NETWORK 98, Vol. 13, No. 1, March 1998
Pathways from Poverty Update: On Being a Poverty Fighter
-- Eileen Zuber
Last year I enrolled in and completed an advanced sociology course called "Institutional Structures and Human Values." The course fulfills a staff development multicultural awareness requirement and is therefore encouraged and valued by my employer, Penn State. Through this course, I gained an even greater understanding and appreciation for the upbuilding of community. Most importantly, I was reminded of the ties each of us share with humanity and that for all of our differences, we are much more similar than different.
In-class curriculum instruction and group participation was just one aspect of this course. Another component involves completing at least forty hours of tutoring to students enrolled in either the local General Equivalency Degree (GED), Adult Basic Education (ABE) or English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. I was very excited and a bit apprehensive about the prospect of tutoring. I wasn't sure if I'd "be" a good tutor. Sure I could read and write--possess a real passion for it--a passion I practice daily in my work as a writer-editor and internship and apprenticeship supervisor at the Northeast Center, and in my personal life as a writer. Over the years, I've enjoyed sharing my love of reading and writing with my own children, but would I have the patience to work with GED, ABE or ESL students? That I wasn't certain of. How would I handle their progress? Their goals? My biggest fear was the possibility of becoming depressed should my students not show ample interest and progress. And well, "ample," how does one define that anyway when each of us works with our own individual value systems? What I hoped for was to draw out my students' hopes and interests, and serve as a support system to help them achieve their goals. Sure I wanted to encourage them to "do" and "be" their best self, but one thing I was adamant about not doing was trying to make them into something that they were not and did not want to be. This is perhaps what I've struggled with the hardest and the longest throughout my life. Society has it's way of exerting an awful lot of pressure on us to become generic cutouts, reflections of the status quo, and personally, I don't believe in it. I don't believe it serves the best interest of individuals or society.
Virginia Schein in her Pathways from Poverty presentation "Working from the Margins: Voices of Mothers in Poverty" emphasized the importance of dissolving the welfare mother myth. Part of her approach was to capture these women's voices and get them out to the public to dispel the pervading myth [that welfare mothers are lazy, immoral and unwilling to work]. [And to dispel the myth that] 'poverty consists primarily of women of color.' Through her research, Schein like Gene Summers and others reported the broadness of poverty--that it affects all kinds of people. Schein's goal was to open people's hearts and minds with reason to the real issues -- that these women are struggling, destitute, and in personal pain. Like Schein, I believe we are on the wrong path in society. We need to see these women--and I'll expand that to include all people who have been marginalized by society--as they really are--struggling to make ends meet. We need to break the stereotypes and come up with different kinds of solutions. In her presentation, Schein emphasized the importance of knowing, understanding, the personal history and social circumstances of the lives of whomever we are serving. This she referred to as "the contextual approach." The contextual approach puts outcomes in perspective and brings to the forefront the various factors--individual, historical, and societal--that impinge on a situation. With such information, we can design and implement approaches that can effectively facilitate individuals and families' exit from poverty and help them transform their lives into lives of dignity and opportunity. It was with these Pathway from Poverty ideas in mind that I decided to pursue tutoring GED students. I had heard that many GED students pursue their degree with the hopes of securing employment or a better paying job, and I wanted to help them accomplish this.
Since June 1997, I have tutored several individuals and have learned from and been enriched by each experience. The most rewarding and perhaps the most important results that I have witnessed in my students, I believe, have been in the area of emotional and psychological growth and health and healing. This relates directly to the three-pronged framework that Schein proposed could help individuals to become self-sufficient; this approach emphasizes creating: (1) income opportunities, (2) social support and linking systems, and (3) help and healing. One of the challenges of being a "poverty fighter" is narrowing down one's focus, becoming aware of where one's talents lie, and then deciding on how they can be best used to benefit others. It has taken me awhile to do this. Implementing ideas often is the toughest, but that is where progress, if it is to be made, will be made. One of the most important roles I can play as a writer is helping others to recover -- and in some instances, discover, the power of their own human voice. Voice isn't everything, but a strong and honest voice always gains the attention of authority, and if you think about it deeply, what better way is there to level the playing field.
Most importantly, I want to emphasize that as each of us report our contributions to this Pathway effort, we should always be mindful that no endeavor is small, and that whatever accomplishments are reported, even the very smallest send ripples throughout the entire universe. Kind acts given and received do translate into other kind acts given and received. For example, one student whom I am working with named John Biddle had recently been forced to seek off-farm employment. His mom and uncles who worked the farm with him have passed on, and his dad is aging and confined to a convalescent home. John comes from a proud and rich heritage, a family that revered their land and the crops they'd grown on it and the animals who inhabited it with them. Ritual played an important role in their daily life, and work and play were intricately connected. As John shared stories with me about his family members and life itself, I learned that everything had a specific purpose and rhythm. I grew to understand how difficult it would be to suddenly be tossed into the common life, "working a nine to five job so to speak."
