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Sunday, May 20, 2012
May 30…Ruby Payne
Are
Payne’s critics being fair?What did you
find that was useful or illuminating in Payne’s text? Comment on whether/how
deficit thinking has been present in your own thinking.
Sorry guys, here comes another long one. Be assured that I did edit it down . . .
Before I get too deeply into this, let me first say that I didn't read the majority of Payne's book, nor did I attempt to. Also, for what it's worth, as a few of us mentioned on the first day of class, my viewpoint of the book was already somewhat influenced by Kurt's disdain. That being said . . .
I think Bomer et al. are right on in their criticism of Payne's book, which reads, especially at the end, more like some kind of self-help scam (she is, after all, trying to sell her program to schools). She generalizes all aspects of people living in poverty - how they speak, they're ability to think into the future, their views on money, their sexual proclivities, their entire worldview - and doesn't, for the most part, cite any hard evidence to back her claims. Additionally, a quick look at her references shows that she barely used any scholarly journals in her research, relying heavily on just a few texts, some of which are books on class published 50 years ago(!!).
Their claim that she never mentions deficit thinking is untrue, however. In the appendix (pp 174-182), Payne discusses her additive approach to solving the problems inherent (to her) in teaching impoverished populations. She puts this approach up directly against a deficit approach, and goes to great lengths to say that she doesn't consider the attributes she's laid out as essential truths of all poor people to be negatives; instead they should be valued as necessary for survival, and augmented with the more common values of the middle class. Without touching on the arrogance of her entire stance, I feel like it's worth pointing out that she does address deficit thinking, and clears herself of it, in her argument, anyway.
I know very well that I have fallen prey to this line of thinking (not to the extremes of Payne's book, mind you). While working with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for 5 years, I worked with classrooms from some of the richest and poorest schools throughout Virginia, Maryland, and DC, and have frequently made assumptions over the context, knowledge base, and opinions of all manners of students, from inner-city Baltimore to Luray, Virginia, to suburban Richmond. Expecting city kids to be scared of water and nature, expecting suburban private school kids to be aloof and entitled, expecting rural kids to be down to earth and polite . . . never did my assumptions prove entirely accurate or inaccurate.
Given how successful Payne's book is, I am trying to consider what value can be pulled from her misguided and factually incorrect theses. While I believe firmly that Payne is painting a huge amount of different people with the same brush, I think there is certainly use in the recognition of the differences of many of the student's home-lives and how that might affect both their behavior, their context, their language and comprehension, and their ability/willingness to ingest information.
Finally, I felt that Bromer et al were, in the discussion section, pushing for teachers to become explicit advocates for social change(they say so, in fact), “to give, to volunteer, to speak out, to hold politicians accountable – in short, to change a system that perpetuates poverty.” While I have and will continue to do these things, I feel it's inappropriate for me to do so under the auspices of being a teacher. Frankly, throughout the discussion, they indict Payne for not examining more fully “policies regarding housing, segregation, taxation, or public expenditures,” an argument I feel is beyond the scope of Payne's very flawed book. If Payne had strayed away from lumping the classes into homogenous groups, her point of the necessity to teach to the entire person, baggage and all, would have been better served. It may not have sold 800,000 copies, though.
Like Josh, I did not read Payne’s book in its entirety, I tried though, but it was difficult. My brow was furrowed the whole time while reading. I was offended by Payne’s work at the core of it. I will say this, however: a lot of how I feel about both texts has something to do with the framing of material. Payne obviously wants readers to sympathize and agree with her “research.” She paints a picture of the poor students who need help aspiring for middle class goals that may or may not be the best for them in the first place. I don’t really know how being married to a man who was in “situational poverty” and was around those in “generational poverty” makes her an expert, though. She is trying to sell books, but my problem with her is the amount of moral judgments she makes. I agree with the article in the claim that she doesn’t take the word poverty at its literal definition; her view is “you can take the person out of the poor, but you can’t take the poor out of the person.” That aside, I believe that the article was right on the money with their evaluation of Payne’s truth assessments. I think a lot of the book is geared toward a middle class, white audience and it shows. As a woman of color reading through the book I was offended more times than I can count, especially having gone to school with these “children in poverty.” Payne, indeed, made a lot of statements without much to back her up, but I can see why her target audience would be eager for this information. Because of a lack of experience with the situations that she describes, I can understand why the book has been really popular- but there is no key to unlocking how to help children who really are in poverty. Situations differ from person to person and you have to treat students as such- as individuals who matter. It is tempting to find a solution that would work with everyone, but that would mean eliminating factors that make teachers and students unique.
What I did find illuminating was the idea that Payne does really want to help. Her attempt is misguided and misinformed, but she is trying to help people who want to help the students and you can’t fault her or her wide range of readers for that. I really did like that she geared a lot of the book toward helping, but the activities were based on the idea of deficit thinking on a deeper level than maybe she even realizes. She makes these broad statements like, “In poverty, discipline is about penance and forgiveness, not necessarily change” (77). How would she really know that as a fact? It sure reads like one to me… The following chapter then has ways to identify and work against this- making it feel like it’s the student’s fault. Considering I don’t agree with her framework, she tries to provide these examples and exercises that work within it and I can say hip hip hooray for her, but that is about it. I was impressed that I gathered she does genuinely want to help and she goes all in within her frame.
As far as deficit thinking goes, I think it permeates a bit of everyone’s mind- speaking for myself here. We all would hope to be these agents of change, who show that we care about our jobs and our students, but deep down we think that students in the environment of poverty are lacking something because of everything that may have been taken away in the past from them. Not to Payne’s extreme, but I do believe that we are colored by the thought that students lack something, other than the instruction that we intend to give. For example, I have seen countless teachers give up on students and I have seen parents say, “Why are you in school anyway, you’ll just flunk out and have to find a job,” and my bit in deficit thinking is that *sometimes* there is a lack of support and that would be something that I want to offer. It sounds so noble on the surface that no one could really argue with that deep feeling to help- but it is saying that they lack this support this “resource,” as Payne would label it, and that we need to correct that somehow. Is that deficit thinking or am I misunderstanding.
