aha! Process, Inc. Blog

Ruby Payne defines poverty as the extent to which we do without resources. The beauty of that definition is that it gives us (individuals and communities) something positive to do to get out of poverty or to help others out of poverty—that is, to build resources.

But that is not how resources are talked about in our communities. In the lexicon of social services, government programs, and faith-based programs, resources are something that we have and you need. When you (the person in poverty) come to our door, we ask what you need. Generally you need a lot. We identify the needs in detail, build a plan, and provide the resources to you. When we collaborate with others in the service sector, we attempt to bring all the resources to you.

In Bridges work, the purpose shifts from maintaining lives to changing lives, from a safety net to a ladder, from being a needy recipient to being a powerful actor.

When the purpose is simply to provide a means to survive, the focus is on how well the needs are met. When the purpose is to transition out of poverty, the focus shifts to barriers that must be overcome.

Getting Ahead graduates who are already taking responsibility for their own decisions and actions may say, “Here are the things in the organizations and in the community that are in the way of my efforts to stabilize my environment. Here are the things that form barriers to building financial, mental, social, emotional, spiritual, and physical resources.” People in Bridges Steering Committees and Circles Guiding Coalitions would be wise to listen to Getting Ahead graduates as they move ahead on their plans.

This isn’t to say that our communities don’t need a safety net. There will always be people who need the support of their communities. The Steering Committees and Guiding Coalitions must be aware that there are four ways to address poverty. Our communities must alleviate the suffering with a safety net, prevent poverty, assist with transition out of poverty, and end poverty as we know it.

Our work will be easier if we reframe the meaning and use of the term resources. It will bring others into the work by creating a shift in thinking about people who are in poverty.

People who attend Bridges and Getting Ahead workshops will often tell our trainers and facilitators that they had an aha! moment. (Thus, the name of the company.) Looking back over my years of presenting, it occurs to me that there are at least two kinds of aha! moments.

One of these I call a “National Geographic” moment. This is when we learn about people who live very differently than us. It’s amazing, intriguing, and it’s important information.

Middle and upper class people will often say, “Now I understand why people in poverty spend money on entertainment.” People in poverty might say, “So that’s why middle class people always ask, ‘What do you do?’” It’s about the “other.”

I don’t have a name for the second kind of aha! moment, but this is the one that is about one’s self: a new insight into our own makeup, mindset, or circumstances. This usually takes a willingness to examine our lives, past and present, in the light of new information.

Both of these aha! moments are important and valuable. The National Geographic moment gives us new information, information that can be used to design programs, set procedures, and make policies. We can use it to improve outcomes, and we can use it to improve our relationships with people from other classes too. “Now that I know how important relationships are to you, I can give you more time.” “Now that I know how important achievement is to you, I can give up some time.”

The National Geographic moment has a serious downside. Without the second type of aha! moment, the first might allow us to retain elements of superiority, power, and status that come from normalizing the environment or class in which we were raised. This results from leading an unexamined life.

The second type of aha! moment (maybe we should call it the “examined life” moment) is important because people in poverty don’t have much power or status. They are not the ones designing programs and setting policy. This is reason enough for middle and upper class people to “own” their societal or class experience. This can be done be examining their resources (as people in poverty do in Getting Ahead groups) to learn where their resources came from and how they arrived at the stable world in which they live. How nice not to be afraid for today.

There is another type of aha! moment that our trainers see. These are people who have a knot in their throats and tears in their eyes. They have experienced both aha! moments at once and are almost undone by it. Suddenly they have words for the class issues that they have been experiencing but never heard talked about. The images and feelings of events and relationships fill in the blanks in the speakers’ descriptions. They go home to do a mountain of work to sort out their stories.

Those who move from the National Geographic moment to the examined life moment will be working toward the same end as those who get blasted by them both … awareness. Once we are aware, we are really ready to work across class lines to deal with poverty.

