Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
58: Student Government and a Democratic Education w/ Carla Marschall & StuVoice, Merrit Jones
13 Plays5 years ago
We often think of democratic education as student government - where students are sadly often pigeon-held into a glorified party planning committee with very little power. But what if things could be different? First, we could establish democratic norms in our classroom, where students are on equal footing with us to discussion curriculum and classroom changes - where the topics we discuss in class and the assignments that are given are a contract between the two of us, and our job is educators is to support, rather than tell what to do.
Then, what if we build student governments that operated in the school as an actual government? As in, they have a place at the school board. If they don't get what they want, they protest. And they demand things that every human being as the right to....often to the dismay of legacy administrators. Phones? It's their property, let them be used. Dress code? It's part of the first amendment. Emotional well-being? Who cares about grades when people are stressed and anxious?
This issues matter deeply to students, and they should matter to us as well. The people in our classrooms are well - people, they're human beings. And they deserve the same respect that any individual has. Sometimes ,yes, they're students and they may push boundaries or get on our nerves, but they still demand the rights they're beholden to - especially when these rights are needed to navigate our ever-changing world.
Further, the state of democracy in the modern world is dismal, to say the least. No matter the political party, people are unhappy with their representatives. Money corrupts the system and people aren't having their most basic needs met in some of the richest countries on Earth. Despite social studies being taught to every student, voting in the United States is still relatively uncommon and people rarely demand change. Yes, we're seeing an influx of young people taking a stand - but imagine if all our young people were given the opportunity to express themselves and recognize their voice was heard? The world would be radically different - and for the better.
GUESTS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Carla Marschall, who has worked in various IB programs across Switzerland, Germany, and Hong Kong, and is currently the Head of Curriculum Development and Research at United World College South East Asia in Singapore. Co-author of Concept-Based Inquiry in Action, Carla is an expert at preparing students for a flourishing democracy.
Merrit Jones, who is the executive director of the student-led organization, Student Voice, which in my opinion is the most interesting and exciting organization currently in development. Not only is it run by students, it provides a beautiful website full of exciting resources, amazing student-written articles, and materials for supporting student-led chapters that honestly disrupt the flow of traditional schooling.
RESOURCES
FURTHER LISTENING
Recommended
Transcript
Fundraising and Future Plans
00:00:03
Speaker
Hey, the human restoration project just launched a funding drive to keep delivering quality content like this podcast to you.
00:00:10
Speaker
In addition to our podcast, free resources, thoughts, research, professional development, and more, we're looking at expanding our organization.
00:00:17
Speaker
We're building up our infrastructure to market to a larger audience, incorporate as a 501 C three, hire editors and artists and build a conference and micro credentialing suite.
00:00:27
Speaker
Imagine your favorite progressive ideas available through certifications,
00:00:31
Speaker
that could be presented for continuing education credits or job resume builders.
00:00:35
Speaker
We want our content to resonate and ripple across the world, and your contribution gives us the resources to make that happen.
00:00:42
Speaker
And all of this isn't cheap to do.
00:00:44
Speaker
A few dollars is all that it takes.
00:00:46
Speaker
If every episodic podcast listener gave us three dollars, we would meet all of these goals and more within one month.
00:00:53
Speaker
All three dollar patrons will receive a Human Restoration Project sticker from us,
00:00:57
Speaker
Plus, continually, you'll receive goodies over the course of the year.
00:01:01
Speaker
We really deeply appreciate you.
00:01:02
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by Burton Habel, Dustin Rideout, and Susan Michelle Harrison.
00:01:08
Speaker
Thank you for your support.
00:01:10
Speaker
If you would like to keep our endeavor going and push for a narrative of change that focuses on systemic shifts and not just small strategies to tweak around the edges, visit our website at humanrestorationproject.org.
Introduction to Democratic Education
00:01:33
Speaker
Hello and welcome to season three, episode 16 of Things Fall Apart, our podcast of the Human Restoration Project.
00:01:40
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt, and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio.
00:01:45
Speaker
In this discussion, we're talking to two incredible individuals about democratic education, what it truly means to engage students in the classroom that not only hear students, but actively involves them in the schooling process.
00:01:58
Speaker
We often think of democratic education as student government, where students are sadly often pigeon-held into glorified party planning committees that really do very little.
00:02:08
Speaker
But what if things could be different?
00:02:10
Speaker
First, what if we establish democratic norms in our classroom, where students are on equal footing with us to discuss curriculum and classroom changes, where the topics we discuss in class and the assignments that are given are a contract between the two of us?
00:02:24
Speaker
You know, our job as educators is to support rather than tell people what to do.
