Student voice: no big deal, right? Student council exists for that, right? Wrong.
Since there’s global readership on this blog, I’d like to point out I’m concentrating solely on the U.S. education system - this is what I know. Let me paint you a picture:
This picture shows the hierarchy of the United States education system. Students, the de-facto majority in schools, have the least say.
Isn’t that a little non-democratic?
The United States is a republic. Who is representing the students’ needs, rights, and interests? Certainly not a student in most cases. Usually, it’s adult politicians with “training” or experience of some kind, or a few parents petitioning electees of a school board. And the school board? It’s composed of people you don’t know, with motives you don’t know, from the district down to the individual school levels.
I share this picture because I wonder how many people truly understand how schools are run. Students don’t - that’s for sure.
So what is student voice? Ideally, student voice is students expressing their opinions and beliefs about their role, and the roles of others, in the education system - and expressing themselves effectively.
Ideally, student voice is invited to speak and discuss ideas freely, and to help make decisions. Shouldn’t we students have a healthy measure of control over our education? Shouldn’t we have more say on what goes on in the school building and the classroom?
We usually don’t.
Instead, it seems that cynicism most often rules the course of the day. Typically, we are not allowed to access e-mail or use various Web 2.0 tools in school. If I want to read RSS feeds for a class research project, chances are I’ll be over-ruled by a teacher, or told it can’t be done.
Meanwhile, in other schools, the Web 2.0 scene is allowed. Some schools are even implementing 1:1 laptop strategies. How does this produce fair nation-wide standards? It doesn’t, and it forms a world of segregation based on local school policy.
And that policy is very hard for students to change. Ideally, we would be invited to negotiate it, to work together to change it with the adults in our school - but again, this is rarely the reality. Meanwhile, our schools still expect us to be learning how to collaborate, while using a “do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do” method of control.
Students should be empowered with higher levels of decision-making that affect education. We’re not being taught how to create real change, change that can be positive for all the stakeholders. Shouldn’t we have the right to know how we’re governed? And shouldn’t we have a voice in influencing our governors?
Of course we should.
Some may claim that we already have a voice in such things as student councils or similar forms of student government. But these are usually mere tokenism, and rarely any sort of effectual force in school policy. They don’t have an effect on decisions made on higher levels, and when they try are subject to the full veto authority of those higher levels.
My point is this: the administration and staff are here to serve us. Beyond keeping us “safe,” their primary role is to enhance the learning experience, not degrade it by limiting our possibilities. Advise us, yes. But really listen to us also. Many new tools and activities are now commonplace to us at home, but you’ve never heard of them.
We students usually feel like our voices are not valued, and can’t accomplish anything. The challenge for schools is to trust us, to help us push for progressive change. This would bring about the most effective way to bring out the best in all students, and improve the system we have now.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. We need these changes, because the world won’t stand still for us all. That’s why it is important to start to work towards this now. Instead of teaching us (or rather, just testing us) about Horace Mann’s ideals, why not embrace them with us, in real action?
(A special thanks to Sylvia Martinez and GenerationYES for helping create this opportunity for me to blog at Students 2.o!)
I disagreed.
After many intakes of breaths I made the point that youth councils are nothing without devolved power - devolution is the true measure of democracy - I went on to say I would set one up if the council had equal weight and influence in decisions, involvement in all levels of governance AND, here’s where it got fun, MONEY...
All of the above was met with disdain.
This refusas illustrated it was a culture which needed to be broken down not a new framework built up...
Loved the energy and focus in the post - keep going guys!
Dillon wrote: “My point is this: the administration and staff are here to serve us.” I would put it this way, to serve your needs. But what are those needs and who determines them? Since schools are such powerful socializing (normalizing) forces, it is usually those “in power” who want to maintain a hold on determining these needs - from school level up to government level (levels 9 to 1 in your model).
What then, are the perceived needs produced by level 10? What is it that schools should cover/do/be about that is really important for students? DK states that without money on offer there is no real student voice. S/he is right, but what would this student voice be saying about student needs?