I haven't read the review or the comments above yet, but today Payne's book showed up on the pinterest homepage...and most of the comments were extremely positive, almost glowing with praise of the book. Just goes to show how influential the book really is.
As I made my way through Ruby Payne’s book, I found myself astonished by the absurdity of some of the inferences she made; many of her ‘hidden rules’ sounded like politically incorrect jokes (poor people always have the t.v. on loudly – where the hell did that come from Ruby?)
Bomer et al.’s critique seemed spot on and well-researched. After reading both Payne and Bomer, I feel that I now have more concrete understanding deficit thinking, and can also see the negative consequences of such thinking. As teachers, we have to realize that are larger, socio-political reasons why our students live in poverty. Only when we appreciate that, can we really relate to them as individuals with value. If we looked at our students through a deficit perspective, we would see only broken pieces meant to be put together in the correct way.
There is value in Ruby Payne’s work in that it is a well-intentioned (I hope) way to help people solve social problems. Yet her book serves only to reinforce main stream, middle-class views of the poor, views that often blame poor individuals for their social position.
As Wenda mentioned, we are all guilty of, and still probably prone to, occasional deficit thinking. Sadly, it is often easier to blame the victim than to blame an established system. But by becoming aware of our views, we can work to change them. So thank you Ruby Payne for helping me define what deficit thinking really is; now I can try to avoid such a mentality.
Ruby Payne's deficit way of thinking pretty much describes the mindset of a teacher who would "rub people the wrong way". Of course, we all have good intentions behind our path into teaching. However, like Bomer and my brilliant colleagues above, I believe it is deficit thinking that only perpetuates the stereotypes that contribute to the vicious cycle of poverty. It will be very detrimental to our success as teachers to come across as the "white knight" here to save the broken poor. Just as Ryan stated, Payne seems to blame the poor's status on the poor. Her husband was poor, so Ruby knows all the "hidden secrets"? Not sure about that one. Her book is filled with generalities that simply skim the surface, making poverty seem as simple as her textual "evidence". Bomer's work does well to critique Payne's text through thoughtful accompanied by research.
I hope that I can find a way to never come across as a "savior" teacher. I am in teaching to make a difference, but I will never claim to fix a student. Perhaps, those who come across as genuine will have the most success.
I found this book to be judgmental and stereotypical in many ways. I was amazed at some of the things that were written in the book. Specifically, alluding that people in poverty are less likely to call the police because the police may be looking for them? Ok, and the part about poverty-stricken people being more prone to physical violence is not helping me at all. How are teachers supposed to treat those students who, if they follow Payne’s framework, believe that poverty-stricken students are violent and barbarous? After reading the book, you cannot help but see the effect it may have on a teacher. We as teachers do not want to form biases, or even assume that one student is more advantaged than the other due to their socio-economic status. It is kind of scary to know that this book and author are highly revered in many school districts across the country. Payne’s hidden rules among classes are also something that I found to be tempestuous. Reading through the different rules of each class, I found that I could relate to many “hidden rules” across each social class. Payne’s assumption is that those in poverty are there because they don’t understand or know the hidden rules of the other classes. Well I think there are many who could argue that they see themselves in the hidden rules of each of the three classes. A large part of the book focuses on establishing distinctions among the different socio-economic peoples rather than finding common objectives. If something is to be called a “framework for understating poverty” then it should have been written with real field research rather than pondering about what the author simply feels is right or wrong with our society. I think the major reason why this book has been successful has been because it certainly does make good points on an individual basis. The problem is however making generalizations from individual examples. The points she makes in the book may be true of some family living in an American poverty household but not all. I don’t think that many “regular” people out there agree with her views. I think a majority of her success has come from these school districts that have little to no problem with poverty and Payne’s book reinforces their own shrewd views on poverty. Deficit thinking in education is in large part oblivious to the reality that most people who are born in a certain economic status will remain at that same status throughout their life. We shouldn’t try and change the norms and culture of a certain class to another. Yes, in the optimal world everyone would be rich and living the life, but at what expense? Kids in poverty have just as much to offer as suburban kids. I think we all feel like something is lacking in our education system but the finger should not be pointed at the least powerful actors (students) or for that matter teachers.
I will start by saying that I do believe Dr. Payne had good intentions with her discussion of poverty. It seems she was trying to broaden the perspective of educators who may not have come into contact with a wide range of students from differing socioeconomic statuses. That being said, there are many components of Payne’s work that beg for analysis. As I am sure there will be much discussion of all these various aspects on this blog, I am going to limit my response to three specific subtopics that I found salient and which struck a nerve. First off, I found burdensome the fundamental framework within which Payne’s entire approach was centered: that three distinct social classes exist, each with a specific and discrete set of behaviors, patterns, and systems. I believe this framework is inherently flawed, and quite frankly, offensive. The point that she gets at in regard to student behavior being affected by many factors, not just family income, is valid and an important consideration. However, she seems to think that when a student exists in a specific economic class that they will posses the types of behaviors and patterns of that class in all aspects. For example, according to her hidden rules of classes, a student in poverty will speak casually, base their love for others on personal likeability, only be concerned with food quantity and never quality, and believe in fate and the inability to change themselves. There are obviously occasions in which people in middle and upper classes in society exhibit these behaviors as well. Such specific traits cannot possibly be packaged discretely and holistically and only expressed in a single class of people. The same can be said for the behaviors identified as middle and upper class traits. Certainly there are impoverished people who enjoy situational humor, consider future ramifications when making decisions, have patriarchal family structures, conceive of the world in a national or international setting, and value traditions and history. The critics of Payne’s work point out this fundamental flaw repeatedly, and specifically when discussing her conceptualization of the “culture of poverty” and the “hidden rules”. This is not only a misrepresentation of poor people, but also of middle and upper class people, as each group is stereotyped and homogenized. The second major aspect of Payne’s work that I believed to be discrediting was the complete lack of empirical evidence supporting her claims. Clearly most of her assertions were born out of anecdotal experience, rather than peer reviewed scholarly research. To be clear, I do not mean to devalue the role of personal experience as a utility for building knowledge. However, the way in which her claims were delivered suggested factually based conclusions, but there was no notion of how such conclusions were derived. Finally, I took issue with the fact that Payne’s constructed social framework seems to have been accepted ubiquitously and without skepticism by many in the education profession, which was pointed out in the critical analysis by Bomer et al. In light of the fact that so many districts and states, both inside and outside of the US, have adopted Payne’s perspective and incorporated her workshops into, sometimes mandatory, professional development programs, I find it surprising that the Bomer et al critique is the first to evaluate the basis of its content. Then again, perhaps my lack of surprise is an expression of my naiveté, given the extent to which non-educators routinely mandate educational policies void of empirical research. Perhaps the fact that Payne is herself a professional educator and administrator suggests to her peers that her work need not be put under the microscope. I don’t blame a lack of peer review of this work on Payne, as it seems to be inherent in the system. I just thought it was important to point out the extent to which scholarly evaluation of various modalities of education so often seems to be absent, or at least is not often tethered to policy decisions.