As teachers, we teach only one organ in the body. That organ is the brain. Because we teach the brain, we need to know everything we can about how the brain works. I recently had the opportunity to hear Dr. Daniel Amen, a noted psychiatrist and an authority on how the brain functions, at a conference on boys and learning. Dr. Amen has studied the brain scans of more than 60,000 people, including 75 murderers and more than 1,000 people diagnosed with ADHD. He has also studied the brains of many NFL players. Technology allows us to scan the brain and see how it functions, including the brains of those who have experienced head traumas, strokes, and Alzheimer’s. Amen’s research has been instrumental in helping us understand the hardwiring of the female and male brains and how they are different. This allows educators to create more boy- and girl-friendly classrooms.

Here are a few things Dr. Amen shared that I found interesting:

• Your brain is involved in everything you do. It is an organ of judgment, personality, character, and intelligence. It controls how you feel, think, act, and interact.
• The left temporal lobe is the control center for violence.
• When your brain works right, you work right. When your brain doesn’t work right, you have trouble.
• Low levels of omega-3 have been associated with ADD, Alzheimer’s, depression, and suicide. Nutrition is critical to having a healthy brain. For ADD and ADHD people, eat organic. People who are diagnosed ADHD are very sensitive to chemicals.
• The brain has 100 billion nerve cells,  and information in the brain travels 268 miles per hour.
• The brain is only 2% of your body’s weight but uses 20–30% of your calories.
• A person loses an average of 85,000 brain cells a day.

The brain is very soft and weighs about three pounds. It is housed inside a very hard casing called the skull. The inside of the skull has a few sharp ridges. When the head is banged about, the brain hits the skull, which can cause severe brain damage. That is why it is so important to protect children from falls and other accidents that can result in damage to the brain. For boys it becomes even more critical because they are more likely to participate in sports in which they experience head trauma (boxing, football, soccer, wrestling, hockey, etc.) Helmets help, but they do not fully protect the brain from being bounced around inside the skull. And where are the helmets for boys and girls who use their heads to hit a soccer ball?

In January 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that past brain traumas have been linked to alcoholism and drug abuse, homelessness, depression and anxiety attacks, suicide, and learning problems. If you hurt a developing brain, the damage can be permanent. When is that brain developing? At birth only 25% of the brain is developed—at age 1, 50%; age 10, 95%. The last part of the brain develops around the age of 25. (Ever wonder why the rental car agencies won’t rent a car to anyone under the age of 25?)

Want to show your students what their brains feel like? Use the following recipe:

• 2 cups hot water
• 2 cups instant mashed potatoes
• 1½ cups of sand

Mix it up and put it in a Ziploc bag.

As an expert on working with boys, I found this information very helpful to the work I do with schools. Since the brain plays such an important role in the learning process, we educators need to understand this organ and work with, not against it.

For me, some provocative questions are:

• How many of the students we work with have experienced some degree of brain damage?
• What strategies work best with those who do have brain damage?
• How many people are in prison because of brain damage?
• Have you ever known someone who was never quite the same after an accident? Perhaps that person experienced damage to the brain.

If you want to read up on Dr. Daniel Amen, you can visit his website, www.amenclinic.com.

In my last blog I examined the way some of the interviewees in this Philadelphia Inquirer article revealed a prevalent mental model of people in poverty in the United States. But the article also briefly mentions another issue that I think it is vital to discuss further.

The question raised by the article is whether the offer of free minutes to customers in poverty is done in order to increase profits and exploit the poor.  I am not going to judge if this is philanthropy or exploitation  or some mutant combination of both- but it certainly deserves a very close look.   Blanket judgments of groups and individuals just don’t reduce poverty.  That being said, investigating exploitation by certain groups in the private sector is an ongoing dialogue that must take place because the private sector holds massive power and influence.  Everyone hears the private sector.  This voice often results in policy change and huge tipping points within world economies.

