Last week I participated in a professional development session that focused on viewing all students through an asset-based lens. It is evident that viewing students through an asset-based lens allows teachers to maximize the potential of all learners. The idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy transfers to teachers, and if a teacher views a student through a deficit-based lens it is guaranteed the student will start viewing their self in the same way. As a group we agreed that this was important, but we started our discussion around why this is challenging.
Every teacher can think about that one kid that gave them a run for their money every day. The one kid that never follows the rules, never completes work and most importantly never misses school. In my first year as a dean of students we had a student that was starting his freshman year. This kid was in a protective placement due to violence in the home. One parent was incarcerated and the other parent was not involved. The student had bounced around from foster home to foster home and was a handful in the building. During the first week of school this student was in my office daily and multiple times a day. I started to begin to build a relationship with him and we were seeing small signs of progress. One day there was an incident in a study hall where the student was sent to the office. I kept the student in the office and we worked through what happened but more importantly what was going on outside of school. When I went to inform the teacher what we did to resolve the issue I was greeted by hostility. The teacher was very fired up and was yelling at me that this kid does not belong in our school and this kid is a “ticking time bomb” and it is only a matter of time until somebody gets hurt. This kid needed support but so did this teacher.
Students with those types of challenges are going to prevent challenges in the learning environment. Students from that set of circumstances will be defiant, disruptive and challenging to engage in learning. As educators if we focus on those deficits or challenges, we will have no chance of making progress in engaging all learners. It is easy to be sucked into the negativity and we can try to maintain an asset-based lens, but why is it so hard?
We are programmed to look at ourselves through a deficit-based lens. When you see a photograph of yourself do you immediately start recognizing all of the positives about yourself, or do you begin to get self-conscious about the self-perceived negatives that are illustrated by a photograph? It is natural to begin looking at your own flaws and worrying about how others perceive you. With this lens of looking at yourself do you find it hard to believe that it is challenging to view students through an asset-based lens?
As I processed this and reflected on previous interactions with staff and students there are times that I have been drawn to the deficit-based model of looking at children. I need to do better and we need to do better as educators. If we are quick to examine the negatives in our own self, then it is natural that we focus on the negative in others. As educators we need to flip this lens to give our most challenging students a shot at success. Our kids need us to see them for what they are capable of, and what value they can provide to our learning environment.
If we focus on the negative, we are exposing that child to subpar learning experience. We cannot afford to provide additional barriers to the lives of our learners, when students are facing so many barriers outside of our learning environment. As educators we need to remove barriers or provide support to minimize barriers for our learners. This starts with viewing all students through and asset-based lens and erasing the temptation to rely on the easy view of what kids do wrong.
The student that was called the “ticking time bomb” received a lot of support from many different people in the school and community. There were some challenging and rough times a that impacted the school community. It was an all hands-on deck approach that led to some impressive results. That student that was in my office every day as a freshman, was not in the office once as a junior for a discipline related issue. That student has all the credits that a junior should have entering their senior year and is on track to graduate. That ticking time bomb exploded, but it exploded in a positive way. That was made possible by the support and patience of a lot of people in the school community. That level of success would have never been possible if there was a collective focus on deficits rather than assets or even potential assets. We need to shift our practice to an asset-based lens to give all kids a chance at success in the world of education.