00:02:28
Speaker
And then what if we built student governments that operate in the school as an actual government, as in they had a place at the school board?
00:02:36
Speaker
And if they don't get what they want, they protest.
00:02:38
Speaker
They demand things that every human being has the right to have.
00:02:42
Speaker
And this is often against what, you know, a legacy administrator would want.
00:02:46
Speaker
After all, phones, that's their property, so they should let them be used.
00:02:50
Speaker
Dress code?
00:02:51
Speaker
Well, that's part of the First Amendment.
00:02:53
Speaker
Emotional well-being?
00:02:54
Speaker
Well, who really cares about grades when people are stressed and anxious, as the ever-increasing majority of teenagers are?
00:03:00
Speaker
These issues matter deeply to students, and they should matter to us as well.
00:03:04
Speaker
The people in our classrooms are people, they're human beings, and they deserve the same respect that any individual has.
00:03:11
Speaker
Sometimes, yeah, they're students, and they might push boundaries, and they might get on our nerves, but they still should have the rights that they're beholden to, especially when these rights are needed to navigate our ever-changing world.
00:03:22
Speaker
The state of democracy in the modern world is dismal, to say the least.
00:03:25
Speaker
No matter the political party, people are unhappy with their representatives, money corrupts the system, people don't have their even most basic needs met in some of the richest countries on earth.
00:03:35
Speaker
Despite social studies being taught to practically every student, voting in the United States is still relatively uncommon, and people rarely demand change.
00:03:43
Speaker
Yes, we're seeing an influx of young people taking a stand, but imagine if all young people were given the opportunity to express themselves and recognize that their voice matters and is heard.
00:03:53
Speaker
The world would be radically different and for the better.
Carla Marshall's Insights
00:03:56
Speaker
First, we have Carla Marshall, who has worked in various IB programs across Switzerland, Germany, and Hong Kong, and is currently the head of curriculum development and research and vice principal at United World College Southeast Asia in Singapore.
00:04:09
Speaker
Carla is an expert at preparing students for a flourishing democracy.
00:04:13
Speaker
I've been traveling and working in different schools in Asia and Europe for the past 13 years, but I'm originally from California, so born and raised there, and that's really where I initially became interested in progressive education as a child, actually, because I was lucky enough to go to a
00:04:32
Speaker
wonderful, small, progressive school in Los Angeles.
00:04:35
Speaker
And in that school environment, we learned through, you know, long, year-long themes.
00:04:40
Speaker
Learning was integrated, and we really had a lot of opportunities to kind of stretch and extend our thinking through the arts, woodworking, music, drama,
00:04:51
Speaker
I even remember being in second grade and sitting by myself or next to a friend in the courtyard between classrooms with my saw horse, my C-clamp and a saw while working on woodworking projects and I'm not really sure that that would happen today.
00:05:04
Speaker
It's called Westland and what's really interesting is
00:05:08
Speaker
I kept quite a loose association with the school as I was getting older and I finished my teaching certification and then I wrote something on some of the powerful moments I had around like dramatic representation of doing kind of interpretive dance around the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous period, learning about dinosaurs when I was in grade three or whatever.
00:05:30
Speaker
wrote a piece and sent it to my old teachers who happened to still be there, which was amazing.
00:05:35
Speaker
And I think about two or three years ago, I had a look at the website.
00:05:40
Speaker
And what's really interesting is some of the same structures or student experiences that I had as a student still exist there now, which is just amazing to think you have that kind of continuity of experience because they really feel like they've crafted something special.
00:05:58
Speaker
So let's open up with the state of education and how democratic education connects with neoliberalism and what the current state of democratic education is when there's just so much corporate connection to school, such as career-ready education.
00:06:10
Speaker
Although I don't take any issue with the idea of having students learning how to work, when it's the sole focus, I wonder how that's affecting how democracy functions and how learners see themselves.
00:06:22
Speaker
What do you think of that connection?
00:06:23
Speaker
I think today we're hearing a lot about the need to prepare students for the quote unquote world of work.
00:06:31
Speaker
I mean, this is something that I've heard many, many times going to conferences and hearing, oh, they need to know coding, oh, they need to know robotics, oh, the heavy, heavy STEM kind of push that's being brought into schools, which is great.
00:06:46
Speaker
Of course, we want our students to be able to get employment and remain agile in changing economic circumstances.
00:06:53
Speaker
But we also want them to be good people, good citizens who are able to protect and develop democratic institutions.
00:07:00
Speaker
So, you know, going back to John Dewey, and he describes education as a social function, where the youth learn from adults how to support the flourishing of society.
00:07:11
Speaker
So it's not just about
00:07:13
Speaker
my education is preparing me to be able to get a job.
