Old pictures are fun, but that isn't the primary reason I wanted to share my old basketball days. (I'm number 22 in white in the picture) I had a deeper purpose as well. I wanted to illustrate how things that make sense at a point in time, may turn out to not age well or even be wrong. Exhibit A: Chad's shorts... Apparently in the late 80's, we were pretty sure what passes for undergarments these days was a great uniform. Today, I think we can all agree a little more fabric is a good idea, but in 1988 I would have thought you were crazy. Exhibit B: I am jumping as high as I can and shooting from above my head. My basketball friends will know this was slow and ineffective because at 5'8", I wasn't jumping over anyone. I would have done it differently if I had known then what I know now, and that is the point. It reminds me of a quote from Richard Russo's great book Empire Falls "People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake." I think what Russo is describing we in academics might call confirmation bias. In less lofty language, he is simply describing assumptions we make and attribute wisdom to even though their validity is based primarily on the fact these assumptions have been around for a while, or made sense at one time, maybe. Poverty Informed organizations need to check for loyalty to mistakes on a regular basis.
I have had nearly 30 opportunities to present this year on Poverty-Informed practice, and as I hone the message, I've created a segment called "Stuff We Do That is Dumb." It's not real intellectual, but it is really important. The most common story I share is about putting stickers on books. If you haven't heard it, the short version is in past years, the division I led ordered a lot of workbooks for students, hundreds and even thousands. And every time we received a shipment of books, my office staff would spend hours putting stickers on the books reading "Property of _____. DO NOT remove." This was usually a day or two of work for multiple people. In fact, it was often assigned as a project to someone who usually had other duties, but it was pointless. Our books were rarely stolen, and if they were, no one believed a warning sticker would prevent the theft. Worse yet, every student who came in was now reminded we thought they were potential thieves. Essentially, we had created a system that didn't work, took up time we did not have, to prevent something that was not occurring, and turned our students into suspects at the same time. Like I said, this is the part of the presentation where we identify "Stuff We Do That is Dumb." When I decided one of the pillars of being Poverty Informed was creating a sense of belonging as often as possible, I said we would no longer put stickers on books. In fact, we would remove the ones we had already put on there. Problem solved, right? If only it were that simple.
"But we put stickers on books Chad," was the first answer I received. So I shared my epiphany that it not only wasted time they did not have, did nothing, or worse yet it did damage. "But we put stickers on books Chad, that is what we do." I was astounded, but Richard Russo wouldn't have been. We had not challenged this practice in anyone's memory, and now it was just standard operating practice. My objection seemed as odd to my staff as the practice now did to me. But I told them to stop anyway, and the problem was solved... sure. No, at first, they said let's just not do it with any new books but leave the ones we have already done. It's a lot of work they said, and I almost agreed. Fortunately, I have always had a partner in this work. Her name is Mandy and she gently (sort of) told me to have some courage in my conviction and hold my ground. She reminded me, as she often does, people will work very hard to do new things the old way, and if I wanted to really shift what we were doing, this might be the place to start. So I did. I came back the next day and said we are going to remove stickers, and if I must do it myself, I will be glad to do so. It took another four months to get people to stop putting stickers on books... Being loyal to a mistake can be a habit indeed.
The sticker story is always a gateway for me to think about other things we do which do not make sense on further examination. You know, things that are dumb. It makes me think of things like trying to increase student success by suspending students who aren't succeeding. Almost every college I see has a version of this policy, and while the financial aid part of this may be out of our control, surely, we can do better. Imagine a child who came to school and was struggling to read, and the teacher told them to go away and come back when they could read better. You are thinking "C'mon Chad, that is ridiculous," but it is exactly what we are doing. Your grades aren't good enough for two semesters... go away and come back when they will be better. As someone who lived through that suspension myself, there was not much I could do while they sent me away to fix anything. In fact, in those olden days, what I needed was someone to ask me "why have your grades dropped off so dramatically," but no one ever did. I think many of us do better now, but we still send people away to fix themselves. What does that say about our assumption about those people? Does it say you get a finite amount of help, and then you are on your own? Do we feel ok about that? I don't. Another area currently in need of examination is how we distribute emergency aid. How many of our mechanisms are based on the underlying assumption students will misuse these funds? We create application screenings, and we ask for receipts, or only pay third party vendors. If you can't see the judgment and bias in these deeply held practices, I would argue you are stuck in the habit of being loyal to an old mistake.
I have been working in higher education a long time (translation: I'm kind of old). One of the privileges of being a veteran educator is you get to mentor folks along their own career path. My advice is probably as faulty as anyone's, but I have been consistently told a couple things I say regularly resonate with people who seek my counsel. I tell them decisions made a long time ago are not made sacred by age, and a decision they can make today likely has the same amount of wisdom attached to it. It is my way of saying, do not grant loyalty to something just because it is how things have always been done. This has been a hard-earned lesson for me. I want to reach the place of how things should be permanently, but I doubt such a place exists. The second piece of advice I tend to give is there is no secret group or level of people in your organization who are smarter than you. If you are seeking the place where the wisdom resides, I suggest you look within. People above you may have knowledge granted by time, but your ideas are just as worth considering. In fact, veteran educators like me are probably more susceptible to loyalty to old decisions. A Poverty Informed organization will seek the wisdom of the people it serves and will challenge its assumptions regularly. A Poverty Informed organization is a learning organization and will realize the current system generates exactly the results it was designed to generate. If those shorts I wore made sense in 1988, they certainly don't now. We can do better, and we must.
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