A very insightful post. Although graphic is pertinent to the US I would say your thoughts would be reflected by many students in Scotland...those that took the time and care to reflect anyway. Even us teachers often feel left out of the loop when it comes to decisions being made about the work we do. Consultation often seems to be carried out (after a decision has already been made) simply to tick the box to say that consulatation has been “done”.
Keep up the good work.
In my district, we have an interesting system: one student council member also holds a position on the school board. This ensures there is at least some level of student power and allows for some interesting discussions to develop on there. However, I think that the system stil needs some drastic modifications: your chart needs to get flipped.
It is that last level which I would especially love to hear your thoughts upon. How much control should the taxpayer (in public schools) or benefactors (in private schools) have over education. In theUS, this is an especially big issued: so often education is seen as secondary to other programs. We could learn a lot from the rest of the world by providing a higher standard of education (and perhaps pulling out of a few wars to get the money for it).
I agree that students should have a more direct role in influencing school policy.
Sometimes I’m discouraged that our teenagers don’t demand more representation - perhaps they’ve been denied power for so long that they no longer realize that they are entitled to speak up and need to be heard.
Students 2.0 is a start, a very impressive start. I look forward to hearing more from all of you.
diane
And regarding the government hierarchy that you created, just because we are underage, and can’t vote, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a voice in our government. We do have to follow its laws, so why shouldn’t we be able to decide stuff? It’s like that saying, “You can’t drink, but you still have to go to war.”
Great post
Arthus you bring up a great question about control. In PA our state has granted 90 million dollars for a HS reform initiative that involves laptops...A big piece is to involve a tech integration mentor to help teachers rethink what they are doing in the classrooms. We have Act183 which has connected every school district in the state to Internet2, but it is a 3 year grant and sustainability is an issue. Districts have different millage and different levels of local funding...ask those who teach in extremely rural districts or urban settings.
I was intrigued by your cycle of ‘need’
* Teachers should be responding to how/what students want to learn.
* Local administration should responding to what teachers need.
* Government should be responding to what districts need as well as what society wants out of its schools.
I am happy to say in my district being in year 2 of the grant that our teachers are responding AND our local district committed to my position as mentor and in listening to the state senate hearing last week, I think the state government is responding and acting on behalf of education in my state. But not all districts have the finances to make that commitment.
Great discussion guys...glad to see you all are a part of it.
If I were President, my first act would be to dissolve the Dept. of ED, return it to a sub-office of another department and disperse funds to the states based on state poverty levels. Let the states decide how best to serve their citizens.
You make some great points. Although I think everyone has the best intentions, it’s like we forget our customers, the students themselves.
I think part of the thing about web 2.0 tools is that it helps us stand the customary notions on their heads. Students can have more of a voice, and an individual student can create something that gets worldwide attention, and perhaps this makes it a little easier to get the attention of the school.
Arthus, I’m so interested by the fact that your school board has a student on it–that must make for fascinating dynamics. What a great way to empower the students as decision makers!
Lots of food for thought here. We’re remodeling our library, and recently I visited with the architects about the courtyard design.
I was thinking yesterday that I might ask students to share their designs for the courtyard. You’ve convinced me that I should definitely ask for their input, since they are the ones who use the courtyard!
Thanks!
I doubt I’ll see them, but hopefully hear of the results. I’m going to respond to everything chronologically, but everyone’s made really good responses.
Dave, like the energy. You start with the students of course, and as for tools. I think places out there like New York need to allow blogs, but it’s not all about the tool. The most important thing to teach is skills.
Remember, any artist can use any tool if they work to learn it. Not every artist can use a tool well. Find your niche out of all the available options and go with it. Keypoint: Give lots of open options for students to choose. They’ll find what works best for them.
Another example is Youtube, today a student teacher was giving a lesson that required it. But because of the ‘money factor’ and ‘children abusing’ the internet connection and making us go over our bandwidth. Youtube was blocked so we couldn’t see the reading of Edgar Allan Poe by this one guy who apparently sounds creepy. I’ll get back to you on the question of the day as well.