I most certainly believe that Dr Paynes critics are being fair, although, at times, it is vey evident that the authirs have rallied themselves around some sort of personal vendetta. In light of Josh's comment about Bromer et al. being proponents of social change, it's pretty easy to see where they are coming from. I think it's interesting that the critics have literally systemstically deconstructed the book sentence by sentence, categorizing specific truth claims and then attempting, with varying levels of success, to refute her claims, or at least poke a hole in one aspect. As many of you all have pointed out, it's not like the good doctor was trying to do something mean-spirited.
I'm happy that many others balked at Payne's "credentials.". It's cool her husband was situationally poor and that she taught in a wealthy school, but beyond that, there isn't much she says that I wouldn't happily relegate to the realm of speculation.
If anything, Payne's framework for understanding poverty has helped me reevaluate my own thoughts and ideas regarding the stereotypes and expectations I have for those living in poverty. She speaks well of forming meaningful relationships with students, and I don't think any of us would refute that this is a good idea, despite however Payne may have come to this conclusion.
I am also now fairly aware of my own attitude that drug addicts are responsible for their situations. In the past, I have been quick to describe drug addiction as simply a series of poor personal decisions, rather than treating it as the result of a whole slew of situations and factors. I'd like to thank Ruby Payne for offering that opportunity for reflection on my own life.
I have just completed reading Ruby Payne’s “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” for a graduate class that I am taking. A lot of what I read made sense if I thought about my own personal experiences with my students. Payne’s critics say that she blames the students and their parents and that the patterns and cultures of the poor are the sole responsibility of the poor. Also, that she is reinforcing and perpetuating harmful stereotypes. It is these personalized stories and scenarios that helped me understand what my students living in poverty are facing daily. Payne advocates that low-income students be taught how to “code switch” so that they can fit in and be successful. Schools and businesses operate from middle-class norms and we use the hidden rules of middle class. I agree with Payne that for our students to be successful, we must understand their hidden rules and teach them the rules that will make them successful at school and at work. However, I do not believe that it is as simple as she tries to make it. As educators, we must take the time to develop relationships with our students and figure out what will work to help them be successful in our class and beyond.
I was immediately turned off to this book when Payne claimed she had been collecting data on poverty for 30 years because her husband grew up in generational poverty. To me, that statement in itself should be a massive alarm that everything that followed in the book should be scrutinized because frankly, having a husband who once at one point surrounded by generational poverty does not make you an expert. I tried very hard to go into reading the Bomer et. al article with the same critical stance. I do think after reading the article that the authors were extremely critical of Payne's book, and although a lot of criticism was warranted, I also think they took certain aspects of the book out of context. For example, stating that Payne made a truth claim that "In order to survive in poverty, one must know which grocery stores' garbage bins can be accessed for thrown-away food" was in my opinion, taking something completely out of context (although why Payne even included this statement is beyond me). For the most part though, I found it significantly more difficult to critique this article simply because they provided research to back their claims. I would honestly be incredibly interested in learning more about Payne's methods of gathering information. It is easy to read a book like this and think "aha! (the name of her companay, ironically) that explains why generational poverty exists! They just don't know any better." It allows the middle class to wipe their hands of social responsibilities and an unequal school system, and instead equips them with ways to make low income students more like them. I like Jonathan's statement that he does not want to be a "savior" teacher. The students do not need saving, or fixing. I do believe that Payne was well intentioned, and I believe that there is merit to understanding the differences between students from poverty and middle class or wealthy backgrounds. These students face different challenges, and as teachers we have to acknowledge that and work with that. But in order to understand these differences, we need to look at actual facts and evidence. Instead, Payne makes broad, often offensive, generalizations that she cannot support.
It seems to me that Payne’s main motivation with this book was to sell a product, and that the marketing for her product was extremley succesful for better or worse. “When not speaking at one of her many sold out seminars a year, she makes her home in Texas.” The way the book and the author are presented makes it seem like if you haven’t heard of Ruby Payne (the superstar) and her book A Framework for Understanding Poverty you need to get with the times. It is also harder intially to question the legitimacy of the material when it is so popular. Boomer et al. shown a light on the shoddy practices Payne employed, and I hope that as many people working with underprivilidged students will read the critque as those who read the book or attended a seminar. But as long as we’re ready to hop onto the lastest big trend, or just buy what they’re selling I think that something like this is very likely to happen again.