I was asked to present the Bridges concepts to the CEO and VP of a large regional cell phone corporation at a marketing firm in one of the tallest buildings in Chicago.  (The cell company was not Chicago based.) The company identified individuals in poverty as their customer base.  I was impressed that the CEO wanted more information on systemic community strategies to reduce poverty.  In closing, I mentioned that knowing your customer base is good information as long as you do not use it to exploit the customer.   It’s a fine line and one to which we should hold ourselves and our corporations accountable.  After all, many of our organizations hold people in poverty accountable. So it’s only fair.

Can you hear me now?

by Terie Dreussi-Smith

The Philadelphia Inquirer article “Advocates say poor need available free cell phones” (June 14, 2010) illustrates a common line of thinking within U.S. society.

In the article, some interviewees say they don’t think people in poverty should be buying cell phone minutes, and others don’t want cellular service providers to use cell phone charges to subsidize free minutes for people in poverty. This line of thinking should prompt a re-assessment of a mental model of people in poverty in the U.S.

Most of us would grind to a standstill without a cell phone. But apparently people in poverty are not in the group that should own one. We need to be careful because perceptions of what people in poverty should and should not have may be based on a flawed mental model of people in poverty. Have you encountered the mental model that suggests people in poverty are just milking any and every available system? This mental model is connected to another mental model—that people in poverty wouldn’t be there unless they and their families had done things or continue to do things that keep them poor. These two paradigms are the chicken and the egg of the kind of below-the-surface thinking that sustains poverty. What we do know is that the research indicates there are four causes of poverty: individual behavior, community resources, exploitation, and policy/economic structures. Individual behavior shows up on the list, but it is not the sum and total of the list of what causes poverty. In fact, it seems pretty minor compared to exploitation and policy/economic structures.

America seems sure it understands poverty. Yet in most of our communities, people in poverty have little voice or influence. Unless we include people in poverty in planning and decision making, we will not discover the “what, why, and how” of the poverty in our own neighborhoods, towns, and cities. Across the country, Bridges Out of Poverty Steering Committees are providing individuals in poverty a forum in which they clearly and accurately describe life in poverty in the U.S. This is valuable information! Our persistent problem seems to be that we just can’t hear people in poverty. “Can you hear me now?” takes on a different meaning when you are in poverty; however, we don’t seem to answer when poverty is calling. If people in poverty in your community never get the chance to share an accurate mental model of poverty with you, your community may struggle to build effective policies and strategies because they are based on an inaccurate model. Who is sitting at the table in your organization or community?

Two people in the article give voice to another common attitude toward the poor in the U.S.: that the well-off are a tired of subsidizing privileges for the poor. Few people I know grow weary of giving to the “deserving” poor, who are viewed as those who cannot move out of poverty due to age (the very young and the very not-so-young) or disability. Apparently, the “undeserving” must not buy minutes, or birthday cakes for their 3-year-olds, or cable television. You should not have fun or communicate via Internet or cell phone unless your rent and utilities are paid. This is a hidden rule that actually works pretty well in middle class environments. It is one of the basic hidden tenets the middle class employs in order to maintain economic sustainability and move ahead.

It is a questionable leap of logic, though, to assume that since this rule works so well in middle class, it should work for everyone. In poverty, when are all the bills paid? At any rate, one thing is certain: Some people think I do not deserve a cell phone unless I can pay for all of my minutes. The irony is that I can’t move forward to a place where I’m able to pay for my minutes unless I can be reached by agency personnel, who depend on me to have this tool. I can’t be reached for job interviews unless I have Internet service or a cell phone. I can’t be reached by mail because I cannot access affordable housing and am forced to move often.

Cellular phones are a necessity these days, perhaps even more so for people in poverty. It is time for communities in the U.S. include people in poverty in a re-evaluation of the mental model of poor people as undeserving exploiters of the system. In fact, people in poverty are problem solvers who deserve equal access to the necessities required by—and the opportunities present in—modern society.

When people are struggling to meet basic needs, they are more likely to be concerned with issues of survival.