00:07:16
Speaker
It's really about how do we really take into account the fact that our learners are the sole future representatives of the democracies that they will inevitably serve in the future.
00:07:29
Speaker
And for this reason, learners need to be initiated into the ways of being that support society and be given authentic opportunities to be part of this process.
00:07:39
Speaker
And my personal connection to this is I work at a public STEM school
00:07:42
Speaker
And, you know, the STEM initiative was brought out of this need for career readiness, which is a constant balancing act of understanding that STEM is certainly the focus, but also we have to recognize that STEM jobs aren't necessarily the end-all be-all.
00:07:56
Speaker
And there's a lot more important things than just the world of work or being, quote unquote, like a future ready.
00:08:01
Speaker
being a STEM school.
00:08:03
Speaker
I don't think that that's like a make or break.
00:08:06
Speaker
Like if you're a STEM school, you can't be teaching democratic education because I think it actually has to do with the way that we are kind of intentionally creating social structures that would enable students to become active members of society.
00:08:20
Speaker
So we kind of work backwards from that in terms of what it looks
Key Components of Democratic Education
00:08:24
Speaker
like.
00:08:24
Speaker
If we ask ourselves the question, what makes healthy democracies?
00:08:27
Speaker
It's like, okay, well,
00:08:29
Speaker
It's equality in voice.
00:08:30
Speaker
So to what extent do students' voices value, are valued equally?
00:08:36
Speaker
Diversity in thought and opinion.
00:08:38
Speaker
So like to what extent does student learning encourage diversity in thinking or the sharing of ideas or the wrestling with opinions?
00:08:48
Speaker
active participation.
00:08:49
Speaker
So to what extent are students encouraged to actively participate?
00:08:54
Speaker
And I don't just mean like raising their hands in a classroom setting, but really in a hands-on way where they can shape things within the school environment.
00:09:02
Speaker
And then of course the point you made earlier around agency and self-efficacy.
00:09:07
Speaker
So, you know, to what extent do students feel that their actions can actually make a difference in the world?
00:09:11
Speaker
You know, are they apathetic, which, you know, I think comes from a place of believing that, you know, the actions are meaningless, or do they truly feel that they can enact change?
00:09:21
Speaker
So I think if you...
00:09:24
Speaker
You had to distill it.
00:09:25
Speaker
Those things would be what we would look for in a democratic education.
00:09:29
Speaker
You know, students feel they have a voice, that their voice isn't more or less important than others, that they're encouraged to explore diverse perspectives, participate actively and develop their sense of agency and self-efficacy kind of along the way.
00:09:46
Speaker
And to make room for this style of education, I wonder how we can systemically restructure schools to ensure that these democratic ordeals are not only enabled, but there's enough time to really holistically get to know students and support their well-being.
00:10:00
Speaker
Realistically, a democratic education at most schools is just a glorified student council and like an AP government class.
00:10:08
Speaker
Although there's pockets of cool work going on with student governments, it is not mainstream.
00:10:13
Speaker
So what structures would you see as a barrier to allowing this to happen?
00:10:17
Speaker
As in, what could you get rid of in order to support a cause like this?
00:10:22
Speaker
It's interesting, like what to get rid of as opposed to what to keep or to enhance in your environment.
00:10:28
Speaker
I guess, you know, what you just described around tokenistic student council experiences.
00:10:36
Speaker
I mean,
00:10:37
Speaker
if we say that our social structures within the school environment are teaching our students about democracy, then having a kind of powerless student council without any decision-making power besides, you know, this is the theme of the dance is not really sending the message I think that we want for our students today.
00:11:00
Speaker
I think, you know, it comes down to,
00:11:03
Speaker
Considering those natural power differentials within the school environment.
00:11:08
Speaker
So the way that teachers naturally have more power than students, how can they shift some of that power to students so that you can build more equality within classroom environments?
00:11:21
Speaker
And I don't think that has to be, you know, big issues.
00:11:26
Speaker
kind of huge events, it can be the small things that really make a difference.
00:11:30
Speaker
So, you know, I teach seventh grade social studies and we start every lesson in a circle.
00:11:37
Speaker
So there's no, you know, this is the most important person sitting at the front of
00:11:42
Speaker
And we're all sitting on stools.
00:11:44
Speaker
We're all sitting on the same stools, which are slightly uncomfortable, you know, so I'm sitting with them on the same stools.
00:11:49
Speaker
I'm not sitting in my cushy teacher chair, which says, you know, well, you guys can sit on the hard stools and I'm going to sit on the nice chair.
00:11:56
Speaker
Like, what's the message that we're sending students there?
