Thank you for sharing your experience and observations at Pan American. I agree with your point that schools need to move away from deficit thinking and need to start using a funds of knowledge approach. And I absolutely empathize with your opinion that we need to build spaces where students feel safe. I’m a big believer that a child learns best when they’re in an environment that supports their needs and make them feel welcomed, heard, seen, and safe. How is a child expected to learn when the space in of itself is filled with judgment and is based on a deficit mindset? To accept a child is to accept their intersectional identity as a whole. You can’t decide to welcome or teach one aspect of the child and ignore the rest, to uplift is to uplift the child as a whole.