My initial thoughts on Ruby Payne's book were spot on with the first lines of the Boomer et al. critique. So many claims, so little supporting evidence. Recapitulating tired stereotypes does not help children, or anyone for that matter, become better learners. Payne's critics have valid points that a supported by research! The mere grouping of all poor children into a single and obviously racially derived sub category is a disservice in itself. The negativity that seems to ooze out of every page isn't inspiring to teacher but instead. Deficient thinking is part of the problem, not the solution. Payne panders to the educators who would rather make excuses than find innovative ways to teach. One of the key's to a child's success is confidence. Not only their own personal self esteem but in the educators themselves. If a teacher has predetermined that a child will fail they likely will. Are poor children inherently disadvantaged? Perhaps, but far be it from Ruby Payne, myself or anyone else to give the impression these kids don't have all the potential of any other group of students. Now, lack of evidence is one thing, but my biggest issue with Payne is not that she doesn't support her arguments, it's that she also fails to explain her own personal rationale while framing these claims like absolute truths! I expected more critical analysis. I found myself reading the "hidden rules" out loud for a group of housemates. Their reactions were not as strong as I anticipated but the general consensus was that these were incredibly vague and with clear racial undertones. I imagine Payne may have walked through a Ghetto once, wrote down everything she saw and then got back on her throne to write her book. For instance, there is a diagram of a family tree of a middle class family vs. a poor family. The very way these trees are drawn is inherently bias! The middle class family has clean boxes and lines going to each family member and the poor families tree looks like it was drawn by a 7 year old. Her attempts to draw contrast through adding a variety of non-traditional family members is delegitimized by this chaotic looking tree, there is no need for embellishment. I don't want to be overly critical, because the fact is their are some harsh realities of poverty that definitely can make school feel seemingly unimportant, especially to a child. Payne, may help some educators feel they've bridged a gap between their middle/upper class standing and their poor students. The fact that the educator is even purchasing or reading a book about this topic is generally a positive thing. But I think I've made my point clear that this type of thinking is truly part of the problem and does more harm than good. In short this book is about assumptions, and we all know what they say about those, right?
I think the critique of Payne's work is pretty spot on. However, I did have issue with the some of the reasoning techniques used by Bomer and company... For example, in an attempt to refute Payne's claim that the poor have a better understanding of how to function at Laundromats, they mention that all sorts of people, from differing socio-economic backgrounds, use Laundromats... While I think this is probably true and also a valid counterpoint to Payne's argument, the authors, by using an argument like this, which calls on the reader to use "common sense" and fails to support their claim with actual evidence, are, essentially, using the same dangerous techniques Payne uses to convince readers that what she's saying is true. I counted at least a few other instances in the text in which similar appeals to the "common sense" of the readers were used in place of real data... This is a problem mainly because the author's main critique of Payne is that she does the exact same thing. With that being said, the authors do back the majority of their claims with solid evidence and factual data.
I think an important truth that both the Payne book and the critique helped me to realize is that the need for the type of education Payne advocates is very real. Payne is clearly not the person that should be providing this education, but the fact that so many educators bought into what she was saying so readily says to me that they probably already held similar, dangerous views of impoverished and non-white students, which is a pretty frightening realization in itself.
As many have mentioned it seems to be the case that Ruby Payne had good intentions when writing this book. And it seems to me that one of the seemingly useful aspects of this text, and probably a reason why it achieved such popularity among professional development seminars and others, is that fact that she provides a vocabulary that educators can use to talk about poverty that they may not have had before. Certain ideas such as the “hidden rules,” “the adult voice,” and “the culture of poverty” come up again and again throughout her text, and such terms can be adopted and used by educators in thinking about and discussing class or cultural issues. This feature, which increases the appeal of the book, is also one of the most dangerous things about it. The way that she paints all low-income people with the same broad brush is going to be engrained into the minds of all of the educators who read this book, by way of this set of terms that she presents. The clean lines she draws with her vocabulary choices are just so comfortable and easy and appeal to common sense, and if left to stew in teachers’ minds without critical analysis they are bound to subconsciously permeate, leaving behind a pervasive stench of judgment, otherness, and cultural deficit. These lingering idea-terms will undoubtedly fog teachers’ perception – causing them to label and judge first and foremost rather than looking at each student as an individual.
I think Payne’s critics were being fair for the most part. Bomer says that much of what Payne says in her book has little research to back it up. For example, Payne categorizes people into three socio-economic classes – poor, middle class, and wealthy. She does not give an explanation on how she came up with these three classes or give any previous research to back her statement. In Bomer’s analysis he says, “We do not know of a single sociologist who claims that there are exactly three classes in the USA.” He backs this statement with not one, but seven different sources.
Deficit thinking has been present in my own thinking this past year when I was a long term substitute teacher in the city and county schools. While subbing in the city, I had this one awful, off the chain class. This class was predominately minority students with two Caucasian students (which ended up transferring to a different class). I wanted to blame their behavior on their family upbringings and their socio-economic background, however that is not always the case, considering I knew some of the students’ families. In fact, one of my student’s moms does my hair and she is a very successful hairdresser with her own salon. I then went a taught at a suburban school district and thought to myself how these kids will be more respectful and so on because these students are what Payne would consider “middle-class”. Boy, was I wrong. They actually behaved worse than my inner-city school students. This just shows how deficit thinking can be completely wrong.
Ruby Payne clearly wrote a well-intentioned book filled with poison. Poison that has been spread out to the masses as candy, to which they are happily able to take in because it comes in a non-threatening package. I think that has been well laid out over the course of the classroom. However, since I am posting on this very late, I think that it would be relevant to bring in some of the classroom knowledge that we have discussed recently. In Bill's class we very briefly went over the dangers of microaggressions towards Asian-Americans. It is my opinion, that Bomer et. al would have been better suited to critique Payne's work as a book that promoted not only deficit thinking, but as something that promotes microaggressions. Small forms of oppression, like promoting this book as if it is the solution to middle class white teachers understanding the inner-city and rural children that they teach, are far more dangerous than what Bomer et. al were accusing her with. As cleared up in class, Payne is not a maniacal genius attempting to destroy the lower class'. What she is doing is creating avenues for the rise of microaggressions, where racism and classism can be quietly carried out with the excuse that the oppressor "didn't know" or had "good intentions." To me, that is far more dangerous than the fact that she doesn't have very good sources.
Sorry guys, here comes another long one. Be assured that I did edit it down . . .
