Two years ago, I was leery of pit bulls. I had heard they’re inherently aggressive. I’d heard stories of them turning on their owners, and even though I had friends and family with pit bulls who never had problems with them, I was still fearful.
However, I really wanted a puppy and Ben finally said yes. We found a “pittie” at the rescue, and I was assured they’re not inherently aggressive. It’s how they are raised. I agreed to get the dog, never imagining she would end up bonding with me and shattering every stereotype I had of pit bulls.
I watched as Noelle laid peacefully while a foster kiddo with autism roughly pet her. I watched as she shared her toys with her sissy, the puppy we got for her in March. I watched as she welcomed child after child and adult after adult in my home. I watched as she never crossed a line when her sissy rough housed with her. I watched as she pouted when she dropped her toy on the ground and sighed heavily when someone disturbed her precious sleep.
She is 100% my sweet, not aggressive, peacefully pittie princess and I am honored that she chose me.
What I Almost Lost
Here’s what I keep coming back to. I almost said no. I almost let fear and stereotypes rob me of the best friendship I didn’t know I needed. I almost missed out on her gentle presence during hard foster care moments. I almost lost the peaceful companionship that greets me every single day. I almost gave up my sidekick, my constant, my reminder that love doesn’t have to be complicated.
And then I think about classrooms everywhere. How many times do we do the same thing with students?
The File That Precedes Them
We’ve all been there. A new school year starts, and the warnings begin in the teacher’s lounge before we even meet our students. “Oh, you got them in your class? Good luck with that one.” Or we open the IEP and see pages of behavioral concerns. Or we hear about the family situation, the suspensions from last year, the siblings who came before. The reputation arrives before the child does.
Sometimes it’s not even that explicit. It’s in the hesitation when we read their name on the roster. The bracing ourselves. The lowered expectations wrapped in the language of being “realistic.” The decision to seat them away from the group, to watch them more closely, to assume the worst before they’ve even had a chance to show us who they are.
Just like I did with Noelle based solely on her breed.
The Behaviors We Misinterpret
When Noelle first came home, I adored her instantly and she knew it. But, doubt crept in anyway. What if she snapped one day? What if this sweetness was temporary? What happens when she gets bigger and stronger? I took her for training, and the instructor literally told me that sometimes pits will be fine for a year and a half and then kill the family cat. That comment lived rent-free in my head for months. I wasn’t afraid of her specifically, but I was watching and waiting for the “turn” everyone warned me about.
And then something shifted. My fear stopped being about Noelle and started being about how others would perceive her. I realized that her breed would become the lens through which every normal dog behavior would be interpreted. The same actions that would be dismissed as “just being a dog” in other breeds would be seen as proof of aggression in her. I became fiercely protective of making sure people saw HER, not just their stereotypes.
Sound familiar? We do this exact thing with students. The kid who questions authority gets labeled “oppositional” instead of “thoughtful.” The student who moves constantly is “disruptive” rather than “kinesthetic.” The child who pushes boundaries is “defiant” instead of “testing for safety.” The quiet one who won’t make eye contact is “disengaged” rather than “overwhelmed.”
We see behavior through the filter of the reputation that preceded them, and we miss what’s actually happening. We miss the trauma response that looks like defiance. We miss the anxiety that looks like avoidance. We miss the brilliance hiding behind the defensive walls. We miss the kid who just needs one adult to see them differently.
The Stakes
When I hesitated to adopt Noelle because of her breed, I almost robbed myself of my best friend. When we prejudge students based on their reputation, their file, or their previous teachers’ warnings, we’re doing the same thing. We’re robbing them of a teacher who could see their potential and help them heal. And we’re robbing ourselves of a relationship that could remind us why we became educators in the first place.
Two lives hang in the balance.
The student who gets written off before they walk through the door learns that adults have already decided who they are. They learn that change isn’t possible. They learn that their reputation matters more than their reality. Schools become one more place that retraumatizes them by confirming their worst fears about themselves.
And we? We miss out on the relationship that could have changed our teaching. We lose the student who could have taught us something about resilience, creativity, or perspective. We give up the joy of watching a kid prove everyone wrong. We forfeit the connection that makes the hard days worth it. We walk away from the opportunity to be the adult who saw them differently, the one they remember years later as the teacher who believed in them when no one else did.
What Changed Everything
With Noelle, the shift happened when I stopped seeing her through the lens of what she might do and started seeing her for who she actually was. I stopped watching for warning signs and started enjoying her personality, her quirks, her very specific opinions about which toys were acceptable and which were beneath her dignity.
The same shift is possible with our students. We can choose to greet them with no hesitation, with a smile on our faces, and with love in our hearts. Not naive love that ignores real challenges, but intentional love that refuses to let someone else’s experience determine our relationship.
This means actively resisting the warnings that come our way. When a colleague says, “Good luck with that one,” we can respond with, “I’m looking forward to getting to know them myself.” When we read concerning files, we can remind ourselves that these are snapshots from moments when a child was struggling, not a life sentence. When we feel ourselves tensing up around a particular student, we can get curious about our own reactions rather than blaming the kid for triggering them.
The Practice of Seeing Differently
Here’s what this looks like practically in the classroom.
Start with a clean slate, regardless of what you’ve heard. Give every student the same warm welcome, the same benefit of the doubt, the same opportunity to show you who they are today. Yes, read the IEP. Yes, understand the support needs. But don’t let someone else’s crisis moments define your entire relationship with this child.
Look for strengths before you look for deficits. What does this student care about? What makes them light up? What are they good at, even if it’s not traditionally academic? Find something to genuinely appreciate and name it specifically. Not “good job” but “I noticed how you helped your classmate understand that concept” or “Your perspective on that issue made me think differently.”
Reframe behaviors through a trauma-responsive lens. When a student pushes back, ask yourself what they might be protecting. When they shut down, consider what might feel overwhelming. When they test boundaries, recognize they might be checking if you’re safe. Behavior is communication, and kids impacted by trauma are often speaking a language we haven’t learned to interpret yet.
Create opportunities for relationship before you demand compliance. Spend time in informal conversation. Learn about their interests. Share something about yourself. Let them see you as a full human, not just an authority figure. Connection has to come before correction, or the correction will feel like one more adult who doesn’t get them.
Most importantly, notice when you’re making assumptions and actively challenge them. Catch yourself thinking “This kid is going to be a problem” and intentionally replace it with “I’m curious about what this kid needs.” Pay attention to which students you’re bracing yourself around and ask why. Our unconscious biases don’t disappear just because we want them to. We have to actively work against them.
The Invitation
Don’t be like me. Don’t make assumptions and be prejudiced against a student you don’t know or have had any experiences with. Don’t let someone else’s story become your story with this child. Don’t rob yourself of relationships that could change everything.
Now, I know better. When I meet a new student with a challenging reputation, I greet them with no hesitation, a smile on my face, and love in my heart. Because I learned from a seventy-pound pittie princess that sometimes the best relationships are the ones we almost talked ourselves out of.
Your Noelle might be sitting in your classroom right now, waiting to see if you’ll look past the reputation and see who they actually are. Don’t miss out.
What assumptions have you challenged in your own teaching? Have you ever had a student prove the warnings wrong? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.