Colleagues,

I hope others are as interested in this idea of "hidden" or  
"unspoken" rules as I am. If there isn't much of a response to this  
posting, then I'll assume not, but I think this is at the heart of  
what we should be discussing here -- "the hidden [or unspoken] rules  
of persons living with the effects of poverty, the intersection of  
these effects with gender and
race and the misunderstandings these can cause in the teaching/ 
learning process" specifically in the U.S.

Common metaphors and expressions such as a "melting pot vs a mixed  
salad", "glass ceilings", "acting white", and "making it" come to my  
mind.

I have a lot of questions. I hope you will tackle one or more of  
them, especially 1 and 2 (together) and 3.

1. Are these hidden or unspoken rules:
a) key strategies for personal and family economic economic and/or  
social advancement, (Ruby Payne) or
b) an implicit set of social, economic and political expectations  
that keep people in their place, and what to do about them (Paolo  
Freire) or
c) expectations for social acceptance in one's own or a different  
community?

2. What exactly are the hidden or unspoken rules?  This conversation  
will be more fruitful if we speak the unspoken, reveal the hidden,  
make the implicit explicit.

3. What other metaphors or expressions point or speak to these hidden  
or unspoken rules?

4. Who makes the rules? Or is this a loose metaphor for a set of  
powerful expectations that act like "rules"?

5. Who hides the rules, or doesn't speak about them?

6. To whom do the rules apply? Poor people? Low-income people?  
African Americans? Women? Immigrants? Those who have not completed  
high school? Others?

7. Do the same rules apply in the same way to all these groups, or  
are there some differences depending on what group we are talking  
about? For example, are the rules different for poor women than they  
are for poor men, different for African Americans who were born in  
the U.S. than for immigrants? Or are the rules the same?

8. Once we have a clearer idea of what the unspoken or hidden rules  
are, and to whom they apply, what does this have to do with teaching  
and learning in adult literacy education?

If you believe there are hidden or unspoken rules, and that this is  
important to discuss, what you think the rules are. What do you think  
Ruby Payne thinks the rules are? What do you think Paolo Freire  
thought they were?

  David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net