"A Framework for Understanding Poverty" - Dysfunctional Systems

Ruby Payne begins chapter five of her book by discussing dysfuctional systems. She defines dysfunctional as "the extent to which an individual cannot get his/her needs met within a system." (63) The author provides a case study that was done on a young girl, Ellie, who was in a dysfunctional system. Payne states, "By being forced to take on an adult role earlier, she must in essence put her emotional development on hold while she functions in an adult role." (64) That emotional development Ellie puts on hold is crucial to her success in developing from a dependent person to an interdependent person. So, "...An individual operating in a dysfunctional setting is often forced to take an adult role early, and then as an adult, is literally caught between being dependent and independent." (64) Other important quotes from chapter five: "...In order to move from poverty to middle class or from middle class to wealth, one must trade off some relationships for achievement at least for a period of time. To do this one needs emotional resources and stamina." (65) "The development of emotional resources is crucial to student success. The greatest free resource available to schools is the rolemodeling provided by teachers, administrators, and staff." (67)
Okay. So let's say I have some percentage of students that take part in some sort of dysfunctional system at home. Then according to Payne's writing, to some extent, the emotional development and maturity for those students is at risk for each one of them. Okay. But then those students come to school and school is just another dysfunctional system. Students need to come to school, take their classes, do work, pass, and graduate. Too often are there issues with students' schedules. Student schedules never seem to be in order or fixed. After letting students complete a third of the term in one class, the school tells them that they've finally fixed their schedules and students get moved around from one class to another. They've now lost 3 - 4 weeks worth of work they they have to get caught up on. If they can't get caught up on it, their grades are in danger since they may not do as well on the next test if it refers to material that was taught before they joined their new classes; they may not be able to make up those lost daily grade and homework points.
Then there are those school-day mornings. If school busses arrive late, those students aren't there for the beginning of a lesson and have to figure out what's going on in the classroom when they arrive. What about breakfast? Some students recognize that they need some sort of a meal to start their day and get breakfast through the school. That is, if the school's breakfast procedure is functional. Often enough, there's a good number of students that want breakfast, wait to be allowed to go and eat breakfast, and never get there because the school's procedure for allowing students to breakfast is too unreliable and unorganized to it to truly work effectively. Now you've got hungry and upset students until lunchtime.
So let's talk about lunch time and how a month of school must pass before everything is figured out. Different methods are used to devise a way to get everyone (1100 - 1300 kids) to lunch during in one period. Sometimes the period before lunch will end early or the period after lunch will start late. But then you have a teacher who doesn't get to finish his/her lesson or a teacher that won't be able to do their lesson as planned because s/he lost 20 - 30 minutes of class time to lunch time. That loss of structure on the teacher's part comes back to the students because they are the ones that aren't learning the material as completely as possible. It'll affect how well the students understand the material, how well they do on tests and how well they do in the class.
And who make up the entity that is "school?" The teachers, administrators and staff. The same people whose rolemodelling is supposed to help students build emotinal resources. How can we as "the school" be an emotional resource for students and help them build emotional resources when the administration represent incorrect class schedules, teachers represent improperly learned material and failing grades, and the staff represent missed breakfast, late lunch, or late busses? It's going to be that much harder for us that work in and for the school to help students build the emotional resources that they need when we constantly provide such dysfunctional systems for them to struggle through. And what's most disturbing about all this is the fact that those same resources we find it hard to provide students are the same ones they need to advance in the world and in life. It's like an unfortunate paradox of failure...