Limiting frameworks...

Deficit-based frameworks of teaching oftentimes characterize students in terms of what they lack and as a compendium of risk factors.

This paradigm must shift.

It is the responsibility of teachers to see students through an asset-focused lens. Students deserve to be affirmed of the strengths they hold. Students deserve to be seen in their full humanity and wholeness. Not only do students deserve this, they literally learn better in light of the validation of their individual agency.

The most brilliant teachers I've known are able to leverage their view of students' assets in ways that call kiddos forward to see the highest versions of themselves—through the eyes of their teachers. This view of students creates infinitely more pedagogical possibilities that simply aren't available to us in a deficit-based paradigm.