Assets All Day

Main Idea

The Renkly and Bertolini reading introduces a larger text enumerating on the benefits of an asset based approach to teaching and school leadership. Deficit mindsets have had run, but teachers and leaders in schools in particular need to reconsider how they frame and approach others with encouragement and learning in mind. Renkly and Bertolini assert that asset based approaches will lead to fewer problem behaviors from students who typically are viewed through a deficit lens. 

Paired with the Miller reading and video, the consideration of neurodivergence compliments these concepts by accommodating people who have been oppressed for a long time. By bringing an asset mindset and accommodating for neurodivergent needs, more students can grow as learners. 

Talking Points 

1. Renkly and Bertolini quoted a study that"compiled a list of 40 assets students may have." I thought this was a curious thing to do. The assets listed would absolutely help students succeed in the context of school. I am curious to look at this study more closely. My thinking is frankly critical about how to categorize assets and deficits. Aren't assets in one context a deficit in others? 

For instance, a student may be great at staying in their seat quietly the whole class. They have mastered the quiet sit. But in a kitchen, sitting would not be a great help. They'd need to move around. And being quiet, when loud communication was needed, wouldn't be great either. 

Assets are context dependent. Assets that make students good at school may be a hinderance elsewhere. 

2. Some pushback. The system is not set up for asset based approaches. If I have to evaluate students based on grade level standards, pointing out assets and what a student has done well only goes so far. For them to improve, don't I have to say "improve this," meaning something that is not quite right? Is it enough to say, "you've done this well" keep doing that thing well? 

3. I had a student last year who was particularly resistant to an asset based approach. Conversations about viewing him as a leader were met with disbelief and dismissal. Attempts to build him up were extremely short lived and lapse into problematic behaviors was swift. 

The energy to focus on him and build him up in an asset based way would have been highly impractical. Yet, attempts to address behaviors from a deficit frame also didn't work. Neither approach seemed to work. Nothing did. Teachers were flummoxed. He's a man who broke the system.