Things I don't say anymore

Poverty has been a life-long interest based on personal circumstance and experience. It has been a professional focus since about 2005 when I reread Dr. Ruby K. Payne's A Framework for Understanding Poverty. I had read the book in college about 8 years earlier and it didn't land home, but this time I could see elements of my family's story in there. I know Dr. Payne has her critics (as we all do), but it was a great doorway into this octopus of an issue called poverty. I often tell my training groups that it is  A framework, not THE framework. In the years after, I broadened my background and found other ways of looking at the issue as well, but I am grateful for that first experience and the new way of looking at the world. Once you see certain things, you can't "unsee" them. One of the consequences of my own personal learning is I've discarded some insidious use of language that I hear elsewhere all the time. I'd like to share a little about what I don't say any more and why I think it matters for being poverty informed.

I cannot stand the way we use the expression "skin in the game" and apparently I'm not alone: bad cliche. Unfortunately I do feel like I'm in the minority. This term gets tossed around easily at my institution and I'm sure at others. It's a glib way of saying people only value things they pay for. However, when you look at that phrase through a poverty informed view, you see just how judgmental it is. It is usually used to justify putting up some barrier for people before they can access help. It is based on an absolutely false assumption and it implies that paying for something is the only way to be invested. What a privileged point of view that is... Our students sacrifice endlessly to be here. They sacrifice their time, their work, their relationships, and they manage complicated lives. Often, it can be an act of courage just to cross our threshold. And then we have the nerve to question their "skin in the game." It is the height of arrogance and the opposite of poverty informed.

Another expression that I haven't uttered in 8 years other than to talk about it in training is the ubiquitous "common sense." Every time you hear this little gem, please think "common to whom?" In my experience, the declaration of "common sense" is just a way of establishing in and out groups. To use Framework terminology common sense is usually just a set of "hidden rules" that exclude people and prevent them from making the connections they need to succeed. I often hear the expression used when people don't behave the way we expect them too, particularly in early conversations on campus. And when people violate our hidden rules which are of course "just common sense", we often assume they aren't very smart or aren't "ready" yet. (The implications of being "ready" is a topic for another time) Common sense is often just a set of biases we've agreed on in a social group and it should be questioned every time it comes up in my opinion. Imagine for a moment that those of us who live in the middle class had to navigate our students' lives for a week. Do you think our ignorance of their hidden rules might stick out like a sore thumb and we might appear less capable and intelligent than we believe ourselves to be? Poverty informed practice begins with mutual respect and part of that is understanding that "common sense" is usually just a set of silently agreed upon rules that we have decided are "right."

The last concept I have tried to dismiss as I've grown and learned is the concept of "deserves." This is less a term that I hear and more of an assumption that underlies so much of what we do for one another. We spend so much energy and resources trying to figure out who we should help and who deserves it, when in reality everyone needs help sometimes. You can see "deserves" in the way financial aid is calculated and distributed. Think of the resources allocated to following rules so no one gets money who "shouldn't." Couldn't those resources be put to use helping people instead of sorting people? "Deserves" is in deep and shows up everywhere. I've fallen victim to it myself, even with the best of intentions as I've written about before here: owning my mistake. I think the idea of intentions is important and needs to be examined regularly. How many programs for the underserved do we see that do just barely enough and then expect gratitude. That is infused with a concept of what people "deserve" and it's dangerous. A perception of scarcity drives this conversation and it is not based in reality. In a workshop with Dr. Donna Beegle, I heard her say Americans spend nearly 1 billion dollars annually on fireworks for the 4th of July. We have plenty, why waste resources and effort defining some false line of who "deserves" help. Wouldn't you rather err on the side of helping?

Language matters and these are just 3 examples of how I have adjusted my language personally and in my training to help people be more poverty informed. Here in higher education we are often meeting individuals after lifetimes of being told they don't "deserve" and they are a drain on the system, when in reality most of us are about two bad breaks from being right where they are. When you start with that perspective and acknowledge your own luck and privilege, I doubt you will ever refer to "it's just common sense" again. When you remember the effort, courage, and yes sometimes heroism it takes for students from poverty to come to us and trust us, you won't ever talk about "skin in the game" again. And when you look behind well intended programs and see well intended machinery that simply sorts out who "deserves" and who doesn't, I hope you will build new structures that make help the default. I hope you will build systems founded on respect and relationships and that honor our students. That is the vision of poverty informed practice.