My intuitive voice within said, “For most of our young people, there is a very thin space between their inner light and the dimming of it.”

Perhaps more than ever – in watching that wonderful film – I realized that today the greatest gift we can give our young people is to create a larger space between their inner light and the dimming of it. Not just a larger space, but the largest space our hearts can possibly conceive.

This, to me, is why the transformation of education is so important. There is no greater gift we can give our future generations, than to co-create – with our young people today, a learning journey that turns their light into a bonfire.  As I watched that film and saw the glowing light in their eyes, as they spoke about their visions for changing education and about the empowerment they felt, I got, at an even deeper level, the power of listening as a way to begin.

Asking young people to step into a circle of trust and authenticity and share their inner wisdom, a wisdom they often don’t know they actually have sometimes, is a beautiful experience. But as you might imagine, young people today are so wary of adults and their methods of manipulation, coercion, pushing their own agenda, etc., that it requires an absolutely pure environment for them to decide they will open up.

But this is what we strive for in the three hour Listening Sessions with teens that we lead all across the country. Through listening, we are working with them to build a national collective voice on the wisdom of young people about how they would transform education, if it were left completely up to them. In the space we create and hold for them to emerge within, they share their ideas, tell stories and ultimately paint a co-created vision of a learning journey they would love to experience.

These paintings are visual stories of their wisdom, creativity and passion for life – of their inner light. By repeating Listening Sessions with young people from all walks of life, all over the country, a series of themes begin to synthesize and ultimately, will become their collective voice

To date, we have led 20 Listening Sessions in 7 states, predominantly on the west coast and in the south. Most recently we conducted 6 Listening Sessions in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Student responses during the tour were overwhelmingly positive with us twice being asked, “Can you come back tomorrow?”

I think young people are saying this for two reasons: the first is that while the debate about changing education goes on feverishly across the country, young people are not being invited into the process. They have so many ideas, feelings and insights into how to change school, yet are noticeably missing from the conversation. This is a very disempowering place for them – a place of dimming.

The other reason they are so excited about being in the listening sessions, is that through our act of trusting and believing in them to be able to offer meaningful content into the educational conversation, they feel seen and heard – by us and by each other. The first thing we usually hear at the end of the Listening Session, is, “Thank you for listening, no one ever asks us what we think.” Our hosts have said they have literally seen a transformation occur within them, right before their eyes.

Listening seems a simple act, but it requires a deep caring, a complete absence of agenda and ego and a delight to hear from them. Creating a space for the purity of their voices to emerge is a sacred act, and it is one that leads to a brightening that is almost blinding.

In working to keep the Listening Sessions as pure as possible, I have always shied away from asking any organizations or people to contribute to our effort. I realize now, that instinctively, I have been trying to protect that distance between young people’s light and the dimming of it and let them fill it with their own beauty. I have not wanted anyone else’s agenda or beliefs to shift us from our purpose to just listen without any attachment to outcome.

But due to an unexpected outpouring of requests to do Listening Sessions, we can no longer continue to self fund Imagining Learning. I am delighted to say that the word has gotten around about what we are doing and we now have more than 35 communities requesting we come and lead at least one Listening Session!

So for the first time, we are asking others to support our work through a national campaign in partnership with IncitEd, a new crowdsourcing site (www.incited.org), solely committed to helping educational efforts receive funding. I love the idea of crowdsourcing because the giving, without attachments, will enable us to continue our purposeful way of Listening.

Being Stewards of an effort to bring the voices of young people forward, holding the space between their light and the dimming of it, is a gift to those of us involved. May we, as well as you who also hold them, grow in sensitivity and ability to do so.

Today a video of student Jeff Bliss, a sophomore at Duncanville High School in Texas, went viral fast. In the video below we are privy to Bliss passionately speaking his truth. He knows that learning is more than packets to fill out, more than passively fulfilling simple and mindless tasks.

You want kids to come into your class, you want them to get excited for this? You gotta come in here, you gotta make them excited. You want a kid to change and start doing better? You gotta touch his frickin’ heart. Can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell him,” he says, as the teacher repeatedly tells him to leave the class.

While his message was pointed toward his experience in this classroom, it was born from a feeling that is boiling up in classroom after classroom across the country. It is why students are standing up and walking out of schools, protesting because they know there are better ways to learn together. They know they learn best when they are able to learn with teachers that teach to their hearts and not just to the test.

Students are not alone in this feeling, teachers and community leaders are also standing up and walking out. It is important to remember that we should not watch this video as an attack on teachers, but instead an opportunity to talk about what we want in our schools.

What struck me most about the video is that Jeff Bliss felt he needed to voice his ideas in a way that would get him kicked out of class. Why is this the only way for him to voice his visions about learning and education? Why did it take a 90 second video for us to realized that students “get it”? Why do we wait for students to burst or break before we listen?

