The 3 Principles of Least Dangerous Assumption

The Least Dangerous Assumption can really empower students.

The three principles are;

  1. Everyone has different abilities and talents. No two people are exactly alike.

  2. You can't judge a person's whole future success based on one score, like an IQ score. There's way more to a person than just one test score.

  3. People learn best when they feel valued, when they have some sort of meaning to their life.

Anyone can use these three principles to make choices about what's the best option for our student. We need to make sure that whatever option is put in place is going to restrict the student in the least possible way. When you don't have enough evidence to make a judgment or an assessment about a student's performance or abilities, assume they can do whatever you're asking them to do.

When you're working with a person with a disability, if you're going to fail, fail because you believe in the person's potential, not because you put some sort of artificial limit on them.

Christopher Bugaj