Educators get a lesson on poverty's role in learning;
Area teachers see growing divide among rich, poor
By Kathy Walsh Nufer Appleton Post-Crescent staff writer, August 5, 2004

KIMBERLY - Appleton educators hope insights they gained into the "poverty culture" this week will help them reach poor students and raise their achievement.

"I work with lots of low-income families and I'm interested in where they're coming from so I can better serve them," Cheryl Daley, Title I preschool teacher at McKinley Elementary School, said Wednesday at
Liberty Hall while attending a two-day workshop on poverty.

Some parents' lack of support for what goes on in school frustrates her, Daley said, but now she realizes they "have a different value of education than I do."

That's because the middle-class rules most teachers follow don't fit the survival modes of many poor people, said presenter Rita Pierson, who believes teachers must tune in to the differences if they are to
motivate poor children to learn.

"Just because you're poor does not mean you are not capable of achieving," Pierson said. "Teachers, who can be very unyielding, should understand they may have to do things differently."

Lincoln Elementary special education teacher Loo Molloy agreed.

"I see so many teachers committed to helping, but they are uninformed," she said. "Many of us need more training."

Efforts to change classroom practices to raise academic success of children lacking "middle-class" opportunities are based on research by Ruby Payne, a Texas educator, author of "A Framework for
Understanding Poverty" and founder of aha! Process Inc., which offers seminars nationwide.

The topic has grown more relevant for Appleton educators in recent years as the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals has climbed to 24 percent.

District administrators note that while low-income pupils are progressing in academics, they lag significantly behind their peers on test scores.

Ann DeBruin, West High School and Renaissance School for the Arts English teacher, has noticed the changing demographics, and said the growing divide between haves and have-nots concerns her.

"I've seen the tell-tale signs: self-esteem issues, lack of respect for education getting them anywhere in life, the importance of material possessions - and I can use more information, more teaching
strategies."

"The greater understanding we have of families we work with that come from poverty, the more we can help students achieve to a higher level," said Kevin Steinhilber, district testing coordinator. He
pointed to several of the 190 participants who had "aha moments" as they recognized their students and their own middle-class attitudes, in Pierson's examples.

"I think people really had their eyes opened," DeBruin said. "One of the best things I heard is not to lower expectations for poor kids. We keep them high, even though we change our approach."

Pierson listed several strategies teachers should build into curriculum to give poor students a leg up, including teaching them to set goals and control impulsive behavior.

"Living in an unpredictable environment hampers you from being able to plan, and if you can't make a plan, it makes it very difficult to predict," she said summing up the chaos of poverty. "Many kids cannot
make predictions because nothing in their lives is ever the same. If they can't make predictions they can't make good choices."

Kathy Walsh Nufer can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 290, or by e-mail at knufer@postcrescent.com


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About aha! Process, Inc.

aha! Process, Inc. educates about class and poverty

Everyone has had the moment. Struggling to understand something, wanting to grasp it so badly, yet it remains a hazy, elusive concept. And then, "aha!" Suddenly, it all makes sense.

Devoted to educating professionals and community leaders about the effects of class and poverty on our society, aha! Process, Inc. was founded as RFT Publishing Co. in 1994 by Dr. Ruby K. Payne. The company began with an emphasis on education and the difficulty children from poverty experience in most schools. The company expanded its focus to include information for government officials, churches, and social service agencies serving people from poverty. The company spreads the message that in all types of social interaction, poverty creates obstacles that require specific tactics to overcome. Experts from aha! Process, Inc. work with school districts, social service groups, and businesses to help people better understand these related issues.

Ruby Payne started her educational career in 1972. Throughout that career, she had the opportunity to work in schools with students from a wide variety of economic backgrounds. Those experiences taught Ruby that "hidden rules" exist in economic classes. More importantly, when those in positions of power and authority come from a class with rules different from those they work with, understanding and communication can break down. For instance, a middle-class teacher with a classroom of students largely from poverty often expects them to behave in middle-class ways - and is perplexed when they do not.

Misunderstanding, or being unaware of hidden rules, also makes it very difficult for people to advance from one social niche to another.

