Ruby Payne and the "Culture of Poverty"

This week we read an article titled "Miseducating Teachers about the Poor: A Critical Analysis of Ruby Payne's Claims about Poverty." It was one of the most enlightening things we've read in class so far, and I very much enjoyed the authors' deconstructions of Payne's oversimplified, stereotyping views of class and race. I also got a lot out of our in-class discussion of the topic.

It quickly became clear that basically all of Payne's claims were unsubstantiated -- which would be fine, if she were not a major force in teacher education. Her highly popular professional development workshops fill teachers' minds with misinformation about the poor, which I found rather offensive. In general, it was helpful to debunk each of the myths Payne created about poor people -- i.e., that they eat out of garbage cans, are loud, are unable to think of the future, are messy, use improper language, are violent, use "gray tape," etc. If I am assuming that ALL children who come from low-income are a certain way, and I treat them a certain way because of my assumptions, then I am doing them a grave disservice. It was amazing to me that Payne's "research" was inaccurate, made-up, or simply nonexistent, and yet her ideas have shaped policy to an alarming degree.