00:11:59
Speaker
So that's very small, but I think it sends a message around the way that power is shared within that classroom environment.
00:12:07
Speaker
And in the same way, you know, when you have discussions with students, does every student comment ping pong back to the teacher?
00:12:15
Speaker
Or is there a way that you can have authentic dialogue where students are then calling on their peers after they've spoken?
00:12:23
Speaker
So I really have tried hard with my students and they're not used to this.
00:12:26
Speaker
So it takes a little bit of time to say, okay, you're not talking to me.
00:12:32
Speaker
We are a community of learners.
00:12:35
Speaker
When we're having a discussion, I expect that we're all listening because we can learn from each other.
00:12:41
Speaker
You know, this idea that learning is social.
00:12:43
Speaker
So when someone speaks, they get the chance to call on someone else.
00:12:48
Speaker
And, you know, we talk about what are some of the ways that we can respond to people by saying, you know, I would like to connect to or I agree with or I would like to disagree because I
00:12:57
Speaker
you know, giving students those stems to be able to engage in effective discussion is, I think, really important for them to see what it looks like to have healthy discourse, which is part and parcel of having, you know, a healthy democratic institution.
00:13:13
Speaker
It's not about polarizing views and saying, you're wrong, you're right, right?
00:13:18
Speaker
It's about understanding that there are multiple perspectives that may be valid for different reasons and, you know,
00:13:25
Speaker
Taking the opportunity to think about why someone may think something different than you actually expands your understanding of the issue or the topic.
00:13:35
Speaker
You know what, I hear what you're saying, and it resonates with me when it comes to that neoliberal connection.
00:13:42
Speaker
We often say to students, complete your work.
00:13:45
Speaker
And I do it still sometimes, and I try to catch myself, because the implication of relating work to learning has a lot of hidden messages.
00:13:52
Speaker
Are our students employees that should be punished when they don't meet our expectations?
00:13:57
Speaker
Is school a place to mirror the workforce?
00:13:59
Speaker
And even then, is school a place that's meant to change that societal norm that work should be seen like this?
00:14:07
Speaker
I was nodding my head when you were talking about saying to students, complete your work, do your work, here's your work.
00:14:14
Speaker
because I think it also hides what we would like students to be doing, which is, you know, engaging in some thinking processes.
00:14:23
Speaker
You know, if the work is to analyze or to contrast or to think about, you know, consider that using more specific verbs actually helps students know what success looks like.
00:14:35
Speaker
So partly it's about being fair to them in terms of what
00:14:40
Speaker
we're asking them to do.
00:14:42
Speaker
But then I also agree with you that when we call things work, sometimes it can also be perceived as burdensome.
00:14:51
Speaker
And we want the learning to be in an environment where students are motivated, where they see the relevance of their learning to things outside the classroom.
00:15:02
Speaker
And so the
00:15:04
Speaker
being very conscientious about the way that we introduce tasks, I think is definitely part of it.
00:15:11
Speaker
In terms of the debate piece, I was actually having a conversation about this the other day, because someone said, you know, there's a history of debate, you know, debate has been around for a long time in,
00:15:24
Speaker
secondary education and it's absolutely true and I my personal issue with it is when it like what you said it's about winning the debate by taking one viewpoint and then kind of needing to break down the viewpoint of the other and
00:15:38
Speaker
I think there are a lot of really nice ways that you can modify that so I do four corner debates quite often in my classroom which You know are the four corners your room strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree So it's more like a spectrum and then you you read out a provocative statement So for example, you could say in the middle ages unit that we're teaching right now, you know feudalism
00:16:05
Speaker
was more a uniting force than a dividing force.
00:16:07
Speaker
And then they have to go to their corner and they have to say, you know, talk to the person there.
00:16:12
Speaker
Why are you there?
00:16:13
Speaker
But the most important part of that is that then we have our discussion where it's like, okay, why did you decide to go to strongly agree?
00:16:20
Speaker
Let's share that with the class.
00:16:21
Speaker
How does that compare to the people and disagree?
00:16:24
Speaker
Does anyone want to move?
00:16:25
Speaker
Has anyone's perspective changed as a result of the conversation?
00:16:28
Speaker
Go ahead and move corners.
00:16:29
Speaker
That's totally fine.
00:16:30
Speaker
And it's not about someone winning or losing.
00:16:33
Speaker
It's about stretching our thinking, being able to provide evidence for the reasons why we think certain things.
00:16:40
Speaker
So I would have criteria for students on the board.
00:16:44
Speaker
I want you to say what you believe and why you believe that.
00:16:48
Speaker
In the case study, dot, dot, dot, we saw, and then they have to kind of give some examples that would ground or support their thinking.