As Ruby discussed these insights with other educators, social service providers, government officials, and members of the clergy, "aha!" became a typical response - first in Texas, then all across North America. Recognizing the limited impact of spreading the word one person at a time, Ruby wrote A Framework for Understanding Poverty.

School Reform Model

A Framework For Understanding Poverty

The book A Framework for Understanding Poverty borrows heavily from a 30-year, qualitative, ongoing case study, which uses several methodologies. The research methodology that was and is used relies heavily on an anthropological approach. In addition, the narratives/stories of a neighborhood are used extensively. The neighborhood that was and is observed is mostly white; some of the individuals are part Native American, and there are a few Hispanics. The number of people observed is between 50 and 70. Because of the greater likelihood of early death in poverty and the amount of mobility, the number fluctuates. The author is most interested in noting that the study has "ecological validity."

The work also pulls heavily from the research of Reuven Feuerstein, Lee Shulman, Martin Joos, Maria Montano-Harmon, James Comer, Oscar Lewis, and others.

More recently the works of Stanley Greenspan, Anita Hart, and Matt Ridley also have been used.

MAJOR PREMISES OF THE WORK

The work is based on these major premises.
Economic realities create "hidden rules," unspoken cueing mechanisms that reflect agreed-upon tacit understandings, which the group uses to negotiate reality. These "hidden rules" come out of cause-and-effect situations. Hidden rules reflect the behaviors and mindsets that are needed to survive in that economic reality.
Education and relationships are the two key ways people move out of poverty (if the individual desires to move out of poverty).
Each class has advantages and disadvantages.
The amount of language and the number of abstract words an individual has is related to level of education. The level of education is highly correlated to economic class.
In order to communicate with another human being, abstract representational systems are needed. Education is about learning and using these systems. To do so, an individual carries abstract constructs and processes inside his/her head.
Abstract representational systems are learned.
All subject areas, disciplines, and occupations have their own abstract constructs (mental models). Such mental models are necessary for shared understandings.
Achievement will be much higher if abstract constructs and processes are directly taught with the content.
Survival in generational poverty requires that an individual be non-verbal and sensory-based. Survival in work and school requires that an individual be verbal and use abstract representational systems.
Class and race are not synonymous.
Individuals in first generation wealth or poverty do not have the same mindset as individuals who have been in wealth or poverty two or more generations.

MISCONCEPTIONS / MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT THE WORK


Issues around the use of Feuerstein. One of the misconceptions is that Feuerstein is only for special education. That is to confuse an audience with the research. Feuerstein's approach is the basis for the thinking-skills movement. His interventions are for any individual who has not had the opportunity to be mediated to abstract processes and constructs.
Issues around language acquisition. One of the misconceptions is to confuse Chomsky's work with Vgotsky's. Chomsky looked at the acquisition of syntactical structure of language and found it to be instinctual. Vgotsky looked at how language and social experience shape understandings and meaning. The amount of language that an individual has is learned. (See Anita Hart's research.) Yet another misunderstanding around language is to think that language hard-wires the brain. It does not.
Issues around a deficit model. The work focuses on identifying resources that an individual brings with him/her (see Chapter One on resources) and the necessary abstract processes and constructs that need to be taught for success in school and work. To reference this work as a deficit model is analogous to saying that when an individual comes to take courses at a university, he/she is in deficit.
Issues around the race of the author. The author is white. It is often alleged that a white person cannot know about poverty. All races have poor, middle-class and wealthy individuals. Race and class are not the same.
Issues around the concept of poverty as a culture. It all depends on how culture is defined. This work looks at patterns by class, the cause-and-effect reasons for those patterns, and interventions that can assist success in school and work. These patterns have been documented by a number of researchers. What makes this work different is the emphasis on the why and the how. It does not assign value to class.
Issues around the use of direct instruction. Because students who come into school or work may not have the abstract constructs or processes or may not have the mental models of the subject area or occupation, achievement can be significantly increased in a short period of time by direct-teaching those three things. The need to shorten the time frame to meet job targets, production schedules, and state assessments, etc., can be addressed. Concerns are often expressed from a constructivist point of view that personal meaning cannot be assigned when direct instruction is used. Because each individual must be able to have a certain amount of shared understandings just to communicate, it becomes important that those understandings be directly taught. Without the ability to communicate in some sort of shared understanding, personal meaning has little value.