Poverty in Schools-Response6

The Poverty in Schools

Poverty is everywhere you look.  The more people this country has and the amount of work does not equal.  Our children are the products of this poor society.  When poverty has affected the ability to learn that is when we have an issue.  We have made a paradigm of the poor.  The poor are not like the rich, they are different than the mainstream.  They have different ideas and thoughts than the rest of us.

In a educational world where 90% of the teachers are white, middle class and not racially diverse, whereas schools are more racially diverse and students are of lower class parents.  How can we expect a white teacher to reach and be on the same level as a poor black child?  That white teacher cannot begin to know the inner workings of the racially poor community. 

In reading “The Culture of Poverty Reloaded”, by Monique Redeaux of the Monthly Review, she compares two “experts” on race and poverty.  On one side of the table we read of Ruby Payne.  She has based her work on a racialized “culture of poverty” model.  The poor do not have a separate set of morals or beliefs as the middle or upper class culture tends to believe; but it seems like throughout history the poor is put into a class of different values.  According to Payne, the poor seem to not trust and punishment is a way of life.  If you do well, you are generally rewarded with food in this culture of the poor.   Payne insist that teachers need to teach these racially poor students the “hidden rules” of the middle class so students can obtain academic success.   Payne has missed the target.  She did not come from a poor family, nor is she African-American.  She even has books and workshops for profit.  She targets those inside that paradigm of the rich.  The lower class school systems cannot afford her workshops and books!  All her proceeds are turned over to her.  How is she helping this problem of her “culture of poverty”?  She cannot help at all. 

But, when you read of Lisa Delpit, an African-American educator, she has some of the same similarities as Payne.  Her “culture of power” states that the middle and upper class hold the keys to success.  Delpit has argued that for the black student to succeed, they need to be taught by a teacher of color.  The “codes” of language of the black culture differ greatly than other cultures.  Delpit argues that technical and critical thinking skills are essential in learning.  We don’t want to just train people to work at the bottom level, we want them to succeed. 

Bottom line is this, we have to ban together as a community of all races and of all classes.  If we don’t change our culture how can we expect to change the educational system to fit every kid?

 As Paul Gorski said: “If I want to understand economically disadvantaged students, I must understand poverty.  If I want to understand poverty, I must understand the classism inherent in the ways in which our society, and by extensions, our schools, institutionalize poverty. “

Redeaux, Monique., “The Culture of Poverty Reloaded”, Monthly Review., 07/01/2011

www.monthlyreview.com