If We Only Had a Wheelbarrow: Asset-Based Pedagogy in the Elementary Classroom

The challenges facing today’s educators are much and many. Among them ranks the persistent underachievement of students from racially and culturally diverse backgrounds. Attempts to remedy this have historically taken a deficit approach, one that attempts to “fix” students by melding them to the norms of the dominant culture, ultimately diminishing their cultural ways of knowing and being and perpetuating inequity. Although educators want to do better, most have simply not been provided with the professional learning that would support their centering students’ voices and experiences as essential to learning With a focus on asset-based pedagogy, this convergent mixed methods action research study explored the impact of sustained, job-embedded professional learning on teachers’ beliefs about the importance of race and culture to teaching and learning and its impact on their professional practice. The findings show that when teachers engage in professional learning about centering students’ culture as an asset, the ensuing conversations affirm students’ capacity to construct knowledge and instructional changes happen. An action plan and implications for future research are included based on this study’s findings.