00:16:58
Speaker
So you have things like that.
00:17:00
Speaker
And then you also have more structured tasks like training,
00:17:04
Speaker
you know the structured academic controversy tasks where students are given you know it's more of a kind of a reading and writing task than it is a speaking and listening one but I think being sure as practitioners that it's not about polarizing opinions it's about understanding how people may have different perspectives for different reasons based on their you know
00:17:31
Speaker
who the stakeholder is in the environment.
00:17:36
Speaker
And there's a few programs that have really nice resources around that, like the Brown University Choices Program.
00:17:42
Speaker
They've got some really nice activities for like a climate change example.
00:17:46
Speaker
We had a unit last year on climate change and it was, okay, think about
00:17:51
Speaker
you know, the perspective of the person in the NGO, the perspective of someone working for the oil company, the perspective of someone in government, what do you think that these individuals would say is the best way to try to tackle this?
00:18:02
Speaker
Is it, you know, all countries pay?
00:18:04
Speaker
Is it just that the people who created the most emissions pay?
00:18:07
Speaker
Is it no one pays and we just go on with
00:18:09
Speaker
development because there are developing nations that will be hurt if there's any kind of, you know, change to the current structures.
00:18:18
Speaker
And I think activities like that make it really clear that sometimes you choose a particular outcome or solution based on your perspective as an individual in your role in society.
00:18:34
Speaker
For educators who want to promote a learning style like this, where would they
Implementing Democratic Changes in Education
00:18:37
Speaker
start?
00:18:37
Speaker
I know many schools function like this fully, like a subbury school, but there's plenty of public schools that need just a starting point.
00:18:44
Speaker
What would an educator do?
00:18:46
Speaker
you know, the best place to start is probably your own school, your own school context.
00:18:51
Speaker
And you might have some individuals within that context that are interested in something similar.
00:18:56
Speaker
So, and the reason I say that is that I think it will look different in every school because every school is unique and dynamic and changing.
00:19:05
Speaker
And if you have
00:19:07
Speaker
you know, a teacher down the hall that's trying some things with you, then you also have that camaraderie that you're doing something together and can collaboratively work on it and discuss it.
00:19:17
Speaker
So I think it's that question of to what degree can some of these questions
00:19:23
Speaker
be brought into collaborative planning meetings when they happen in the school environment.
00:19:27
Speaker
So really asking yourself, okay, so let's go over our unit that we're teaching.
00:19:32
Speaker
To what extent are we gathering student voice?
00:19:34
Speaker
To what extent are students experiencing a diversity in opinion and thought?
00:19:40
Speaker
To what extent are we asking students through the creation of projects or other means?
00:19:46
Speaker
And to what extent do they have some agency over their learning?
00:19:50
Speaker
And that alone, having that as a kind of litmus for a unit, I think would have, you know, produced some great conversations that it doesn't have to be earth shattering what the changes may be in the classroom.
00:20:03
Speaker
It could be those small tweaks where it's, well, well, originally I was going to do, you know, this particular activity, but instead I'm only going to provide, you know, the first half and then they're going to have to do some research on their own and then they can choose what they'd like to study.
00:20:15
Speaker
I mean, it's those things where you can,
00:20:18
Speaker
creatively design together.
00:20:21
Speaker
So I think that's probably the first port of call.
00:20:24
Speaker
And then, of course, online, there's a bunch of places to go.
00:20:29
Speaker
So I mentioned the Choices program, which I think is really great for social studies educators that I would highly recommend.
00:20:36
Speaker
They do have a lot of resources online, which are free.
00:20:40
Speaker
and easy to access.
00:20:43
Speaker
Then there's some other, you know, depending on what you're looking at, interested in, there are some other resources about kind of like the Harkness method, which is like the spider web discussion or Socratic dialogue or just Socratic discussion.
00:20:55
Speaker
I think there's a lot online for that as well.
00:21:00
Speaker
So I guess I would start there and then probably in the process of looking, you'd go down that rabbit hole of the
00:21:09
Speaker
the World Wide Web and find a bunch of other stuff that it would be helpful.
00:21:21
Speaker
Again, I want to remind you about our funding drive.
00:21:24
Speaker
Our work can take off as much as our Patreon subscribers can allow it to be, and some of this stuff really does require some serious financial backing.
00:21:31
Speaker
One thing that we're really excited about is micro-credentialing, which was actually connected to us via Carly Marshall.
00:21:37
Speaker
We want to find ways to connect CEUs, professional development, digital badging, and more to our existing and future resources.
