Ruby and Paul
I am so anxious to hear Paul Gorski! After reading A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne and Savage Unrealities, I almost wish I could hear a debate between Payne and Gorski. I want to hear Ruby Payne’s response to all of this. I think I remember a few people mentioning the other night that they had never heard of Ruby Payne until now. When reading A Framework for Understanding Ruby Payne, I kind of laughed out loud. I have had to take the “Could you Survive Poverty” quiz at two different times during my teaching career as an introduction activity to a brief Ruby Payne inservice. Many years ago (maybe over six?) our school gave most teachers a copy of Ruby Payne’s Framework. I can’t remember if we were to read it in our “leisure” time or if we did some sort of book study, but wonder if the principal at the time knows now what we know about Ruby Payne. I think our current principal is sending several teachers to a Ruby Payne inservice. I wonder what the higher-ups in my county know and think of Ruby Payne? Perhaps this is one of those times I should speak up! I think it was Katy who wondered if administrators see that a certain speaker is expensive and therefore assumes he/she is really good. I’m sure she’s probably right.
How sad it was to read that a teacher, after taking one of Ruby Payne’s workshops, stated she learned that “poor people can’t think abstractly.” I wonder what other teachers have walked away from her workshops thinking. When I began reading these articles, I wondered if it could really do any harm to read her books…surely you could learn something from her, but walking away with thoughts such as the one mentioned above is rather scary. I really liked the last quote in Bohn’s article stating that “It takes schools where students are not just prepared to take and pass standardized tests, but where they are taught how to play a conscious, active role in society, how to recognize and combat racism and other institutionalized inequities, and how to work in pursuit of the dream of social and global justice.”