I explained our definition of poverty in my last blog. People will have difficulty learning if they lack basic resources, especially if they:

• are hungry (possible lack of financial resources)
• lack assistance with projects or homework when needed (lack support systems)
• do not comprehend written or oral communication (lack language resources)
• are discounted for unorganized presentations in print or otherwise (hidden rules)
• feel like outcasts (relationships)
• desire to be one of the “bad” kids (role models)

With any of their basic resources missing, typically students are less likely to embrace their education. Dr. Payne and her associates present such basic strategies as mentoring and the use of mental models—those pictures and stories that help people learn faster—that assist students during these times so that learning can become more fluid.

People lacking various resources often place issues of survival over education; we call it living in the tyranny of the moment. This does not make people in poverty less intelligent. It does, however, offer fewer opportunities to make education a priority. By understanding where the students and their families are coming from, and by helping them overcome obstacles, the support and guidance of school staff will enable students to learn with greater success.

There is a lot of discussion circulating on other blogs, in articles, at conferences, and in other hot spots that argues about what poverty really is. In our work at aha! Process, Dr. Ruby Payne uses a definition of poverty that is similar to the European Union definition (p. 6) that takes into account material, cultural, and social resources. As a result, we realize that we as humans are multifaceted and that many factors come into play when someone is in poverty.

The foundation for Dr. Payne’s message is the complete definition of poverty. Most people generally associate poverty with economic status. However, Dr. Payne clearly defines poverty as the varying degrees to which a person lacks any one of following nine resources:

Financial
Language (ability to speak in formal register)
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Physical
Support systems
Relationships/role models
Knowledge of middle class hidden rules

These resources (or the lack of them) have an impact on a person’s ability to handle stressful situations. Imagine someone experiencing a job loss. What is the difference between that person having business connections (support systems) and not having connections of any kind? Which single mother is in a better position to leave work for the day: the one who works in a corporate office and can continue to work from home, or the one who works for an hourly rate closer to minimum wage? If a job candidate’s response to an initial greeting is, “How’s it hanging?” are that person’s future words likely to be taken seriously?

A financially strapped person with an abundance of all the other resources is more apt to improve his or her financial situation later in life. Likewise, it is unlikely that a wealthy person lacking all the other resources will remain wealthy. Just take a look at lottery winners who lack many of the other resources and spend all of their winnings rather quickly.

Showing people how to build all nine resources makes for permanent, positive change in people’s lives.

What do relationships, math, and a deck of cards have in common? Family night for pre-kindergarten! Several families gathered in the cafeteria to celebrate family night in May. Students helped the parents choose milk, foods, and dessert before beginning the evening’s activities.

The students had been studying geometric shapes in class. Flower pictures for May were created by cutting out and folding triangles. Students glued these “flowers” onto construction paper that had been colored by the students and parents together. Children explained to the parents the characteristics of a triangle and how it differs from a square.

When the evening’s art activity was completed, families were given playing cards and were guided through several math activities that could be accomplished using the deck of cards. The goal was to teach students to sort, categorize, and create simple math problems.

First, parents sorted the cards and removed the face cards. Students then sorted the deck into two categories: red and black. The next task was to sort by shape: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Parents then helped students sort each group from greatest to least or least to greatest. Students were asked to find four like-number cards. Next, the cards were used to create math problems using like shapes, e.g., 2 hearts + 4 hearts = 6 hearts.

Once the students were comfortable with the process, the challenge’s difficulty was increased. Students and parents were instructed to use the red cards for the addends and the black cards for the sum. For instance, 2 hearts + 4 diamonds = 6 spades. Parents were encouraged to work with the students at least once a week to build and enhance their number sense.

Parents, students, and teachers enjoyed an evening building relationships and math concepts. They found simple ways to work with students at home to help build the cognitive strategies needed to be successful in math at school.

