Education Commons^™

Blab: Changing The Way That We Look At Students, Robert Bonner

Faculty Publications - College of Education

Educational labels frequently impede student success rather than empower student success, as the labels become the defining attributes of each student and define the expectations of student failure or success. The classroom teacher must adopt a new paradigm that focuses on the whole child rather than on an educational label. The BLAB paradigm emphasizes that each child must be considered on the basis of social, educational, familial, & cultural heritages (B); proficiencies in English language and academic language recognizing that all students are on a continuum of language development in both dimensions (L); academic abilities that can differ from one …