This week's reading from the Parks book focused on diversity and what diversity means in relation to a student's behavior in the classroom. Much of the information that makes up this chapter comes from "A Framework for Understanding Poverty," by Ruby Payne. In this book, she elaborates on what students from the three backgrounds ( poverty, middle class, and wealth) bring to class.
According to Ms. Payne's book, the motivational and driving forces of each class are pretty concrete. Based on the chart one would expect a child from the poverty class to believe that getting an education is not a reality. One would expect them to speak in a more brass manner, and for their main focus to be on survival. The middle class seems to value education and view it is a means of "getting ahead and climbing the ladder." They speak in a formal tone and focus on negotiating. Their main goal seems to be to move up the social ladder. Finally, the wealthy class view education not as a goal, but as a chore. It is simply something that has to be done to maintain their wealth. They speak in a more formal tone with the main emphasis on building connections. I feel that Ms. Payne's view is correct for the most part, but there are of course exceptions. There are those who have experienced a "rags to riches" story and vice-versa. I knew of a young man that was from a poor family that then became very wealthy. This change in status did not change him or his family though. They still spoke in a casual tone and their main focus was always on survival. He would still wear hand-me-down clothing to school because his family was always afraid of retreating back into poverty. This young man did vary in one aspect though, he always viewed education as very important and knew that he could succeed. I myself identify with the description of a middle class person. My driving force for becoming educated and going through school is to hopefully gain financial security and achievement. Education has always been a goal and to me a means of achieving a comfortable life style.
Also pointed out in this chapter are behavioral problems that a teacher may encounter with students from the poverty class. The one idea that really stands out in my head is that "many behaviors stem from survival outside of the school, and the importance of self-governance is diminished" (Parks, 2010, 64). As a teacher, one must realize what a student goes through on an everyday basis. One must understand where a child is coming from and why he or she acts the way they do. For example, a poor person's main focus is on survival, so their gut instinct is to do what it takes to survive with no thought to their actions. In their minds controlling themselves no longer matters, preservation does. For example, a poverty student is having lunch and he gets up from his seat to do something, while he is up someone decides to be nice and take his tray to the dishwasher. The poverty stricken student sees this and confronts the person and gets violent with them. There were only a few scraps of food left on his plate, but for him it meant survival and thus it is his base instinct; it is how he lives that made him attack the person who was just trying to be helpful. As a teacher, we must observe our students and be able to understand their backgrounds so as to be able to relate to them. Dealing with diversity will be a challenge, modifying a student's behavior will take time and effort and is no easy task.
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