00:21:45
Speaker
By doing so, not only do we reward the efforts of educators seeking this form of education, we also encourage building leaders to utilize progressive ed
00:21:53
Speaker
and attract educators who might just not have any experience in this field.
00:21:57
Speaker
By contributing $3 a month, you will help spark this initiative and allow it to come to life.
00:22:02
Speaker
Visit us on our website at humanrestorationproject.org to learn more.
Introducing Merit Jones and Student Voice
00:22:15
Speaker
Our next guest is Merit Jones, who is the executive director of the student-led organization Student Voice.
00:22:21
Speaker
Merit is in her third year at Duke and has been involved with the organization since high school.
00:22:26
Speaker
Student Voice, which you can find at stuvoice.org, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting and exciting organizations currently in development.
00:22:35
Speaker
Not only is it run by students, it provides a beautiful website full of exciting resources, amazing student-written articles, and materials for supporting student-led chapters,
00:22:44
Speaker
that honestly do disrupt the flow of traditional schooling.
00:22:47
Speaker
I want to take a second and read the Student Bill of Rights, which is Student Voice's major initial resource, which has links to projects that students are currently working on surrounding it.
00:22:56
Speaker
plus resources to support these ideas in a classroom setting.
00:22:59
Speaker
So they exist of access and affordability for an equitable education, civic participation for students with equal rights, the ability for students to influence decisions, a focus on deeper learning, a need for diversity and inclusivity, a right to due process, freedom of expression, and access to modern technology, and a mentally, physically, and emotionally safe, positive school culture.
00:23:22
Speaker
So the Student Bill of Rights is really the first thing we developed as an organization.
00:23:26
Speaker
Back in 2015, the founders of the organization have been talking to folks about, you know, we needed to have a platform and something we stood for.
00:23:37
Speaker
And so I took a gap year before starting college in 2016.
00:23:42
Speaker
And during that gap year, a colleague and I were on the road talking to students and having them vote.
00:23:49
Speaker
And so this originally started as a voting platform.
00:23:52
Speaker
It was 12 rights that a team created, um,
00:23:56
Speaker
from some field testing and focus groups we had done.
00:23:59
Speaker
And then we, I guess, field tested those out across the US as we were visiting schools.
00:24:05
Speaker
We had a couple thousand students vote, I think five or 6,000, if I'm correct, vote on the rights.
00:24:13
Speaker
And we saw what trends and got some feedback on the language.
00:24:16
Speaker
And so what you see today is a revised version from that very original student bill of rights.
00:24:22
Speaker
And so I can talk about it.
00:24:26
Speaker
specifically some of the ones that constantly emerge.
00:24:29
Speaker
And these are just things that we really wanted to create because, you know, we would go and have these conversations with students and the education system is so big and has so many like issues.
00:24:42
Speaker
And so I think it was really helpful for us to create a tool that said, where do we get started?
00:24:48
Speaker
Like pick one spot and think about something you are personally passionate about and something you want to address.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so constantly the top three voter rights are, or have been historically civic participation, modern technology and free expression and then diversity inclusivity is usually high too, depending on the school population.
00:25:10
Speaker
But all of these we agree are just absolutely fundamental to a quality education.
00:25:15
Speaker
And so we've developed some resources around those that if you like click on each right, then you can see,
00:25:23
Speaker
some of the guides that we've created over the years and some of the conversations and pieces students have written to go along with them.
00:25:32
Speaker
But we really use it as a frame for all of our programs to
00:25:37
Speaker
have a starting place for students to think about this really massive system.
00:25:40
Speaker
And I love this explicit focus on encouraging students to take charge in their own hands and adopt these policies within their schools.
00:25:48
Speaker
We've seen students take charge at the global level, such as leading protests and activism, but we haven't really seen much reported on when it comes to students radically changing their educational environment.
00:25:58
Speaker
How has Student Voice implored students in order to make these changes?
00:26:01
Speaker
I mean, we've seen a lot of really great local change happen.
00:26:06
Speaker
Because we go into schools, especially as we've been on tour having conversations on the ground.
00:26:11
Speaker
You know, we use these as a framework for hosting around to the discussion where we have students speak critically about their education.
00:26:19
Speaker
Because we know in schools, students are asked to think critically about everything but education.
00:26:24
Speaker
So providing that space has really done some schoolwork.
00:26:28
Speaker
And I can speak to a couple of those things.
00:26:31
Speaker
School climate and education.
00:26:33
Speaker
as one of the rights ends up being one that students really like to tackle.
00:26:37
Speaker
And so we've seen students helping take charge of that and especially around mental health, which is something we hear in almost every school we visit that students are struggling with that.
00:26:50
Speaker
Some of that is led to students helping work with district officials to help advocate for funding, greater funding allocation for additional guidance counselors.