ReplyDeleteBefore I get too deeply into this, let me first say that I didn't read the majority of Payne's book, nor did I attempt to. Also, for what it's worth, as a few of us mentioned on the first day of class, my viewpoint of the book was already somewhat influenced by Kurt's disdain. That being said . . .
I think Bomer et al. are right on in their criticism of Payne's book, which reads, especially at the end, more like some kind of self-help scam (she is, after all, trying to sell her program to schools). She generalizes all aspects of people living in poverty - how they speak, they're ability to think into the future, their views on money, their sexual proclivities, their entire worldview - and doesn't, for the most part, cite any hard evidence to back her claims. Additionally, a quick look at her references shows that she barely used any scholarly journals in her research, relying heavily on just a few texts, some of which are books on class published 50 years ago(!!).
Their claim that she never mentions deficit thinking is untrue, however. In the appendix (pp 174-182), Payne discusses her additive approach to solving the problems inherent (to her) in teaching impoverished populations. She puts this approach up directly against a deficit approach, and goes to great lengths to say that she doesn't consider the attributes she's laid out as essential truths of all poor people to be negatives; instead they should be valued as necessary for survival, and augmented with the more common values of the middle class. Without touching on the arrogance of her entire stance, I feel like it's worth pointing out that she does address deficit thinking, and clears herself of it, in her argument, anyway.
I know very well that I have fallen prey to this line of thinking (not to the extremes of Payne's book, mind you). While working with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for 5 years, I worked with classrooms from some of the richest and poorest schools throughout Virginia, Maryland, and DC, and have frequently made assumptions over the context, knowledge base, and opinions of all manners of students, from inner-city Baltimore to Luray, Virginia, to suburban Richmond. Expecting city kids to be scared of water and nature, expecting suburban private school kids to be aloof and entitled, expecting rural kids to be down to earth and polite . . . never did my assumptions prove entirely accurate or inaccurate.
Given how successful Payne's book is, I am trying to consider what value can be pulled from her misguided and factually incorrect theses. While I believe firmly that Payne is painting a huge amount of different people with the same brush, I think there is certainly use in the recognition of the differences of many of the student's home-lives and how that might affect both their behavior, their context, their language and comprehension, and their ability/willingness to ingest information.
Finally, I felt that Bromer et al were, in the discussion section, pushing for teachers to become explicit advocates for social change(they say so, in fact), “to give, to volunteer, to speak out, to hold politicians accountable – in short, to change a system that perpetuates poverty.” While I have and will continue to do these things, I feel it's inappropriate for me to do so under the auspices of being a teacher. Frankly, throughout the discussion, they indict Payne for not examining more fully “policies regarding housing, segregation, taxation, or public expenditures,” an argument I feel is beyond the scope of Payne's very flawed book. If Payne had strayed away from lumping the classes into homogenous groups, her point of the necessity to teach to the entire person, baggage and all, would have been better served. It may not have sold 800,000 copies, though.
Like Josh, I did not read Payne’s book in its entirety, I tried though, but it was difficult. My brow was furrowed the whole time while reading. I was offended by Payne’s work at the core of it. I will say this, however: a lot of how I feel about both texts has something to do with the framing of material. Payne obviously wants readers to sympathize and agree with her “research.” She paints a picture of the poor students who need help aspiring for middle class goals that may or may not be the best for them in the first place. I don’t really know how being married to a man who was in “situational poverty” and was around those in “generational poverty” makes her an expert, though. She is trying to sell books, but my problem with her is the amount of moral judgments she makes. I agree with the article in the claim that she doesn’t take the word poverty at its literal definition; her view is “you can take the person out of the poor, but you can’t take the poor out of the person.” That aside, I believe that the article was right on the money with their evaluation of Payne’s truth assessments. I think a lot of the book is geared toward a middle class, white audience and it shows. As a woman of color reading through the book I was offended more times than I can count, especially having gone to school with these “children in poverty.” Payne, indeed, made a lot of statements without much to back her up, but I can see why her target audience would be eager for this information. Because of a lack of experience with the situations that she describes, I can understand why the book has been really popular- but there is no key to unlocking how to help children who really are in poverty. Situations differ from person to person and you have to treat students as such- as individuals who matter. It is tempting to find a solution that would work with everyone, but that would mean eliminating factors that make teachers and students unique.
ReplyDeleteWhat I did find illuminating was the idea that Payne does really want to help. Her attempt is misguided and misinformed, but she is trying to help people who want to help the students and you can’t fault her or her wide range of readers for that. I really did like that she geared a lot of the book toward helping, but the activities were based on the idea of deficit thinking on a deeper level than maybe she even realizes. She makes these broad statements like, “In poverty, discipline is about penance and forgiveness, not necessarily change” (77). How would she really know that as a fact? It sure reads like one to me… The following chapter then has ways to identify and work against this- making it feel like it’s the student’s fault. Considering I don’t agree with her framework, she tries to provide these examples and exercises that work within it and I can say hip hip hooray for her, but that is about it. I was impressed that I gathered she does genuinely want to help and she goes all in within her frame.
As far as deficit thinking goes, I think it permeates a bit of everyone’s mind- speaking for myself here. We all would hope to be these agents of change, who show that we care about our jobs and our students, but deep down we think that students in the environment of poverty are lacking something because of everything that may have been taken away in the past from them. Not to Payne’s extreme, but I do believe that we are colored by the thought that students lack something, other than the instruction that we intend to give. For example, I have seen countless teachers give up on students and I have seen parents say, “Why are you in school anyway, you’ll just flunk out and have to find a job,” and my bit in deficit thinking is that *sometimes* there is a lack of support and that would be something that I want to offer. It sounds so noble on the surface that no one could really argue with that deep feeling to help- but it is saying that they lack this support this “resource,” as Payne would label it, and that we need to correct that somehow. Is that deficit thinking or am I misunderstanding.
I haven't read the review or the comments above yet, but today Payne's book showed up on the pinterest homepage...and most of the comments were extremely positive, almost glowing with praise of the book. Just goes to show how influential the book really is.
