Blog comment

Katie,
I agree with you when you talk about the hidden rules. As a kid growing up in a small farm town, my family was one of the low middle class families. Some would have considered us poor but since I have started teaching in Dayton Public Schools and after reading Payne'syou text it truely got a better understanding of true poverty. I also liked how you talked about issue of discipline. From my experience of dealing with poverty stricken kids, its is harder to deal with discipline. My "rougher" students tend to be more unruly and don't take discipline from authority figures well. That is why I agree with you and the book and we have to figure out how to get through to those "rougher" groups. I enjoyed your blog.

Corey

Prompt 3: Questions for Dr. Payne

Prompt 3: Questions for Dr. Payne

            If you had the opportunity to visit with Dr. Payne over coffee, what are two open-ended questions you would likely ask her regarding the framework?

Questions 1: How would you, or could you discuss with your students who grow up in generational poverty that they are not "owed" anything? If their parents provide as role models for this thinking, it makes it that much more difficult to get your students to see that hard work gets you the things you need.

Question 2: In your text you constantly talk of the need to teach the "Hidden Rules". What would be your first step in doing that? I experience the same thing you discussed when in the school setting, that students who are in poverty do not see it as being poor. Especially my students since it is all they know. But yet parents are very open to tell you that they don't have the gas money to come to school for a meeting. I know that they feel they have more things to worry about than a meeting with teachers, but if you are to teach that there are rules and these students don't realize that because it is all they know; How would you approach that?

Prompt 2: Impact on Professional Practice

Prompt 2: Impact on Professional Practice

            What are some things that you will implement (or have already implemented) and/or do differently regarding your interactions with children and/or adults resulting from your understandings of Payne's framework?

            As a classroom teacher, every year, you set up a list of classroom rules with your students. You talk about what is expected and what is acceptable behavior. Students are really good at this, which to me shows that they know right from wrong. As the year goes on things happen and those rules seem to have just disappeared. Students have feelings and they need help on how to express those feelings. They need help on how to speak when they are angry and they need help on how to react when something upsets them. Next year at the beginning of the year when we are talking about our classroom rules I want to provide a deeper understanding to my students on what their behavior should be like at school. I want to provide examples and have discussions about how at times in their lives they are going to need to act differently depending on where the situation takes place. I want to make my students aware of the choices they have when something makes them mad. By keeping a calm mind set and talking to my students about their choices every time a situation arises, hopefully they will be able to start looking at their choices before they act without my help. As a teacher, you hope for your students to become responsible individuals, with the right behaviors, students can become successful at this.

            Another discussion I want to implement next year with my students is the difference between formal and casual register. When I read this chapter, it really made me step back and look at my own personal teachings. I know that state test and other assignments in the classroom use formal language. Something I notice myself doing is talking about this differently vocabulary, but when I teach it I am using a casual register. I think this is mainly because I am more concerned with my students knowing the material and due to time constraints and so many standards to get through I don't focus as much on different ways the questions could be asked. This is something I need to work on. I also think it is something that all tested and non-tested grades and subject areas to need to implement. If we can start our kids off at knowing the difference between formal and casual register at an early age then when they get to the higher grades with more test and more standards they will be better prepared to learn just the material and not the language all over again.

Prompt 1: Key Understandings

Prompt 1: Key Understandings

            As a teacher leader, what are three understandings you learned from the Payne text that you would deem appropriate for sharing with a colleague, administrator, and/or parent? Describe why these understandings were selected.

            One key understanding that I would share with all of my colleagues is the fact that there are "Hidden Rules" for every economic class. As teachers we should be open to talk about these rules with our students and among ourselves. One part of this understanding that stuck out to me is that if we always keep in mind that the values differ from poverty to middle class then our anger and frustration will lessen when a student and/or their parent shows how little they value the education you are trying to provide. I am in my fourth year of teaching and started off in second grade. My first year as a second grade teacher, I knew I was teaching in a low-income school district, but students at that age really like school and wanted to do the things you asked of them. Now I teach fifth grade and for the past three years I have built up frustration and anger for mainly the parents for not wanting to participate in their child's education. After reading this, it helped to open my eyes again and that I need to work harder myself to show my students how important education is.

            That leads to another key understanding that I would share, providing support systems. The text described seven general categories of support. As educators we need to provide these support systems to our students and parents. At our school district we have numerous of ways of providing support to our students. I see a need for providing more support for our parents. My only concern is getting the parents to come to the building after school hours or in the early evening. Right now we have a quarterly "Bright Night" where students and parents can come in and participate in educational activities. I'm thinking we could start there. Have areas set up for the students and a separate area set up for the parents.  Students can still participate in educational activities and the parents can attend sessions of "how-to's" and be given a safe place to ask questions or just talk about what is going on at school. I feel we need to have a stronger community to gain the goals we have for our students and to that we need to create more school pride in our families that live in our district.

            Last, but not least, the other key understanding I would share is the chapter about discipline. Having discipline for everything we do in our lives will create success. Our district has gotten away from a school-wide plan when it comes to this and in doing that students have become more disrespectful in the upper grades. The text describes six questions of a behavior analysis that teachers could use to help their students become successful. We need to take into account that our student's lives are not always filled with structure. If we can teach them how to create structure for their feelings and actions then they will ultimately make the right choice.