00:27:00
Speaker
Some of that might be just
00:27:02
Speaker
students working with admin teams to switch up the way lunch is done so that students have greater free time during the day and more flexibility.
00:27:13
Speaker
Some of that has to do with scheduling, which we constantly see as an issue.
00:27:17
Speaker
And sometimes it's peer to peer education.
00:27:20
Speaker
Some schools are not resource rich.
00:27:27
Speaker
And so students are taking that into their own hands by creating
00:27:32
Speaker
workshops for each other.
00:27:33
Speaker
And then doing these round tables we found to be like a really cathartic starting process to just like being able to talk about what you feel like is going on.
00:27:42
Speaker
Those are some of the things around mental health are saying happen.
00:27:48
Speaker
But we're seeing a lot of students, of course, take up the issue of dress code and create more equitable policies.
00:27:52
Speaker
And we've kind of started as we've been traveling, keeping a bank of resources and policies that we think are good to help share.
00:28:01
Speaker
And so that policy starts when, you know, somebody says we don't like the dress code policy and then we can share policies that we think are more equitable for students and better embrace diversity and gender and culture.
00:28:15
Speaker
And so those are a few things that we're thinking about.
00:28:19
Speaker
And let's go
State-Level Advocacy and Student Empowerment
00:28:20
Speaker
broader too.
00:28:20
Speaker
When you start to see some of our partner organizations do really broad institutional work.
00:28:25
Speaker
Like in Kentucky, they're doing
00:28:28
Speaker
just really deep work through the Pregnant Community Student Voice team at a state level, restoring need-based funding to students through lottery systems, which was a big campaign that happened a couple of years ago.
00:28:40
Speaker
So on the affordability, access and affordability piece.
00:28:43
Speaker
And then they're also starting a pilot where they're doing school climate audits, where students are auditing their own schools and doing surveys and
00:28:55
Speaker
and collecting data to be able to present back to principals to talk about school climate.
00:28:59
Speaker
Right, and this concept of having students actively involved in your organization, both virtually, but also physically through the chapter system, is a really unique spin for a nonprofit to be working nationwide.
00:29:10
Speaker
I think one thing that's really important for us as we've grown over the years is to have in-person engagement.
00:29:17
Speaker
And at this point in the game, you know, we're engaging thousands of students directly and through in-person events every year.
00:29:24
Speaker
And we've been really fortunate to get funding to make that happen.
00:29:28
Speaker
Like the tour we've been on.
00:29:29
Speaker
So we often, especially in communities, try to have a school visit.
00:29:35
Speaker
But then often those are coupled with events like town halls or some kind of a community event where we're bringing together local organizers or existing student groups.
00:29:47
Speaker
And a lot of times these aren't traditionally education improvement groups.
00:29:52
Speaker
which has been really cool.
00:29:52
Speaker
Like we were in Waterloo, Iowa, which is one of the most segregated cities.
00:29:57
Speaker
You probably have heard of Nicole Hannah Jones.
00:29:59
Speaker
It is her hometown.
00:30:02
Speaker
And we host an event there with students from both sides of the river who go to different schools.
00:30:09
Speaker
And it was the first time, you know, these people have been able to have conversations about what their vastly different school experiences were like.
00:30:19
Speaker
In a lot of ways,
00:30:20
Speaker
that change has been happening in that community is through empowering youth the art.
00:30:25
Speaker
And they've given young people the space to paint murals and to just have the space to make and create art, which has been a really cool thing to watch happen on the ground.
00:30:36
Speaker
So these events can take a lot of forms.
00:30:38
Speaker
Like we'll be in DC in a couple of weeks having kind of our wrap up to this tour in the form of International Students' Day.
00:30:45
Speaker
But chapter is every year on November 17th, we try to do some kind of programming
00:30:51
Speaker
But this will bring students together from our tour and from, you know, years of engagement to really have hard conversations about the state of schools today.
00:31:00
Speaker
The last time we did this in-person convening was right after the election in 2016.
00:31:05
Speaker
And so it's kind of seeing, you know, where are we since then and how has the climate of school changed?
00:31:14
Speaker
And then just really trying to decide where we go from there.
00:31:17
Speaker
What can we do collectively?
00:31:18
Speaker
What can we do locally?
00:31:19
Speaker
and making sure that we're supporting each other in the work that we're doing and sharing ideas and figuring out what works in one school and what doesn't work in another, and then learning from our success and failure.
00:31:32
Speaker
But that's really important to us to do in person sometimes because the online connection can feel really lonely, and we really like to be a connector of students all over, that any student who connects with us on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook
00:31:45
Speaker
can feel part of the community, but we really like to go visit those communities and let them know that they're definitely not in this alone.