Many of us are not waiting for students to reach a breaking point, we are proactively engaging them by providing positive venues and space for them to express their ideas, stories and voices.  My work with Imagining Learning along with other  organizations like IDEA, SoundOut, and Student Voice has has convinced me that  we must proactively help students activate their power to change education and the world by providing this space.

Just yesterday, Imagining Learning launched a campaign to fund 35 listening sessions (see video) around the country. Our Listening Sessions are designed to create an appreciative environment of trust and openness so young people’s natural wisdom can emerge. All young people have ideas about their education and how it should be changed.  They also possess deep wisdom about how their lives are affected by the world around them and how they can make it better. In the last 4 years we have done 20 listening sessions around the country. They are effective in providing the space to activate students toward using their voice and ideas to positively change the world and education not just to protest or react to it.

Jeff Bliss’ statements have sparked an important conversation about how we can provide positive spaces for engaging young people’s voice!

How are you providing space for young people to use their voice to change education or the world?

Please join us by donating our campaign. Each dollar will help us tour the country to do listening sessions with young people like Jeff Bliss http://www.incited.org/projects/13

The need for a change in education is evident. But what’s the practical solution? It is easy to point out the flaws of the current system, but it is much more difficult to come up with relevant, applicable solutions. And it is even more difficult for policy makers to bring about change.

It is my hope to not only spread the need for educational change, but to offer a practical, non-radical solution that can actually be implemented.

I encourage everyone to voice their opinion, criticize, and send a message to our decision makers in the US Department of Education.

Support the petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-american-education-system-is-outdated-it-s-time-for-change

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–Arooj Ahmad is a 16-year-old high school sophomore at Libertyville High School in suburban Chicago who wants to bring about practical change in the outdated American education system.

Now, when I wrote the first post, I said that 23 cases of rape and sexual abuse had relations to taxpayer-funded schools. Since, that number has risen to 105 cases documented in mainstream media, with the U.S Dept. of Education giving a more sobering figure of 83.33% of RAPES going unreported to law enforcement by schools and school districts while 73.43% of SEXUAL ASSAULTS going unreported to law enforcement by schools and school districts. However, the fact that of those 105 media documented cases, 25 were “gang rapes” and 26 were rapes committed at the behest of a high school athlete, which raises the highest amount of concern. Not because these males were “promising” or because they had “bright futures,” but because somewhere there is an expectation of acceptance for high school aged boys to gang up and “be boys” because of their position or for whatever untold reason.

With figures like those, it’s no wonder why 2 in 10 girls fear being sexually abused or raped at school by another student or why 6 in 10 girls are victims of rape while at school at the behest of another student. Yet, instead of taking these figures and addressing the issue for what it is,  we are teaching young girls how not to become victims, which is basically teaching them how to survive in a scenario where they are defenseless and are always at fault for the actions of the uncontrollable. This in its own is nothing more than a state sponsored form of educational neglect and neglect to humanity that dangerously resembles a form of hate crime against females who have promising, bright futures.

However, another issue that often gets left out of sexual education because the majority favoring of abstinence only sexual education, is that too many young girls don’t know what rape is, who to turn to in the event of an rape, and what exactly to do after they become victims of rape. Moreover, for some reason, there is no large emphasis of “see something, say something, do something” when it comes to these types of crimes. Further, in too many cases, do youth stand around or walk by when they witness these types of heinous acts because of the lack of empathy that youth possess today.

Conclusively, our schools are becoming breeding grounds for a sense of excusing for rapes and sexual assaults. Too many youth carry an apathetic sense when it comes to these types of crimes and too many youth do not know what to do in the event of these crimes. This large disconnect in empathy and knowledge is detrimental because it will perpetuate rape culture within global society. There is no reason with numbers like these, for an inadequate response from schools, governments, and from society as a whole. These numbers reflect a sobering reality that there are millions of youth out there who think that rape and sexual assault is acceptable to commit, and for 180 days they all spend hours together in an enclosed setting with increasingly less adults to keep a watchful eye.

No longer can we rely on the apathetic blame game known as victim shaming in response to rape culture…as it will only allow rape culture to consume American culture. No longer can this happen, because that consumption will mark the beginning of a perpetual war against this nation’s young girls and women. 

*School= any facility or event sponsored by schools or their districts including bus stops and buses 

I saw this video on “The Independent Project” thanks to a shout out from my old principal Mr. Adams. Within minutes of checking out the premise of the project, their website and this video, I was fascinated and frankly, hooked.