ReplyDeleteAs I made my way through Ruby Payne’s book, I found myself astonished by the absurdity of some of the inferences she made; many of her ‘hidden rules’ sounded like politically incorrect jokes (poor people always have the t.v. on loudly – where the hell did that come from Ruby?)
ReplyDeleteBomer et al.’s critique seemed spot on and well-researched. After reading both Payne and Bomer, I feel that I now have more concrete understanding deficit thinking, and can also see the negative consequences of such thinking. As teachers, we have to realize that are larger, socio-political reasons why our students live in poverty. Only when we appreciate that, can we really relate to them as individuals with value. If we looked at our students through a deficit perspective, we would see only broken pieces meant to be put together in the correct way.
There is value in Ruby Payne’s work in that it is a well-intentioned (I hope) way to help people solve social problems. Yet her book serves only to reinforce main stream, middle-class views of the poor, views that often blame poor individuals for their social position.
As Wenda mentioned, we are all guilty of, and still probably prone to, occasional deficit thinking. Sadly, it is often easier to blame the victim than to blame an established system. But by becoming aware of our views, we can work to change them. So thank you Ruby Payne for helping me define what deficit thinking really is; now I can try to avoid such a mentality.
Ruby Payne's deficit way of thinking pretty much describes the mindset of a teacher who would "rub people the wrong way". Of course, we all have good intentions behind our path into teaching. However, like Bomer and my brilliant colleagues above, I believe it is deficit thinking that only perpetuates the stereotypes that contribute to the vicious cycle of poverty. It will be very detrimental to our success as teachers to come across as the "white knight" here to save the broken poor.
ReplyDeleteJust as Ryan stated, Payne seems to blame the poor's status on the poor. Her husband was poor, so Ruby knows all the "hidden secrets"? Not sure about that one. Her book is filled with generalities that simply skim the surface, making poverty seem as simple as her textual "evidence". Bomer's work does well to critique Payne's text through thoughtful accompanied by research.
I hope that I can find a way to never come across as a "savior" teacher. I am in teaching to make a difference, but I will never claim to fix a student. Perhaps, those who come across as genuine will have the most success.
ReplyDeleteI found this book to be judgmental and stereotypical in many ways. I was amazed at some of the things that were written in the book. Specifically, alluding that people in poverty are less likely to call the police because the police may be looking for them? Ok, and the part about poverty-stricken people being more prone to physical violence is not helping me at all. How are teachers supposed to treat those students who, if they follow Payne’s framework, believe that poverty-stricken students are violent and barbarous? After reading the book, you cannot help but see the effect it may have on a teacher. We as teachers do not want to form biases, or even assume that one student is more advantaged than the other due to their socio-economic status. It is kind of scary to know that this book and author are highly revered in many school districts across the country.
ReplyDeletePayne’s hidden rules among classes are also something that I found to be tempestuous. Reading through the different rules of each class, I found that I could relate to many “hidden rules” across each social class. Payne’s assumption is that those in poverty are there because they don’t understand or know the hidden rules of the other classes. Well I think there are many who could argue that they see themselves in the hidden rules of each of the three classes. A large part of the book focuses on establishing distinctions among the different socio-economic peoples rather than finding common objectives. If something is to be called a “framework for understating poverty” then it should have been written with real field research rather than pondering about what the author simply feels is right or wrong with our society.
I think the major reason why this book has been successful has been because it certainly does make good points on an individual basis. The problem is however making generalizations from individual examples. The points she makes in the book may be true of some family living in an American poverty household but not all. I don’t think that many “regular” people out there agree with her views. I think a majority of her success has come from these school districts that have little to no problem with poverty and Payne’s book reinforces their own shrewd views on poverty.
Deficit thinking in education is in large part oblivious to the reality that most people who are born in a certain economic status will remain at that same status throughout their life. We shouldn’t try and change the norms and culture of a certain class to another. Yes, in the optimal world everyone would be rich and living the life, but at what expense? Kids in poverty have just as much to offer as suburban kids. I think we all feel like something is lacking in our education system but the finger should not be pointed at the least powerful actors (students) or for that matter teachers.
I will start by saying that I do believe Dr. Payne had good intentions with her discussion of poverty. It seems she was trying to broaden the perspective of educators who may not have come into contact with a wide range of students from differing socioeconomic statuses. That being said, there are many components of Payne’s work that beg for analysis. As I am sure there will be much discussion of all these various aspects on this blog, I am going to limit my response to three specific subtopics that I found salient and which struck a nerve. First off, I found burdensome the fundamental framework within which Payne’s entire approach was centered: that three distinct social classes exist, each with a specific and discrete set of behaviors, patterns, and systems. I believe this framework is inherently flawed, and quite frankly, offensive. The point that she gets at in regard to student behavior being affected by many factors, not just family income, is valid and an important consideration. However, she seems to think that when a student exists in a specific economic class that they will posses the types of behaviors and patterns of that class in all aspects. For example, according to her hidden rules of classes, a student in poverty will speak casually, base their love for others on personal likeability, only be concerned with food quantity and never quality, and believe in fate and the inability to change themselves. There are obviously occasions in which people in middle and upper classes in society exhibit these behaviors as well. Such specific traits cannot possibly be packaged discretely and holistically and only expressed in a single class of people. The same can be said for the behaviors identified as middle and upper class traits. Certainly there are impoverished people who enjoy situational humor, consider future ramifications when making decisions, have patriarchal family structures, conceive of the world in a national or international setting, and value traditions and history. The critics of Payne’s work point out this fundamental flaw repeatedly, and specifically when discussing her conceptualization of the “culture of poverty” and the “hidden rules”. This is not only a misrepresentation of poor people, but also of middle and upper class people, as each group is stereotyped and homogenized.
