences about these
folks.
The last question I asked Dr. Payne was this: How many people
have raised themselves out of poverty due to your theory? She answered, "I
have no idea."
That says a lot.
I do think Ruby Payne cares about poor children. She's
definitely a shrewd businesswoman who knows how to market her ideas. Some of
those ideas I agree with – but not all of them.
When it comes to Ruby Payne, or any educational guru, I would
suggest that educators be like homeless people. The homeless are the most
resourceful people I know. They have a way of sorting out the useful from the
useless. Educators should do the same with theories. They should take what they
can use and leave the rest.
THE ENTIRE RUBY PAYNE INTERVIEW CAN BE FOUND ON THE BLOG AT www.hrassoc.net
Sources
used for this article:
Books:
Clark,
Reginald M. Family Life and School
Achievement: Why Poor Black Children Succeed or Fail.
Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Harrington,
Michael. The Other America: Poverty in
the United States. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1962.
Kunjufu,
Jawanza. An African Centered Response to
Ruby Payne's Poverty Theory. Chicago: African American Images, 2005.
Payne,
Ruby. A Framework for Understanding
Poverty. Highlands, TX: aha! Process, Inc., 1996.
Articles:
Gorski,
Paul "The Classist Underpinnings of Ruby Payne's Framework" in TCRecord: The Voice of Scholarship in
Education. Feb. 9, 2006
Tough,
Paul. '"The Class-Consciousness Raiser" in The New York Times, June 10, 2007
Other Sources:
Interview
with Dr. Ruby Payne conducted by Jim Jacobs on Feb. 20, 2008 at Galesburg
Senior High School.
Ruby
Payne's website at www.ahaprocess.com
2/28/08