Asset-based learning is another personal brand trap?

 

 An Asset Map was one of the class activities in Multiculturalism. Grounded on the contrary to prevailing deficit-based education, this activity is designed to reflect on experiences and cultures as a form of assets both for teachers and students (Borrero & Sanchez, 2017). I have been interested in the importance of reflection to the point where the main argument of my master's thesis was the process of finding teachers' professional identity. As a leading figure in the reflection and overthinking world, I also have looked back on my experiences from time to time (or sometimes too often). In this sense, the Asset Map came along with my thoughts. Identifying who you are and respecting what you have cannot be underrated.

 

One comment from my wife, however, had to stop the activity preparation. She asked if I heard about personal brand trap. Her short explanation intrigued me to read more about it. This article, Don't fall into the personal brand trap by Big Think, has good explanations of branding and its possible reverse effect. In the business world, personal branding is a popular strategy to sell yourself. During the personal branding process, you are usually asked to find your personal, technical, and cultural strengths, in turn, those should be summarized to a key point. It sounds cool and useful, but it has its pitfalls in that brands are static creations. This fixed setting is against the core characteristics of human beings. People are dynamic and ever-changing in life and career. Therefore, branding may limit thoughts to the brand they made. In other words, because you set your boundary as the brand, you may have feelings to behave in that way.

 

Let's get back to the Asset Map. Fortunately, it is not as same as personal branding. The map is not limited to one or two important aspects of one person. If any, it asks to look at the various sides that you have. The main purpose of this activity is to move the focus from deficits to assets. That being said, I still have a feeling that it has some possibilities for students to put them into some boxes that they are already aware of. Life is changing. Just as I have been experiencing after I moved to the US, your experiences, including cultures, can lead you to other places. If some people fix too deep into themselves in the boxes, they might lose some opportunities.

 

As always, our focus should be on the main purpose of the activity. Notwithstanding, keeping wary eyes may help us to avoid any side effects of the Asset Mapping.

 

 

https://lucidea.com/blog/community-and-asset-mapping-for-special-librarians/

 

 

Borrero, N., & Sanchez, G. (2017). Enacting culturally relevant pedagogy: Asset mapping in urban classrooms. Teaching Education, 28(3), 279–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2017.1296827