ReplyDeleteThe second major aspect of Payne’s work that I believed to be discrediting was the complete lack of empirical evidence supporting her claims. Clearly most of her assertions were born out of anecdotal experience, rather than peer reviewed scholarly research. To be clear, I do not mean to devalue the role of personal experience as a utility for building knowledge. However, the way in which her claims were delivered suggested factually based conclusions, but there was no notion of how such conclusions were derived.
Finally, I took issue with the fact that Payne’s constructed social framework seems to have been accepted ubiquitously and without skepticism by many in the education profession, which was pointed out in the critical analysis by Bomer et al. In light of the fact that so many districts and states, both inside and outside of the US, have adopted Payne’s perspective and incorporated her workshops into, sometimes mandatory, professional development programs, I find it surprising that the Bomer et al critique is the first to evaluate the basis of its content. Then again, perhaps my lack of surprise is an expression of my naiveté, given the extent to which non-educators routinely mandate educational policies void of empirical research. Perhaps the fact that Payne is herself a professional educator and administrator suggests to her peers that her work need not be put under the microscope. I don’t blame a lack of peer review of this work on Payne, as it seems to be inherent in the system. I just thought it was important to point out the extent to which scholarly evaluation of various modalities of education so often seems to be absent, or at least is not often tethered to policy decisions.
I most certainly believe that Dr Paynes critics are being fair, although, at times, it is vey evident that the authirs have rallied themselves around some sort of personal vendetta. In light of Josh's comment about Bromer et al. being proponents of social change, it's pretty easy to see where they are coming from. I think it's interesting that the critics have literally systemstically deconstructed the book sentence by sentence, categorizing specific truth claims and then attempting, with varying levels of success, to refute her claims, or at least poke a hole in one aspect. As many of you all have pointed out, it's not like the good doctor was trying to do something mean-spirited.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy that many others balked at Payne's "credentials.". It's cool her husband was situationally poor and that she taught in a wealthy school, but beyond that, there isn't much she says that I wouldn't happily relegate to the realm of speculation.
If anything, Payne's framework for understanding poverty has helped me reevaluate my own thoughts and ideas regarding the stereotypes and expectations I have for those living in poverty. She speaks well of forming meaningful relationships with students, and I don't think any of us would refute that this is a good idea, despite however Payne may have come to this conclusion.
I am also now fairly aware of my own attitude that drug addicts are responsible for their situations. In the past, I have been quick to describe drug addiction as simply a series of poor personal decisions, rather than treating it as the result of a whole slew of situations and factors. I'd like to thank Ruby Payne for offering that opportunity for reflection on my own life.
I have just completed reading Ruby Payne’s “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” for a graduate class that I am taking. A lot of what I read made sense if I thought about my own personal experiences with my students. Payne’s critics say that she blames the students and their parents and that the patterns and cultures of the poor are the sole responsibility of the poor. Also, that she is reinforcing and perpetuating harmful stereotypes. It is these personalized stories and scenarios that helped me understand what my students living in poverty are facing daily. Payne advocates that low-income students be taught how to “code switch” so that they can fit in and be successful. Schools and businesses operate from middle-class norms and we use the hidden rules of middle class. I agree with Payne that for our students to be successful, we must understand their hidden rules and teach them the rules that will make them successful at school and at work. However, I do not believe that it is as simple as she tries to make it. As educators, we must take the time to develop relationships with our students and figure out what will work to help them be successful in our class and beyond.
DeleteI was immediately turned off to this book when Payne claimed she had been collecting data on poverty for 30 years because her husband grew up in generational poverty. To me, that statement in itself should be a massive alarm that everything that followed in the book should be scrutinized because frankly, having a husband who once at one point surrounded by generational poverty does not make you an expert.
ReplyDeleteI tried very hard to go into reading the Bomer et. al article with the same critical stance. I do think after reading the article that the authors were extremely critical of Payne's book, and although a lot of criticism was warranted, I also think they took certain aspects of the book out of context. For example, stating that Payne made a truth claim that "In order to survive in poverty, one must know which grocery stores' garbage bins can be accessed for thrown-away food" was in my opinion, taking something completely out of context (although why Payne even included this statement is beyond me). For the most part though, I found it significantly more difficult to critique this article simply because they provided research to back their claims. I would honestly be incredibly interested in learning more about Payne's methods of gathering information.
It is easy to read a book like this and think "aha! (the name of her companay, ironically) that explains why generational poverty exists! They just don't know any better." It allows the middle class to wipe their hands of social responsibilities and an unequal school system, and instead equips them with ways to make low income students more like them. I like Jonathan's statement that he does not want to be a "savior" teacher. The students do not need saving, or fixing.
I do believe that Payne was well intentioned, and I believe that there is merit to understanding the differences between students from poverty and middle class or wealthy backgrounds. These students face different challenges, and as teachers we have to acknowledge that and work with that. But in order to understand these differences, we need to look at actual facts and evidence. Instead, Payne makes broad, often offensive, generalizations that she cannot support.
It seems to me that Payne’s main motivation with this book was to sell a product, and that the marketing for her product was extremley succesful for better or worse. “When not speaking at one of her many sold out seminars a year, she makes her home in Texas.” The way the book and the author are presented makes it seem like if you haven’t heard of Ruby Payne (the superstar) and her book A Framework for Understanding Poverty you need to get with the times. It is also harder intially to question the legitimacy of the material when it is so popular. Boomer et al. shown a light on the shoddy practices Payne employed, and I hope that as many people working with underprivilidged students will read the critque as those who read the book or attended a seminar. But as long as we’re ready to hop onto the lastest big trend, or just buy what they’re selling I think that something like this is very likely to happen again.
