This was a very well-writt n book that would be beneficial for educators (my context for reading) but I also have some serious reservations.

First: the negatives. This book is filled throughout with soft racism and stereotyping. It is used to help provide differences between socio-economic status, but I also think could be very harmful in it reinforces stereotypes instead of showing a wide breadth of lived experiences. That was consistently icky at least once or twice per chapter. If you are someone that has worked in low-income schools, it will resonate but also would tick me off.

Now, with that said, for those that are new to working in poverty, or didn’t experience it yourself, I think this would be very helpful in making connections and understanding the why’s of the world our families in poverty experience.

All in all, a really helpful boon that has some major caveats in how it was written, at least in my opinion.

Should be required reading for all teachers and others who work with kids. It offers really good suggestions on what one person can do to try to help a child struggling in poverty.

Written from a sociological perspective of poverty and social class to those working primarily in the educational setting. While I don't fit the intended audience, I still found this book helpful in terms of better understanding the culture and mindsets that often accompany people within upper, middle, and lower classes. Payne defines poverty as "the extent to which a person does without resources". In other words, poverty is not just financial or material lack, but also social, spiritual, educational, physical, mental, and emotional lack as well. This reality should challenge us to pursue poverty alleviation more holistically.

Payne's goal as outlined in her book is to move people in lower class to middle or upper class as a means to alleviate their poverty. While I agree that our goal in serving people who are impoverished should be to help alleviate their poverty, I disagree that a shift in social class has to be the desired goal in order for that to happen. I prefer the approach of addressing the roots of a person's unhealthy relationships with finances, possessions, people, thought patterns, etc. and educating and equipping them to have a healthy relationship with these various aspects of their life, resulting in better stewardship of these things (which will alleviate poverty in these areas, but may or may not result in a shift in social class).

Overall, a worthwhile and easy read for anyone working with people affected by poverty (which is all of us at some point based off of Payne's definition).

This has been very helpful for my staff and I to get a better sense of addressing our students. Very readable.

Dunno what I think about ol' Ruby Payne ... White people love her though ...

A good understanding of different value systems and having a broader view. I caution readers to not take it too literally as it is still important to individualize people and not think they fall into on group or another simply because of their income. DON'T OVERGENERALIZE :-)

I'll admit I only got about halfway through this book, (actually the audiobook, read by the author), and my initial observation that you can practically hear the pearls this woman is wearing when she speaks has not given way to a more favorable impression after several hours. Dr. Payne is clearly much better at marketing than she is at sociology, and her patronizing tone never improved. This woman wants you to know that she has black friends. She loved Music Of The Heart. She uses the word "homosexual", but only when she has to, and not in front of the children. Her book is full of simplistic, sanitized presentations of other people's work sandwiched between vignettes of other people's suffering, which you are asked to rate from 1-4. Please refer to Appendix A to see how well your assessment of Cynthia's post-molestation emotional resources matches up with the author's. Her writing leaves me with an almost Kafkaesque sense of having returned to the intellectual mediocrity and shuffling soulless incompetence of the failing school I dropped out of in 10th grade. Fortunately for me, the kinds of sociolinguistic factors this author is so lamentably bad at illuminating got me into college. I'm going back now, with a mind to offer an alternative to the inept insensitivity embodied by educators like Dr. Payne. Hopefully I won't have to suffer through more books like this in the process.

There is some useful stuff in here, but there are some huge problematic things going on in this book. Primarily it's very classist.

I also think its a dangerous book in the sense that if one allows oneself to read this book without a questioning mind, one may get sucked into the simple explanations the author offers. It's quite payneful how she explains poverty.

How many times did I nearly throw this book across the room or throw it in the recyling bin while I had to read it for a school book study? Let's blame the victim for poverty and tell them to just act like middle class people it will be okay! We can save a lot of money that way. This was one of most racist, hateful books I've ever read. I'd like to give it zero stars. Or go into the negative category because believing any of this nonsense, which is not actually supported by any facts, would damage a teacher influenced by it.

I thought this book was very intriguing. Some of the content was dated and I feel as though it made generalizations about students in poverty that relied on success being met at the middle-class standards. What is success and what is survival for an outsider? I love my students and this book highlighted some aspect of my students that frustrate me. What do I want for them? Am I allowed to want for them? I’m not a parent or an older sibling. But I am a teacher. In my frustrations I’ve let a teacher know the responsibility that comes with being an educator and the sacred responsibility that comes with it. I know where I feel the importance of needing a teacher. Do I need my students? I gave the book four stars because of the conversation it can create— not necessarily what the author intended; I believe Payne thought she was inventing empathy to an extent. ANYWAY - Mr. T

Very informative and practical. A statement near the end of the book from author Dr. Ruby Payne summarizes the entire book succinctly: "Education level and income level are closely related, but being under-educated should not be equated with lack of intelligence."

Dr. Payne further supports this point, affirming that "the role of the educator or social worker or employer is not to save the individual (living in poverty), but rather to offer a support system, role models, and opportunities to learn, which will increase the likelihood of the person's success. Ultimately, the choice always belongs to the individual."

And therein lies the role of the educator: to present those choices to the student and to make the student aware of the life-changing opportunities available to them during their formative years in the school setting.

One of my greatest takeaways from the book was the revelation of the "hidden rules" of middle class. Because most school settings (even those in high poverty areas) are structured around middle class methods of communication and expectations of behavior, children coming from poorer homes are already at somewhat of a disadvantage when they arrive at school. It is incumbent upon the educator to recognize what those differences in communication and behavior are, and to meet the child where they are instead of expecting the child to know and understand something that has not been modeled at home. And the research supports the idea that the underlying causes of disproportionality in students and families of lower-income schools is due to differences in income, not race.

With practical exercises and true-to-life vignettes that are easy and interesting to read, this book serves as a ready-to-use book study that would provide eye-opening opportunities to improve school administration, leading to more effective service to the students and families of impoverished areas. This is a highly recommended book study, especially for Title I communities. Although the book and the research of Dr. Payne is focused on the poor, her methods are effective and recommended for improving the lives of all students in those communities, regardless of social class.

I wish I had read this years ago. While it does not purport to solve the problem of poverty, this book helps provide understanding of the cognitive process that may go with social class and how to reach students in those different arenas. It helped me to understand perspective and how my approaches need to bear in mind some the of the realities poverty brings. We see more and more students that are simply in survival mode (not just those that have financial struggles); one could argue that the types of poverty here could translate into emotional poverty as well. Overall, I found the approaches helpful. Now I just have to decide if I want the paperback version (I kind of think I do).