One of "These Children"

I hope that, as future educators, chapter 11 in City Kids City Schools struck an alarming note about students living in poverty.  Frankly, I hope it made you mad, at points. The problems low-income students are likely to encounter persist far outside the classroom, and I know this isn't news to any of you.  Redeaux speaks about teaching as being autobiographical, that book knowledge isn't the only skill teachers need to be equipped with.  Rather than distancing herself from her experiences as an African-American student, and now teacher, she "cling(s) to them because they define me".  When a teacher checks-in their experiences at the door of their classroom and solely becomes a vessel for knowledge and information, well...how does that benefit the student? How, then, in rebuttal, do students benefit from a teacher that embraces their experiences whether they be good or bad?

It made me uncomfortable, although not surprised, that people have gone off and made millions the way Ruby Payne has, as described in this chapter.  She is a self-proclaimed expert on the characteristics of poverty, with very little personal experience, and has defined damaging traits of those living in poverty.  She believes people living in poverty need to be taught to want to escape and that it is a choice one makes to stay in poverty. The phony findings she believes to be true about poverty can be irreversible to those who are willing to listen, which perpetuates the cycle.

After reading about the crudeness of Payne's findings and hearing about Ellis' story, I was really struck by what Redeux said about locating the inconsistencies portrayed by the media of children living in poverty.  The inconsistency I've recently located at Roberto Clemente, predominately Latino and African-American, is how eagerly the sophomores and freshmen I observe ask about college, and how hard it is, and if my "teachers" are so mean, and remarks including "I wonder what college I'll go to..." a question I, too, remember asking.  What sort of inconsistencies (not relating to Payne's defining factors of poverty) are you all seeing with your students at your schools?

If you enjoyed this particular chapter and reject the notion of assimilating the lower-class into the middle, then I recommend checking out Vershawn Young's work, especially his article "Should Writers Use They Own English"

http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1095&context=ijcs

Now a professor, Young grew up in the projects of Chicago, and is a shining example of what happens when a student is not defined by his social class.