ReplyDeleteMy initial thoughts on Ruby Payne's book were spot on with the first lines of the Boomer et al. critique. So many claims, so little supporting evidence. Recapitulating tired stereotypes does not help children, or anyone for that matter, become better learners. Payne's critics have valid points that a supported by research! The mere grouping of all poor children into a single and obviously racially derived sub category is a disservice in itself. The negativity that seems to ooze out of every page isn't inspiring to teacher but instead. Deficient thinking is part of the problem, not the solution. Payne panders to the educators who would rather make excuses than find innovative ways to teach. One of the key's to a child's success is confidence. Not only their own personal self esteem but in the educators themselves. If a teacher has predetermined that a child will fail they likely will. Are poor children inherently disadvantaged? Perhaps, but far be it from Ruby Payne, myself or anyone else to give the impression these kids don't have all the potential of any other group of students. Now, lack of evidence is one thing, but my biggest issue with Payne is not that she doesn't support her arguments, it's that she also fails to explain her own personal rationale while framing these claims like absolute truths! I expected more critical analysis. I found myself reading the "hidden rules" out loud for a group of housemates. Their reactions were not as strong as I anticipated but the general consensus was that these were incredibly vague and with clear racial undertones. I imagine Payne may have walked through a Ghetto once, wrote down everything she saw and then got back on her throne to write her book. For instance, there is a diagram of a family tree of a middle class family vs. a poor family. The very way these trees are drawn is inherently bias! The middle class family has clean boxes and lines going to each family member and the poor families tree looks like it was drawn by a 7 year old. Her attempts to draw contrast through adding a variety of non-traditional family members is delegitimized by this chaotic looking tree, there is no need for embellishment. I don't want to be overly critical, because the fact is their are some harsh realities of poverty that definitely can make school feel seemingly unimportant, especially to a child. Payne, may help some educators feel they've bridged a gap between their middle/upper class standing and their poor students. The fact that the educator is even purchasing or reading a book about this topic is generally a positive thing. But I think I've made my point clear that this type of thinking is truly part of the problem and does more harm than good. In short this book is about assumptions, and we all know what they say about those, right?
ReplyDeleteI think the critique of Payne's work is pretty spot on. However, I did have issue with the some of the reasoning techniques used by Bomer and company... For example, in an attempt to refute Payne's claim that the poor have a better understanding of how to function at Laundromats, they mention that all sorts of people, from differing socio-economic backgrounds, use Laundromats... While I think this is probably true and also a valid counterpoint to Payne's argument, the authors, by using an argument like this, which calls on the reader to use "common sense" and fails to support their claim with actual evidence, are, essentially, using the same dangerous techniques Payne uses to convince readers that what she's saying is true. I counted at least a few other instances in the text in which similar appeals to the "common sense" of the readers were used in place of real data... This is a problem mainly because the author's main critique of Payne is that she does the exact same thing. With that being said, the authors do back the majority of their claims with solid evidence and factual data.
ReplyDeleteI think an important truth that both the Payne book and the critique helped me to realize is that the need for the type of education Payne advocates is very real. Payne is clearly not the person that should be providing this education, but the fact that so many educators bought into what she was saying so readily says to me that they probably already held similar, dangerous views of impoverished and non-white students, which is a pretty frightening realization in itself.
As many have mentioned it seems to be the case that Ruby Payne had good intentions when writing this book. And it seems to me that one of the seemingly useful aspects of this text, and probably a reason why it achieved such popularity among professional development seminars and others, is that fact that she provides a vocabulary that educators can use to talk about poverty that they may not have had before. Certain ideas such as the “hidden rules,” “the adult voice,” and “the culture of poverty” come up again and again throughout her text, and such terms can be adopted and used by educators in thinking about and discussing class or cultural issues. This feature, which increases the appeal of the book, is also one of the most dangerous things about it. The way that she paints all low-income people with the same broad brush is going to be engrained into the minds of all of the educators who read this book, by way of this set of terms that she presents. The clean lines she draws with her vocabulary choices are just so comfortable and easy and appeal to common sense, and if left to stew in teachers’ minds without critical analysis they are bound to subconsciously permeate, leaving behind a pervasive stench of judgment, otherness, and cultural deficit. These lingering idea-terms will undoubtedly fog teachers’ perception – causing them to label and judge first and foremost rather than looking at each student as an individual.
ReplyDeleteI think Payne’s critics were being fair for the most part. Bomer says that much of what Payne says in her book has little research to back it up. For example, Payne categorizes people into three socio-economic classes – poor, middle class, and wealthy. She does not give an explanation on how she came up with these three classes or give any previous research to back her statement. In Bomer’s analysis he says, “We do not know of a single sociologist who claims that there are exactly three classes in the USA.” He backs this statement with not one, but seven different sources.
ReplyDeleteDeficit thinking has been present in my own thinking this past year when I was a long term substitute teacher in the city and county schools. While subbing in the city, I had this one awful, off the chain class. This class was predominately minority students with two Caucasian students (which ended up transferring to a different class). I wanted to blame their behavior on their family upbringings and their socio-economic background, however that is not always the case, considering I knew some of the students’ families. In fact, one of my student’s moms does my hair and she is a very successful hairdresser with her own salon. I then went a taught at a suburban school district and thought to myself how these kids will be more respectful and so on because these students are what Payne would consider “middle-class”. Boy, was I wrong. They actually behaved worse than my inner-city school students. This just shows how deficit thinking can be completely wrong.
Ruby Payne clearly wrote a well-intentioned book filled with poison. Poison that has been spread out to the masses as candy, to which they are happily able to take in because it comes in a non-threatening package. I think that has been well laid out over the course of the classroom. However, since I am posting on this very late, I think that it would be relevant to bring in some of the classroom knowledge that we have discussed recently. In Bill's class we very briefly went over the dangers of microaggressions towards Asian-Americans. It is my opinion, that Bomer et. al would have been better suited to critique Payne's work as a book that promoted not only deficit thinking, but as something that promotes microaggressions. Small forms of oppression, like promoting this book as if it is the solution to middle class white teachers understanding the inner-city and rural children that they teach, are far more dangerous than what Bomer et. al were accusing her with. As cleared up in class, Payne is not a maniacal genius attempting to destroy the lower class'. What she is doing is creating avenues for the rise of microaggressions, where racism and classism can be quietly carried out with the excuse that the oppressor "didn't know" or had "good intentions." To me, that is far more dangerous than the fact that she doesn't have very good sources.
ReplyDelete