With warm weather emerging, my two sons and I are back to playing pickup games on our driveway basketball court, and I’m reminded of how much they’ve grown since last year. It’s compelled me to change the way I play with them and adapt to their evolving strengths and talents on “the court.”
If I ignored their growth and didn’t adjust in response, I’d miss the chance to teach them new skills. They might lose interest in basketball entirely and feel that I didn’t really “see” their potential or ability. In education, we take a similar risk with our students when we let outmoded and inaccurate misperceptions inform our understanding of their backgrounds and abilities.
Unfortunately, this pattern is all too familiar in how our education system regards Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students: many fall behind because we incorrectly assume they are all the same and destined for academic success and need little — if any — help. Or we cause them to feel invisible because they have learned to assume that many educators perceive them as members of a monolithic model minority.
As a country, we need to change our game. The fact is that there are more than 300 languages and 48 ethnicities lumped into the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) category that we commonly use in reporting education data.