DK, not surprised. The world revolves around money you see. “Got to have a Windows server!” 10,000 dollars vs. the free Linux servers they’re getting rid of at my school because of who was hired for our tech crew. The administration didn’t want to search for Linux savvy tech support, now we’re paying for it.
Popular student(in the realm of technology) choice was to keep our free servers. We could of put that 10,000 dollars to better use... Maybe more bandwidth... Since we do have roughly what? All the schools in the district sharing the same internet connection? That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised we’re over. We have 3 high schools, like 5 elementary schools, and maybe 4ish middle schools. Quite a lot of computers to all be on the net at once. The blame came largely (supposedly) on somehow a mass of people all magically on Youtube at once. I honestly didn’t buy it, because there’s no formal research proving it.
Also, there’s solution to some common money problems out there. Open Source is one of them. One Laptop Per Child. Yes I realize these are all technology issues, but that’s only because that’s where my expertise is. Other solutions if it’s time and personnel power can be as easy as turning to the ultimate source: the students themselves.
Give them credit for helping and allow it to cross credit especially if it seems applicable. It’s a rather big project to help with some things, and Project Based Learning has been proven a very effective solution.
Ollie, Coolesville you guys all have a website. Like that, I’m presently fighting for that kind of thing happening here in my hometown. I’m up for giving advice and my opinion, but don’t count on me. I say this, because my time’s greatly stretched out with all the projects I do.
Check my blog, one of the things I’m doing is working on setting up my own class. Which has hit a large number of delays in the process. (just click my name and you can get to my blog.)
Sean, yes this sort of blogging does help. It’s the biggest collection of opinions of students collected thus far and advertised out to a large base community of educators in the area on the hierarchy above us, sort to speak. However, it’s not enough in the long run. It’s not going to hit everyone. Unfortunately, it needs to. So that’s one of the problems we’re going to run into and need to solve... Somehow. How should that be decided? That’s a bigger question for another time. At least on my part. It helps also that it’s student ran, and is the very essence that students of all types can be responsible. Student trust is one of the biggest fears I’ve been given by all stakeholders above the student level. I’ll get back to you on answering the big question in a moment.
Also, sorry to my fellow Students2.0 bloggers. I know I haven’t posted on any of the previous posts. (Yet... Hopefully I will.) I keep myself rather busy with lots of projects and stuff at the local level, as I’m sure I’ve already let you all know.
George, thank you for point that out to me. You’re right, administrators and the like are here to serve our needs. Not us directly in the way it can be connotated from what I wrote.
The needs should be determined by level 10, and it’s a duty that they speak up about their needs. The upper level’s duty is to make sure they can properly collect, assess, and fulfill those needs. The needs, as in the what, I can’t tell you for anything other than in my school or what my view of them are. To avoid tokenism, I can’t honestly give you a definitive answer to that question.
Point: There’s never a one size fits all way to do things. As such you should play to the end user.
As for whether it requires money, only if time is such or you count the time that staff members already have to put into it to get paid for. Which you shouldn’t. You have to recognize we can break apart the pre-dominent factory model classroom to something else and move to more project based, real world, total quality management, methods in order to solve our problem in this category.
It truly doesn’t take long for a basic democrative process. The debate amongst peers which is often skewed to limit the span of their knowledge and application to such thing, or they’re ‘irresponsible.’ I made a grand sized post(much like this comment) on my blog if you’re interested. Second to last. It hits a few more large scale points that may answer a couple your questions after a little reading and inference.
Money isn’t always a solution. You tell me you need photoshop for image editing but can’t afford it, I tell you to get the GIMP.
Adam, what you say is true here in the US as well. That frustrates my teacher, who’s the tech coordinator, a lot. That needs to change too. This makes the process go downwards, because the present model has the top levels being the ‘example’ of excellence (government) being the ‘proper’ example for the people to the follow. (Hence their likely higher paycheck.) As such it’s assumed the further you go down the model present, the less important the opinion, the less responsible, and the more you have to police the individual. By having this beat in the back of your mind...
It’s what can cause very Authoritative techniques to become standard. All members should be equal, so ideally an even better than this model would be arguably one level. Where every stakeholder involved has equal say. Or if you were to vote on what to do, everyone gets one vote.
