When I read the announcement for a poverty simulation at Clarion University it seemed a quarter turn off or maybe just hairbrained. Of what use is a faux empathy roll playing exercise? A professional poverty chaser has a set idea of what poverty is all about. Their paycheck depends on their knowing. The non-professional willing to go to a daytime workshop is surely not clueless. As for what it is to be poor, no workshop can begin to demonstrate better than past experiences. When a kid weighing 90 pounds picks 300 pounds of cotton in a day, he knows poor.
So what follows is the full announcement plus three short postings I googled on the definition of poverty stricken and being poor.
Community Action, Inc. (Serving Clarion and Jefferson Counties) & The Clarion County Rural Family Economic Success (RuFES) Team cordially invite you to attend a POVERTY SIMULATION Thursday, May 21, 2009, 1:00pm to 3:00pm at Clarion University Gemmell Student Center, Multi-Purpose Room. To RSVP contact: Robert Hanley at (814) 226-4785, extension 208 by Monday, May 11, 2009. Pre-registration is required. The Poverty Simulation experience is designed to help participants begin to understand what it might be like to live in a typical low-income family trying to survive from month to month. Please join us in gaining an understanding of the realities faced by low-income people in your community.
I thought these three postings were the better of the lot available and you can read them in minutes. You’ll know the difference between living in poverty and being poor before you get to Clarion University even if you still don’t know why poverty is so infectious and intractable. If they call for questions, ask that one.
Asymmetrical Information: The poor really are different by Jane Galt is yours at www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005450 Lana Evans has posted The difference between being poor and being Poverty Stricken at www.helium.com/items/619071 Dr. Davis, poor thing grew up without a first name, has a second posting Poor versus Poverty: Two Different Cultures at www.teachingcollegeenglish.com/2009/02/23 Charles Marlin
