Shannon Renkly and Katherine Bertolini's "Shifting the Paradigm"

 The authors argue that... it is imperative for schools to adopt an assets based model as opposed to a deficit based model. This is because the process of building up students' strengths fosters more growth and learning and is proven to be more successful than the process of fixing students' weaknesses and risky behaviors. 

Three Talking Points:

Beginning: The beginning of this reading identifies the issue that schools tend to use deficit models as opposed to asset models. In a deficit model, if a student is failing, the assumption is that the student is not trying hard enough and educators and schools have to fix this problem. The authors write, "it seems the education field is focusing too heavily on reducing risks, when a higher emphasis should be placed on building up student strengths." They identify 40 assets that students may have and split them between external and internal assets. They argue that if schools put their energy towards building up their students assets, risk reduction will occur naturally. 

Middle: The middle section points out that asset based models support higher partnerships between schools, parents, and the community. In deficit situations, community members could be unwilling to be supportive to youth as they are associated with being "trouble-makers." In contrast, the authors note, "When the focus shifts to assets, community members can easily work together to build up and nurture positive attributes in youth." When adults see all of the good things that children and adolescents can provide for their communities, they will be more willing to support their growth as students! Youth programs are super beneficial for students are very reliable for providing predictable thriving outcomes for student success.  

End: The ending section was most impactful to read, as it emphasizes specifically the importance of building assets in middle school settings. This section notes that the largest drop of assets in a student happens between seventh and eighth grade. The authors note that it is during the middle years of education that less asset building opportunities are typically provided to these students, yet these years are the most pivotal in terms of a student either becoming a high achiever or getting off academic track and leading towards frustration and/or failure. Educators have a very large role in ensuring that their students do not get off track. One study even claimed that "teachers’ expectations impact student success more than a student’s own motivation.” This was super powerful to read because educators really make a huge influence in a child's life!!!

Reflections/Connections:

First, I really appreciated the academic tone and formatting of this reading, it really took me back to my undergraduate days of reading peer reviewed articles and papers! I really appreciated the quantifiable statistics they provided throughout the paper as well, such as the number of assets there are and how many an average sixth grader possess, and how that number decreases until they reach adulthood. For me, I find quantitative data to strengthen a piece of research and it makes me conceptualize the issue at hand a bit better.

After reading this, I definitely agreed with the argument presented by the authors. It was concise and straight to the point. The asset based model corroborates with the way in which I view my classroom because it is so much more powerful to assess what your students can do and are capable of versus what they cannot do and what they are lacking. Also, one thing I have been engraining with my first graders is the power of the word "yet." This word can have such a huge impact and it's only three letters. During social emotional learning blocks, I really try to motivate my students when we are about to learn a very new concept. Instead of saying "I can't do this" say "I can't do this yet." This is one way that I connected to the reading because saying yet switches to an asset/growth mindset versus a deficit one. I think that fostering growth mindsets in our students would be essential to an asset based model, and here is an image on some of the ways educators can do this!

Finally, the portion of the text that discussed how asset based models strengthen family and community partnership really resonated with me because it made me connect to something I learned from a different graduate course at RIC. Family partnerships are super important in the context of a school. However, it is important to note that for families who come from low socioeconomic status, there are many factors that could potentially contribute to them being less involved in their schools, such as personal previous negative experiences, inadequate access to transportation, language barriers, work conflicts, etc. There are so many benefits to a family being involved more in their child's progress in and out of school, and schools need to ensure they are reducing barriers for families to be involved in the school community. As an educator who works in a Title I school district, this is especially relevant, and educators have a responsibility to involve families and inform them on their child's growth so they can also support at home. This resource from the IRISCenter on family engagement gives advice to educators on how they can better strengthen the partnership with families.