That would be a total quality management standpoint. I personally favor the flipped version of my chart, because the present bottom is the end user. None of the others involved. They are the ones that have to live with the consequences of these decisions ultimately, and as such need to have the most say.
Arthus, appreciate the post. Really. I’m busy, as I’ve said before but it’s been a great experience for me to lobby some of things we all know need to get down out there. It’ll bring me plenty of evidence to bring the fight at home closer to where we need to end up.
Meaning plans for “Rome” can be made and we can begin construction.
However, immediately I see the word war in parentheses in the bottom of your post. I say no. We lose money on wars, look at Iraq. Imagine if we put that money into education. That’d be a lot of money, 200 + billion. Imagine if we put that intelligently towards education? We put a lot of important topics second to trivialities in my opinion.
Including the campaign for four democratic candidates and pointless free trips to politicians. Things such as education, climate change, the state of our economy all fall to second or third... Or fourth or fifth. I have disturbing predictions from a few sources that the US will end within the next 50 years, or worse yet in 2012. War is not a good option when it’s unnecessary.
I advise we avoid those kind of topics here though, since we’re more specific to education. You made a nice little chart there too, on how it should go. As for the taxpayer... They’re working directly with the government and local government to make laws, pass bills, ect. They have their say already as far as I’m concerned. Since they can vote to pass or deny a levy to the school as it is.
Diane, I agree wholeheartedly with you. I don’t know how much you read my blog as of late, but one of my lattermost posts would explain that in a fair amount of detail. Your point is right, we’re denied the rights to petition our leaders, voice our opinion, actually quite a bit of rights.
It’s just assumed and expected that it will always maintain status quo, and as a result no one bothers to try. When a chance arises too they’re defensive and assuming that their opinion is of no value, don’t take the process seriously which usually causes the ‘higher ups’ to go with that prejury when considering the opinion.
That and the predominant assumption children aren’t meant to speak unless spoken too, unless prompted and known how you’re expected to respond. Don’t speak and follow like a mindless sheep.
Then when a student tries to speak up, they’re persecuted for it in order to try and ‘maintain order.’ As if the student intended to instill some sort of degenerative anarchism into the small community that is the classroom for that period. In other words... “Fear my authority. ”
Fear equals control, which in turn equals authority because of that control. Very Authoritarian. On my blog I mentioned a conflict with a teacher that was hindering my personal ability to make progress on my works, and she claimed herself in a position of democrative dictatorship asserting authority over me for the sake of holding her control on the class.
Ironically at the accusation of being an authoritarian she argued that she was the above... And assumed somehow that meant she wasn’t authoritarian. Claiming to be imposing a dictorial rule that listens to the voice of the populus, but doesn’t necessarily decide with it doesn’t change it from being an authoritarian governed community. One person still has absolute control and can impose that upon others in the end.
So I got largely chewed out by the teacher of mine who’s the tech coordinator, and my counselor for using the terminology describing the situation accurately. I was simply told,
“There are some truths the world’s not ready for.”
John Lennon wasn’t scared to point them out, neither am I. It concerned me they were more concerned over how I could speak so atrociously than how can there be a teacher that’s acting like this in their school? That’s a little more than disconcerting when you look at the 1960’s here in the U.S.
Then the students weren’t scared to stand up for their rights. With the installment of Elitism in our society, though, it’s no wonder the old grade card works again to silence students who would normally stand up and speak.
This teacher is also in her second year, and not the only one I see with this continuing trend of power play issues. Is this what teachers are taught to make one of their largest priorities in their new mandated certification? I sure hope not. She hardly gives much of a warning or understanding before she uses the ‘go out into the hall!’ card or threatens that.
Hey Lindsea, wouldn’t you think that the 9th amendment should protect our rights from agism at all? I would think it would. Might want to look at that.
I think you’ll like what you find especially if you look at a brief history of voting rights.
Kristin, glad to hear what you have to say. I’ve heard of yours and Arthus’ famed few school areas that actually allow student board members. Here’s the Adultist response for you if you’re not aware:
“We can’t serve in Congress or as president until we pass age requirements; why should local government forgo the wisdom of this? Students need to learn to respect and have life experience before taking a community office.”
