My Teacher Believes in Me!: The Educator's Guide to At-Promise Students

For decades, the education system has faced the complicated task of reaching and retaining “at-risk” students in school. Despite the importance of working with such students, the reality is that educators have countless students to work with and often don’t have the amount of time, appropriate training, or enough resources to work with these “at-risk” students. As a consequence, these students are failed by the education system, and subsequently become more vulnerable to violence, as they are left feeling uncared for, given up on, and unattended. Desiring a community that would make them feel accepted and valued, they turn to the streets to help them develop a sense of belonging, self-worth, dignity, and sometimes wealth, in order to survive – these are the very same resources that social institutions have often made unattainable for young people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Pursuing alternative lifestyles has also exposed these youth to police harassment, police brutality, and incarceration. These young people who come from underprivileged backgrounds are pushed out of the educational system and into the juvenile system. Many researchers and educators have referred to this “funneling through” as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” This book helps educators with the task of re-adjusting the educational system’s understanding of marginalized youth from a deficit perspective to an asset perspective, in order to provide them with the opportunities they deserve, and acknowledge the potential they have to succeed. Rather than labeling students from underprivileged backgrounds as “at-risk” youth who will inevitably fail in the educational system, they should instead be regarded as “at-promise” students that already possess the tools necessary to succeed in school, but just need support and assistance to utilize those tools. This book discusses three main strategies as fundamental for beginning the process of emotion-informed approaches and culturally responsiveness in educational settings:Remove the deficit perspective in education, value the stories that young people bring into the classroom, and provide students with the social, emotional, and material tools they need for success.