Because John comes from a rich oral tradition, a tradition that had been passed down to him from his mother and father, aunts and uncles, he was full of stories just waiting to be expressed. Together we decided to build his English language lessons on them. The very idea that he could do this had never occurred to him before. John just needed the encouragement and guidance to show him how to begin. One afternoon, as John was reading one of his stories to his dad in the convalescent home, his dad's roommate approached him and asked John if he would be willing to share his stories with the men's group in the home. He was delighted to. This is the rippling effect I previously mentioned, an example of a kind act given and received. After John read his stories aloud to the men's group, they began to reminisce about their own lives, stories long forgotten and now remembered fondly. I think this very act reminds us that wealth is more than a numerical expression, and there are many definitions to poverty. Poverty of spirit, for instance, in some circles is considered a blessing; according to the "Beatitudes," the poor in spirit know they are in need of God and one another, and thus they seek to build community, and isn't that where happiness can be found.
In April, I've been invited to attend a dinner meeting and make a presentation for "Program Must"; this is a "self-help and educational program by and for consumers of mental health care." I'll be co-presenting along with my husband who is an ordained Lutheran minister. I plan to speak on how to develop creativity, acknowledging the important role creativity plays in developing and maintaining a healthy well-being. Other talks I plan to give to other organizations such as The Women's Resource Center promote the active and positive role of practicing meditation to promote healthy well-being, the importance of keeping day and dream journals to develop one's intuition and increase one's happiness, understanding, and options in life. All of this will be done in addition to my regular work assignments and are not "officially" a part of the Pathways effort.
Additionally, the Northeast Center has put the Pathways from Poverty publication on line and will continue to follow-up and report on a bi-annual basis Pathways from Poverty happenings in the Northeast Region.
Also included in this report are three of the some twenty-odd stories that John (my student) has written. Please take the time to read them. I think you will find them an enriching experience. And thank you for including me in the Pathways from Poverty experience. I've enjoyed and learned from every aspect that I've been involved in.
Virginia Schein's Pathway's presentation appears (along with all others presented at the workshop given in the Northeast Region) in the Northeast Center's on-line Pathways from Poverty publication.
John Biddle's Stories
Wild Rabbit Hunting in the Big Woods
One time Uncle Bill Lyons and I went wild rabbit hunting down in the Big Woods.
He had two rabbit dogs; one was Old Sue and the other was Old Jack. He got Old Sue from the farm where he worked. She was an egg-sucking dog. The farmer was going to shoot her, but Uncle Bill told him that she looked like a good rabbit dog. So the farmer told him to take her home, and he did. Old Sue was the best rabbit dog we ever had. Old Jack just wandered to the farm one day. He was a good dog, too, but not as good as Old Sue. Uncle Bill said Old Jack was the most difficult dog he had ever worked with.
We went down to the Big Woods, to the creek that runs through it to hunt for wild rabbits. The dogs liked hunting the Big Woods because they liked hunting wild rabbits, and the Big Woods had a lot of bunnies in it. The rabbits liked the the pine trees there. My Uncle Bill and I liked the Big Woods, too.
Uncle Bill told me one day, the very first year that I hunted with him, "John, I'll tell you God sure made something when he made the Big Woods." My uncle liked to raise hell, which he did, but he knew God a lot, too.
So we went rabbit hunting. Uncle Bill had his old 12 GA shotgun with the rabbit ears for hammers, and I had my little 20 GA shotgun. We got six rabbits; he got four, and I got two. The dogs went nuts every time they heard the guns fire. The dogs knew that they'd get the livers when we took the insides out. We had a good time. So did the dogs.
My mom cooked the rabbits the next night for supper. She made them with pot pie and homemade bread and apple pie. The rabbits were good.
Old Sam, The Rabbit Dog
Sam, the rabbit dog, was born about September 1974. He was one of six pups. His mom was young Nance. She did not have much milk for her pups.
Uncle Bill Lyons said, "John, go get the baby bottles, and I will go get the milk."
We had to feed the pups night and day for about four weeks until they were weaned. Then Uncle Bill put an ad in the paper, "Rabbit Dogs For Sale." He sold all but the one I liked.
Uncle Bill said, "John, the last pup is yours. Take good care of him."