Maybe so, but the publisher of this comment doesn’t have much life experience. Our national constitution respects the rights of all men and women equally. At least it was meant to. If you can’t discriminate by gender, race, religion, wealth, why should age be a boundary?
Or at least as much of a boundary as it is. There’s not much wisdom in what’s been said here, because adults don’t always know what’s in the best interest or meaningful to the students.
Another great response to this:
“If students knew how to run the school system, we wouldn’t need an administration, teachers and principals don’t sit on the board, and neither should students. Only those elected to make school policy should do so.”
I strongly disagree. Those people in ‘office’ don’t see it from the same perspective as their end user, and there’s large proof that past reform still hasn’t work. Who better to ask about what needs to be done other than the end users themselves?
Those responses were in a magazine called American School Board Journal.(credit to Adam Fletcher for where I get the above two sources) Great to know right? “We don’t want to hear you or give you choice in what you do. Just be quiet and listen. ” Re-affirms previous points I just made.
James, you know more in the history of education to me so not much I can say there other than you’re right on the basis of the top most levels not having much say and the higher up for the most part you go you can’t feel the effects. That’s a great run-on sentence right there. (I think it beat that one response to the magazine that I showed just a couple paragraphs up. See the quotes.
However, your way appears to show a present logical way to properly re-distribute funds better than the NCLB does.
Now to everyone who asked, there was one big and great question asked. “Dillon, how would you change the school system? ” Well first of all I’d choose flipping it over total quality management. However, I’m saving that as a post for another day. Consider it part 2 in... Something that’ll probably be larger than a trilogy.
Why am I making it wait? Simple, there’s no simple answer. I want to take more thought than I could possibly take into putting into this comment. I have plenty of ideas, so it’s not necessarily stalling for time to finish it. It’s a quality of response thing. Right now, I have a curriculum for a technology class to go work some more on.
Have a good night all. Hopefully the text wall wasn’t so bad.
Also, I love point about letting students choose how they learn (catering to their multiple intelligences) instead of having to conform to how teachers teach. Expanding on that line of thinking, how can we find out what and how students want to learn? I’d venture a guess that students don’t want to focus only on STEM related content or those covered in national assessments, but what ACTUALLY are classes that students want to take?
I’d be happy to dive into this further; electives, advanced topics, seminars and such were what got me through high school and college (and then grad school). We owe it to future students to see how we can help improve their educational opportunities.
You rock.
I agreed with the prior comment regarding making the educational system learner-centered as opposed to just turning it on its head.
And lastly, do students consider teachers professionals? To go along with that, do teachers act like professionals? If any of us paid a professional for services rendered (such as building a house) I don’t think we would stand there and tell them how to do things and that we knew better than them how things should run. On the other hand the professionals wouldn’t behave as some teachers do, knowing they have job security and so becoming lazy themselves. Where does it start? Where does it end?
I am impressed so far with what I have seen and read. Hopefully Students 2.0 will be noticed by the powers that be in education today.
Unfortunately, teachers have a lot more job security, and thus are less likely to become more innovative. If teachers are an island, answering to nobody, then there is little potential for them to change.
We do try to find and hear student voices. I was over at one of our online programs today, talking to the kids, finding out what they like about the program, what they don’t like. But, it is a big system, hard to get around to talk to everybody.
I’d encourage you to go to one of your district’s Board meetings. They usually have a Citizen’s Request to Speak, when anyone can speak about anything for 3 minutes. These times are usually at the beginning of the meeting so you can leave and not have to sit through all the “other stuff.”
Email a board member. Most of the folks I know would love to hear from students.
And, thanks for the post. It makes me think more about talking to students about their lives at school. I’ll be reading your comments.
Mao Zedung, Hitler, Stalin. Bad names, but think about what they’ve done in their home countries. They were very active. Once they had full control though, they became lazy like how the discussion shows. They no longer have to be a truly active participant to ‘do their job.’
