Blog Post #4

Shifting the Paradigm from Deficit Oriented Schools to Asset Based Models: Why Leaders Need to Promote an Asset Orientation in Our Schools by Shannon Renkly and Katherine Bertolini

Reflection:

While reading about the deficit model found in many education systems, I found myself thinking of how I had seen this during my own education. In elementary school, for example, I remember a few instances where I witnessed teachers overly focusing on the poor behavior of classmates. Once, I even had a teacher ask me to report to her any time one of my friends misbehaved. This was the first time I can recall starting to question why the system worked the way it did, because while my friend was a bit hyperactive, she was intelligent and one of the nicest kids in our class. I told my parents about this, and they reported the teacher's actions to the principal, who reprimanded the teacher. However, teachers regularly questioned my friend. Unsurprisingly, with the lack of support she received from most of the adults in our school, she started to fall behind once we reached middle school. She's thriving now, but her case was one of the first I saw in which the schools failed a student.

Something similar happened to my best friend's brother. From the time we were young, he was rude and acted out. Teachers responded to his behavior as you would expect. My friend's parents did not take kindly to the focus on his poor behavior, to the point that they pulled him and my friend out of most school activities out of spite. Again, once we reached middle school, I noticed this lack of involvement started to affect them. While my friend was able to find her own support system, her brother never did. Today, he's drifting through, another soul failed. 

On a more positive note, I have also seen how building assets, especially external assets, can help students. In Warwick, I volunteer in most of the elementary schools where I help teach an anti-bullying program. We visit each class once a week for ten weeks, and every time I get to watch the students bloom. As we teach them prosocial behaviors and emotional coping skills, I get to watch them mature. At the risk of bragging, it is clear that part of it is forming connections with adults from the community. Especially in my case, the students are fascinated by a working college student who takes time to hang out with them. I find the experience just as rewarding as the students, if not more so. 

This is the "Peaceable Being," the first lesson in our anti-bullying programs. The words inside the silhouette are positive behaviors, and the words outside are negative behaviors.

Question to Share:

I fully agree with the argument the text makes for asset-based schools. How, though, do we change the system at large to reflect that? The authors do mention strategies that individual teachers can use to support students. That, though, doesn't address cultural change. What can we do as educators to promote school-wide or district-wide change?