Comments on: More on Ruby Payne…

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sun, 03 May 2009 19:49:45 +0000

I've been assigned the Ruby Payne book for my alternative certification program. I took her "class" quiz. I can get people out of jail, know how to set a table, and have favorite restaurants in other countries. So what. I plan on taking whatever works for my classroom, regardless of the source. What's more important…what someone thinks, or what works to help students get out of their situation and see a better life for themselves ?

By: sell

sell — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:06:37 +0000

We should do away with logic and reason while we’re at- there is no longer any reason for such things in this paradise we have come to create.

By: Pogie

Pogie — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:32:39 +0000

Yeah, there’s nothing racist about saying that “we” white people should “fix poor people.”

Sigh.

By: sell

sell — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:08:23 +0000

As a liberal,I believe its important for us to keep some people poor- we need their votes on election day. The best way to discredit anyone who points out the dysfunctional culture of poverty that devastates this country is to scream things like “racism!” and “classism!” (preferably with exclamation point). This will scare white people and they will abandon any attempt to fix poor people and their destructive nature.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:57:06 +0000

Having just read Ruby Payne’s book, and endured an entire day of being force-fed her philosophy by administrators at the school where I work, I acknowledge that I have more in common with those living in poverty than those living in middle class, and absolutely nothing in common with the privileged class–no surprise to public school teachers. I work in a district where about half of our students meet the federal standards for “poor,” yet little in the type-casting “culture of poverty applies to more than a couple of students.
Both the book and the training provided a handful of useful suggestions, but I fear that this latest bandwagon is getting more attention in some places than is warranted. From someone (Ruby Payne), who acknowledges that poverty is relative, there was a disappointing lack of application to the students we teach- rural or small-town, isolated people, who do not meet the descriptions of any of
Ruby Payne’s tidy categories. Yes, I have been what Ruby Payne would call “poor,” and I have worked with, and been in the homes of “poor.” I have taught all three of the stereotypical levels she describes, in both inner-city, and rural communities. The “culture of poverty” is far more complex than this latest movement describes.
This book is worth reading, however, I would caution well-intentioned educators against categorizing families that are as varied as the American culture itself.

By: Pogie

Pogie — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 18:00:45 +0000

Amen. I can’t imagine how terrible it would be if someone like me was a teacher.

By: Leo

Leo — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:53:50 +0000

It is a good thing Pogie is not a teacher or we may have a lot of little kids running around thinging about throwing thinks.

By: Valerie

Valerie — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:52:08 +0000

I think you are misunderstanding the concept of Payne’s “Understanding Poverty”. As a middle class teacher who teaches in an impoverished urban school, I found Payne’s work to be an insight into a world that I did not understand. I found that after the workshops, I have a better insight in regard to where my students are coming from. Her tests asking if you can survive in a world of poverty, middle-class, or wealth was very eye-opening. Different classes have different value systems. Does that make one a racist to recognize that?

I don’t believe that Payne is trying to assimilate anyone into the “middle class” lifestyle. She aknowledges that casual register is necessary, but formal register is generally the accepted language in the work world. SHe isn’t inventing the rules, she is telling it the way it is. I think everyone knows that there are different behaviors to be used in the workplace and out with friends. Unfortunately, for my high school students, they believe that the casual is the way it should be. They will not achieve any sort of success that way and after all…aren’t we all here to help the kids succeed?

By: Shane C. Mason

Shane C. Mason — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:02:09 +0000

I don’t really understand the term ‘middle class teacher’. Does it mean teachers who teach middle class students? Or does it mean teachers who teach at private schools? I suppose that it could mean teachers who are married to someone who makes more than they do. Last time I checked, being a teacher in the state of Montana makes you part of ‘the working poor’, unless you take a very broad view of what ‘middle class’ means.

In my mind, middle class is too often used to describe anyone who is not ‘dirt poor’ nor ‘filthy rich’.

“Everyone wants to believe they are middle class… But this eagerness… has led the definition to be stretched like a bungee cord – used to defend/attack/describe everything… Ah yes, there’s a group of people bound to run into each other while house-hunting.” -Dante Chinni, The Christian Science Monitor. 2005.

OK, this may be OT, but it bothers me that we use the term middle class so freely because it hides the truth about what is really happening in the American economy. The filty rich are getting filthier while more and more people are hovering around poverty. I think that the term ‘middle class’ is often used when ‘working class’ ought to be. There is a good discussion on ‘middle class’ at Wikipedia.