Not that all teachers are this way at all though, I’ve seen many good ones that do within the limits of this structure I’ve shown give Students their freedoms as respectable humans. Meaning they suspend their expectations and let the creative vibes flow, and actually stimulate learning.
Joe, it needs to be flipped or at least some sort of balance of power. Because right now my sixth period teacher was my judge, executioner, and legislator in that classroom. She made her own rules and judged each case against those rules, as well carried out the execution of the sentence.
Hence why I was kicked out for ‘challenging her authority so often.’ It shows one thing about how things are as they stand: Teachers that need this much power are insecure. Why? Most teachers don’t care to how I normally act. Secondly, why shouldn’t the ‘authority’ of a teacher be challenged? You have to “learn” from them afterall? Why shouldn’t you be allowed to question the why of the person who decides the how? The curriculum decides what you learn so neither of you get that choice.
The funnest thing about my new dilemma: That was a core class. Meaning she’s now sentenced me to not get credit for the 4/5th’s of the class I already completed. In a sense having to start over completely. Isn’t that a great punishment for not wanting to have to be reprimanded for every little decision someone who is ‘above’ me makes?
Multiple Intelligences is a great way to go, unfortunately this is where money hits. Only way to figure out how and what students want, go to them individually. Meaning that the only probable solution is more teachers and less students in one classroom...
That costs money... That we can’t take from the military, utilities, and various other necessities.
Also keep in mind, the meaning of school was ‘leisurely learning.’ At some point in time that changed. Choice for the student used to exist but it was smitten by someone someway somewhere. Trace amounts of that existing somewhere in the backlining of society might explain why it’s a secondary thing, it originally was.
Sylvia, hi! You’re precisely right. The blogs serve two main purposes, share what you’re doing. As well as to discuss ideas and theories before fine tuning them and implementing them.
I have a couple good stories to share, but they won’t come up until after my Winter Break. I’m taking a vacation to Texas. Hope you don’t mind the wait.
R Stewart, teachers are above students, below the school administrators, and both are below parents. If a parent does intervene students interests, that’s one method a student can obtain a voice.
My proof is above. I have to find a way to re-earn 4/5th’s a credit at a much later date, re-structure my schedule for the purpose of I’m not allowed in the room with a teacher that’s likely scared of a student that doesn’t much seem to care for the traditional role of a student in society. It’s scary to adults when younger people begin to speak up against them, and that’s what I did.
Like I explained previously, the other staff is disconcerted with whether I feel I’m being taught a class by Stalin. They want me to conform. No questions asked.
Teachers are now ‘certified professionals’ or at least supposed to be. I can’t answer your question, because of the tokenism factor. Honestly I can say teachers are supposed to, and it’s quite possible many or some do not. However, with education’s special role in society I think the way they are paid is appropriate whether as much or little as the case may be is, is also up for debate.
Teachers start being lazy at the taste of power, or can I should say. When they learn their curriculum inside and out and learn how to use that to control time and stop caring for quality that is vested within their responsibility. It ends when they get a wake up call because they’re inspired finally. That’s actually only one possibility, but in my own personal feelings would be the most accurate. However, I would say if that happens it varies by the individual.
As such you must get to know the individual and assess from there.
Renee, thank you for your statement. I agree and disagree with you. That’s how it works in Colorado. I have to call someone who works at the OSPI to get scheduled in for presentation.
That however is not necessarily my argument, we have means if we search for them and dig hard. However more often than not it’s told we don’t have a say period when we search. Where do we search? Our mentors. The teachers. The ones we know and touch.
Then they give their criticisms to our purpose and it de-moralizes when what we want to see isn’t likely or ‘impossible.’
I’m looking into to going to present to our district’s board for some of the changes I think would be beneficial to our school and district. The other thing I would remind you is there’s more than one type of board. State Boards I’m sure are compromised more so of actual politicians, whether they want to advance is highly debatable but non-germane to the present argument.
I say this because as elects they naturally are politicians, but theoretically speaking everyone would be a businessman, politician, and priest so to speak. That’s one philosophy, and what you say is a legitimate concern and I’m glad you bring it up. I mentioned a while back somewhere looking to the students for the solution.