Recently I was honored to present alongside Dr. John Gardner at the statewide Student Success Symposium in Little Rock, Arkansas, sponsored by the Arkansas State Department of Higher Education. During a fireside chat session, Dr. Gardner challenged all participants to identify their own “big ideas” and pursue them. Several people shared theirs, and their enthusiasm was contagious.

My big idea at this moment is to identify a community college that primarily serves a single school district and to work with the full spectrum of faculty, from kindergarten through college. We would identify the purpose, patterns, structures, and skills in each discipline, then develop consistent mental models for each. The mental models—visual instructional tools designed to help students understand and store abstract information—utilize story, metaphor, and analogy. Imagine how well prepared for college a student would be if her teachers used a consistent mental model for social studies, for example, throughout her K–12 career, and this same mental model was used as the guiding principle in her undergraduate work. And imagine how comfortable a first-year college student would feel if he were to hear his professors use key vocabulary with which he is familiar.

I plan to look for funding opportunities to pursue this big idea. If there are any community colleges or school districts interested, please let me know!

Martin Miller recently asked an interesting question on a previous blog post of mine  – I’d like to take the time to respond to it below.  Martin asks:

Thank you, Phil, for sharing this perspective.  I struggle personally with the “tyranny” of the mind and thought process and would appreciate more information on this topic.  Why is operating from a position of inclusion and respect so difficult for us?

I appreciate that you address this at two levels – your personal struggle with the tyranny of the mind and the broader question about inclusion and respect.

You are not alone:  most of us, me included, struggle with our judgmental minds.  Buddhists call the “tyranny” of the mind samsara.  This is the busy mind, the mind that is always sorting between “for” and “against.”  It seems to be in relentless pursuit of “this over that” and — it is exhausting.  The Buddhist remedy is meditation, where one learns to quiet the mind.  What a relief that can be.  And then there is cleaning horse stalls or playing with grandkids to get a little more perspective and balance.

As for “operating from a position of inclusion and respect,” again it’s a problem of being judgmental.  When we look at this through the lens of economic class, it appears that judgmentalness arises most easily when we don’t understand the experience of people in other economic classes.  Judgments fall hardest on those who don’t have power.  In other words, the judgmental attitudes that people in poverty might have about people in middle class or wealth don’t make much impression on the objects of that attitude because the person in poverty has little power and cannot affect the lives of middle class or wealthy people.

But when those from the dominant classes are critical of people in poverty, it makes a difference.  The middle class run the institutions, design the programs, and deliver the message.

No one doubts that the middle class mindset and experience has been normalized in our society.  The benefits of society naturally bend to serve the normalized group.  For example, hand tools and buildings have been designed to benefit right-handed people because right-handedness has been normalized.  The “advantages” that right-handed people enjoy are invisible to them and they enjoy the benefits without hating or judging left-handed people.

People who are from generational middle class may have normalized their societal experience to the degree that the benefits and resources they enjoy are invisible to them.  They are drawn into thinking that what is “common sense” to them is “common sense” to everyone.  They may even ascribe their success in life entirely to their own initiative and not recognize the advantages that being of the dominate class gives them.  There are some people who think they hit a triple when they were actually born on third base.

Happily, those of us who are using Bridges concepts to address poverty and community well-being are in a position to help people understand economic class and judgmentalness.  The tools we use are the mental models of poverty, middle class, and wealth (the environments that arise when there is huge disparity in income and wealth).  We understand that hidden rules of class arise from those environments.  We learn that poverty is caused by more than the choices of the poor, but by community and political/economic conditions as well. These understandings can lead to a shift in mindset about our own societal experience (if we take ownership of it) and make us open to the experiences and mindsets of others.  Add to this the possibility of relationships of mutual respect across class lines and you have the makings of organizational and community change.

At times inclusion and respect may seem to be in short supply; but, at least we have the tools to do something about it.  It’s amazing to me how ready people are to move from judgment, disrespect, and polarization to the inclusion found in Bridges, Getting Ahead, and Circles.

-Phil