I called him "Sam." Uncle Bill and I worked with him night and day. Sam went hunting with Uncle Bill that year but was too small and got tired out. So Uncle Bill put him in the back lining of his hunting coat to bring him home. That winter we were still working with Sam and on into the summer, too.
Then rabbit season came, and Uncle Bill said, "John, you and Sam are ready to go rabbit hunting. Go and make me proud."
So off Sam and I went down to the Big Woods. I let Sam off the chain, and he took off running. Pretty soon, he jumped a nice fat rabbit. I pulled up my 20 GA and put the rabbit in the pot. Sam went nuts when I gave him the liver. We walked about halfway through the Big Woods, and Sam jumped another rabbit, number two; off they ran. I yelled, "Bring it to me, Sam," and he had the rabbit around to me in no time. We had it in the pot, too.
We went down by the creek. Sam loved the water. He jumped right in. I yelled, "Come on, Sam. Let's get a rabbit." So off we went. We got to some old pine trees. Sam took off after a rabbit. The next think I knew, he had two rabbits running at one time. The rabbits came around, and I let go and got one, with Sam hot on the trail of the other rabbit. I put a new shell in and got ready. Along came the other rabbit, and I got it, too. I gave Sam the livers. Then we went home, where Uncle Bill was waiting for us.
Uncle Bill said, "Well, John, how many rabbits did you get?"
I said, "Four."
"Did you give Sam the livers?"
I said, "I sure did, and he liked them."
My mom made rabbit stew for the next night, and we gave Sam some, too. Sam died in 1990 of old age. He was sixteen at the time of his death.
The Christmas Jack Knife
The fall of 1973, my mom, dad, and Uncle Bill did not have much money, and they all knew that I wanted a jack knife badly. Everytime we went to town, I would go to the hardware store to look at the jack knives. The one I wanted cost about twenty-five dollars.
So--my Uncle Bill called my mom aside and said to her that trapping was about to start in two weeks. "Ifen I can catch me some skunks, the hides this year are worth about two dollars a piece, and ifen you can sell some eggs and I can sell some junk, too, we might even get a lot more money. Then we can buy John the little 22 rifle, too."
So my Uncle got his traps ready, and my mom sold a lot of eggs. Uncle Bill went junk picking, too. On December the tenth, which was Uncle Bill's birthday, mom went to the cupboard and took out the jar of money. She called Uncle Bill in and said to him, "We have eighty dollars. I will get Bill, (he was my dad, my dad's name is Bill, too.) to take you to town to get the jack knife and gun for John. So off Uncle Bill and dad went.
Uncle Bill got the jack knife and the gun, plus a box of shells and a red hunting hat, too. My mom wrapped it all up and hid it upstairs.
On Christmas eve, mom sent me to bed about 10:00 p.m. Then she put the presents under the Christmas tree.
About 7:00 the next morning, I heard mom in the kitchen cooking a breakfast of pancakes, eggs and ham, and I yelled down, "Can I get up now, mom?"
She said, "Okay."
So down I went, looking for the presents, but my mom said, "Back here, and eat first." After we all ate, we went into the room where the Christmas tree was, and mom asked Uncle Bill to hand out the presents. First he gave me my new red hunting hat, and I liked it a lot. Then came a little box, and I opened it up. It had a new jack knife in it. Next came a big box. I opened it, and it had the 22 in it. I was happy.
But my uncle had a talk with me. He said, "The gun and the knife are not toys, John." That night Uncle Bill took me coon hunting, and I shot a big coon. I took the hide off with my new jack knife. My Uncle showed me how to dry it. He gave me a mark to put on it. It was the letter "J" for John.
Uncle Bill said, "From now on, we'll hunt together, as long as the good man lets us live." Uncle Bill came to me on the last day of January and said, "John, you get your coon hide, and we'll get your dad to take us over to the fur man." So off we went.
At the fur mans, my uncle said, "John, you take your hide and go first."
So I walked up to the fur man and said, "I have this here coon hide."
He took a look at it and called my uncle over and said, "Bill, this boy has the best coon hide I've seen all year." He gave me forty dollars for it. I looked back at my uncle, and I think he had a tear in his eye that day.
The last year Uncle Bill was alive, I got to talking with him one night. I asked him if he remembered the Christmas of 1973, the 22, the jack knife, and the coon hide. He said, "Yes, John, I do."
I said to him, "Can I ask you something Uncle Bill?"
He said, "You know you can."
So I said, "Uncle Bill, were you crying when the fur man gave me the forty dollars?"
He said, "Yes, John, I sure was."
And I said, "Why?"
He said, "Because I was a happy man that day, and we had a good Christmas, too." Then he said, "John, I will tell you right now, I love you a lot."