If vested with the power I’m sure that somewhere within the body there’d be someone not only interested in the administering, and others may be interested in the analyzing results of democratic movements.
Just think if it was a public announcement and handled thing in an individual school to be presented with this problem and you asked someone to solve it, there’s a possibility of easily a thousand or more responses. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what the responses of the few that could get past the post defensive response to thinking that what they say may not necessarily be taken seriously? Things need to be handled more local level, they’re easier to manage that way.
Once again I apologize to my fellow student bloggers. I don’t have much free time and with each new problem, consideration, idea presented to me I have to vest more time into action as opposed to blogging/reading.
On a final note to everyone:
As of this comment I’m officially gone till sometime in January. Part of it’s vacation, part of it’s work, another part of it is the action on my own fight for student voice, and the final part of it is fixing the problems presented with losing my sixth period class.
Have Happy Holidays and a Merry New Year everyone. Expect a new post from me roughly January 6th or a little after.
There is hope though - as our world “flattens” and as we all become more connected the levels will become irrelevant. We have the chance to change the process as well as the product.
Shift happens. Successful shift will happen when we all have a voice. Hopefully Students 2.0 can lead the revolution with the thoughtful, insightful, passionate voices we have heard so far.
I see a couple of points in some of the comments about redistributing money spent on education. It must be said that it is not always the ‘poor’ urban or rural schools that need money. In my area the ‘poor’ urban district spends far more money per student than the ‘rich’ suburban districts.
When I look at what makes a difference it is often the level of importance that students place on their education. That is influenced by their parents.
So who does this tie in to this...
Well I am contemplating the possible effect of allowing students to have a greater say in their education. How would this idea impact the ‘poor’ urban districts? Would it assist in overcoming the parental indifference? Would it assist districts of all kinds funnel money to teaching styles / equipment / programs that would elevate student interest?
I think the possibilities are there, but to move the idea forward we need to propose specific actions.
There is a growing, underground movement around the world of a new type of education. A child centered, learner-directed (or should it be child-directed, learner-centered?) approach to education, whose pioneers were A.S. Neill from England and John Holt from the United States. If you have not read anything about these two people yet, please do. Although their type of education may not be for everyone, I think it would do the world of public education good to at least take a look at some of their theories, and seriously consider them. For a look at what is going on in the teen world when it comes to learner-directed and centered education, take a look at the North Star Learning Center in Hadley, Massachusetts (there are other centers around the country just like it). Or look at the alternative high school in Ithaca, New York (off the top of my head, I can’t remember the name). For general theory, read about the Albany Free School and other free schools around the world, and the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts. Read some of the writing by John Taylor Gatto, the author of a book called Dumbing Us Down and a New York City Teacher of the Year. There are successful student centered, student run schools in existence, but most people involved in public schools are so stuck in their own little worlds that they don’t even realize what alternatives are out there that they can learn from and get great ideas from.
But I’ve never heard of some of the other alternative schools Michele mentions above, so I’ve just gained some more valuable learning material for my own life and growth - from the increasingly impressive world of comments these young writers are eliciting on this blog.
Michele, thanks for taking the time. I’m off to explore some of your references now. (I dream of leaving mainstream teaching altogether, and know it’s a dream that is possible to achieve. Maybe you’ve unwittingly brought me closer!)
This is another way of saying that I agree that the structure needs to be flipped.
That said, have some patience for those of us teachers who seem to struggle with students demanding a voice, or their own power. It’s a struggle I feel myself, precisely because I am not comfortable with being the “authority figure” and yet am painfully aware that that is exactly what I am expected to be. It can be hard to walk that line between giving students freedom and living up to expectations of my own authority figures. This leads for myself, and a lot of other young teachers, to some painful flip-flopping between lenience and strictness. Not saying that it’s good for students, but I guess just understand that many teachers struggle with authority because of the nature of the system.
What do you think of their approach to becoming more “student centered?” How do you react to “Respect for Elders” as a primary standard? BTW, thanks for doing this. My dream for your place would be that I could come here to see “what the students think.”