00:31:51
Speaker
Who do you see as the first line, if you will, of people looking for partnerships with Student Voice?
00:31:57
Speaker
As in, is it teachers who come across your resources and then use them in the classroom?
00:32:02
Speaker
Is it students who want to see a change in their school that maybe isn't recognizing them?
00:32:05
Speaker
Is it a combination?
00:32:06
Speaker
It is all of the above, certainly, especially as we've been on tour of
00:32:11
Speaker
Some of these, we put out a call out to the schools.
00:32:14
Speaker
And so some of those were student initiated, some were teacher initiated.
00:32:19
Speaker
It works best when we have teacher and adult partnership.
00:32:24
Speaker
Those are most successful chapters and models that have been when, you know, from the beginning, we have a highly engaged educator and a student there to help through that process.
00:32:34
Speaker
Or it's been even better when, you know, it's the admin reaching out to us to say, hey, this is something we wanna do in our school.
00:32:41
Speaker
because we know so much of policy also happens at a board level too or school for their top down.
00:32:50
Speaker
And so our chapters program is really holistic and it's something we've only recently started.
00:32:55
Speaker
We tried to resist for a long time because we didn't want to be guided or have to be guided by numbers and how many numbers we have of chapters, but it was kind of by demand as people wanted various interests, entry points that we've now
00:33:10
Speaker
really developed a robust set of programs like chapters and like the most recent one you'll check out on our website is the youth action network, which kind of coincides with the chapters program.
00:33:22
Speaker
It's a way for us to provide online programming that's open to anyone.
00:33:26
Speaker
Like we just had a call this week, really diving deep into equity research with folks out at CU Boulder that's been helping us.
00:33:36
Speaker
create the programming for this every week.
00:33:38
Speaker
And we have really incredible attendance.
00:33:40
Speaker
And so all of the chapter leaders are invited to show up to those.
00:33:44
Speaker
They're always recorded so people can go back and watch them.
00:33:48
Speaker
But our chapters look really different.
00:33:50
Speaker
And it's why I really love our chapters program.
00:33:53
Speaker
And we actually just put a call up today to hire a new chapters program coordinator because it's growing so much.
00:33:59
Speaker
But our chapters are smaller.
00:34:01
Speaker
There's a smaller school in Alaska that has about
00:34:05
Speaker
I think 30 students to the Chicago public school system who have student voice allies or student voice kind of boards in every school and the entire Chicago public school convenes their student voice representatives from each school every quarter.
00:34:25
Speaker
And so, you know, there's like a wide variety of what a chapter can look like and we're really open to how that looks, but we know it works best when we have
00:34:35
Speaker
really good educator student partnership.
00:34:37
Speaker
So if a teacher comes to us, we'll help them find students and then vice versa.
00:34:44
Speaker
But it definitely is best.
00:34:46
Speaker
We've seen success from the beginning.
00:34:48
Speaker
We can have students and teachers as partners.
Supporting the Human Restoration Project
00:34:52
Speaker
For those who are seeking to partner with Student Voice or have their students check out their resource, where can they learn more?
00:34:57
Speaker
Of course, our website has really great resources, especially Imagine.
00:35:01
Speaker
There's lots of teachers in the audience.
00:35:03
Speaker
we've really been working hard to develop resources for teachers.
00:35:06
Speaker
So there's a specific resource tab where we have some guides that we've been updating and working to get re-updated.
00:35:15
Speaker
You can read incredible stories from our school library from last year's journalism cohort, which I just find inspiring and like to pick up sometimes.
00:35:26
Speaker
But I think we have a really great facilitation guide for figuring out how to start these conversations.
00:35:32
Speaker
And then just some principles of engagement and different rate for starting four-year school.
00:35:39
Speaker
And then I would say that the biggest thing you can do is, especially on Instagram, we are really trying to get more young people involved there.
00:35:49
Speaker
And so we have tried to create a lot more engaging content and figuring out how to work with the newest high school students.
00:35:56
Speaker
And so few of them are on Facebook or Twitter, which is how we started as an organization.
00:36:00
Speaker
So
00:36:01
Speaker
We're really trying to develop our platform and social media is small too.
00:36:11
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Things Fall Apart from the Human Restoration Project.
00:36:14
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
00:36:19
Speaker
Again, I encourage you to check out our funding drive to continue messages like this to reach out far and wide.
00:36:24
Speaker
Even the smallest donation adds up and helps us continue to restore humanity to education.
00:36:29
Speaker
So let's do this together.
00:36:30
Speaker
We need you.