_“At_Promise_“__Children_And_Families

“At Promise“: Children And Families “At Promise”: Children and Families When an individual hears the words, ‘at risk’, they immediately think of all the negative characteristics of terminology: teen pregnancy, troubled teens, gang bangers, drop outs, substance abusers, and so on. I know I sure did. In reading Beth Blue Swadener’s article, “Children and Families “at Promise”: Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk”, I’ve learned that there are so much more to labeling at student ‘at risk’. There is actually a history behind the meaning and how ‘at risk’ became such a dangerous label. In rethinking the meaning of ‘at risk’ and changing it to ‘at promise’, places an entirely new meaning and may give hope to those who are lost and forgotten. There is much of Swadener’s article that I agreed, disagreed, and in some instances, just appalled with. The beginning of her article, Swadener makes the following statement that struck out at me, “…there is an emerging ideology of risk, which has embedded in it interpretations of children’s deficiencies or likelihood of failure due to environmental, as well as individual, variables”. This statement hit me hard because I never thought of ‘at risk’ students as having “deficiencies” or being destined to fail due to variables at, risk, children, swadener, article, statement, families, swadener’s, students, reading, programs, student, parents, labeled, label, because, and/or, teachers, society, risk, promise, people, one, never, meaning, makes, life, know, intervention, having, women, true, thinking, think, terminology, seeing