I think the idea behind a self motivated school situated inside a public school (a form that lends itself to more open learning if utilized to its full extent) is brilliant. That a bunch of interested students took focused time to work on a project that really interested them and had a concrete result upholds practically everything I’ve read on “modern education” thus far. Being affirmed in this project are various bits of Daniel Pink’s theories on the wonders of self-motivation, Cal Newport’s arguments promoting focused, concentrated effort and “the big project”, as well the general perceptions that school should fit the individual, and that a “good” school is one that helps further one’s development and instills values, information and ideas that stick and are relevant outside the classroom walls.

I think nowadays, school has come to take on a whole new slew of connotations. But at its core, school is place of learning. That’s it. The barebones definition of school should not require add-ons such as- helps you get into college, helps test-taking skills, a place that makes the district and teachers look good, workforce birther etc. Sure school can do that and help us in more ways than JUST learning, but the learning should come first- not standardized tests, not college, not jobs. Learning to learn, to have knowledge, to be aware to do things that require more than the rudiemntary skill fo filling in the bubble that matches with the memorized answer.

So it shouldn’t matter so much how that learning is achieved. In the video, one of the girls mentions how school “doesn’t help anyone because you’re trying to put people in boxes and humans just don’t fit in boxes.” We are all unique which means that, for better or worse, as a whole, we learn differently. Sure some people learn like others, but without any sort of delineation, teaching the same thing to the masses, regardless of their aptitude, their mindset, their interest or their learning style, is ridiculous and probably “unproductive.”

In the video, one of the group’s advisors mentions how in our society, students are simply passed along from class to class often with little to no enthusiasm or interest. These students sit on a conveyor belt powered by society and its requirements, which moves them glacially from one predestined location to another. By contrast, the students involved in the Independent Project, some of whom weren’t considered “great students” (grades wise) to begin with, are moving themselves. Just by being off the conveyor belt, the self-motivated environment overtime fuels a thirst for knowledge. As one student put it, they started “finding questions in everything” and wanting to learn about anything they stumbled across that they didn’t know.

That’s what makes this project so fantastic, in my opinion.

The students in the video also said some great things about why The Independent Project works and why it is even better, in some ways, than normal school.

• As one girl said, “knowledge isn’t memorization, it’s more an exploration of facts.” As a result, the rote memorization required in most classes promotes less absorption of knowledge. If the same concepts were explored through a series of well crafted questions, designed to probe different aspects of the idea or problem, and the students found the answers on their own and then shared their findings so everyone got the big picture, the knowledge would be much more concrete. Research shows that being able to effectively teach a concept and answer most questions about said concept, shows a certain level of mastery. As a result of the Independent project, knowledge and information is more personal and you begin to make connections across the board which helps information stick without the help of the usual assessments. One student remarked that “I don’t need tests or quizzes to show I know something. I know that I know it and that I can express myself through it.” That sounds good enough to me…
• While attending “normal school” prioritization is key. Sadly, if you’re not involved in an organized extra-curricular in your area of interest, other projects that you often have greater interest in are sidelined for school work. As the student who made a film said, “I can either push aside my creativity to struggle on something I simply don’t care about or I go with my creativity and do awful in school.” The beauty of the Independent Project is that it combines the project work with “academic work,” by splitting the day into chunks of time dedicated to those two things.
• The guy who was effectually the creator of the project said that “it works because students end up doing so many creative things.” The advisor of the project also commented on how having the freedom to learn whatever you want (within the subject of the week) lends “a sense of agency, and that changes the way you act.” I think it’s important that she noted how the freedom influenced their actions, because I feel like some people would discount this project on the belief that nothing productive would emerge and that students would simply goof off. However this teachers statement proves that when given an opportunity to follow their interests “for credit” students will do just that.
• Finally, another student echoed an idea I’ve supported for a while which shows why the students involved with the independent project thrived. He said that “you can’t achieve the broader goals you want and you don’t have the motivation get good at things unless you make school a place where people wanna be.” Because the students who participated in the independent project WANTED to be there, they accomplished great things.

Other people, more qualified and educated than little old me, also agree with the statements I have proposed above and the fundamental ideas behind the “Independent Project”. For example, this project exemplifies the school that the names I mentioned above preach about. In fact, this is not a passing fad. Some schools even make this sort of thing a potential course offering called the Independent Study. Independent studies, which at my school are offered to seniors, are one semester long (approximately) and usually require approval from a higher power as well as some sort of result at the end of the period but as for the topic, well, the sky is the limit.

There was one quote I heard that I felt really summed up the power of this project. When asked what they learned, a couple of students said something along the lines of “We realized that, everyone has interest in things and everybody truly wants to learn. We learned how to teach, we learned how to learn and we learned how to work. We learned how to ask questions and explore the answers in different methods. we learned to take what we learned and share with the others because it was our responsibility to make sure everyone in the group also learned from our work.”

To teach, to learn, to share, to explore, to listen, and to create- any school has the potential for their students to do this.

The theme of the conference, “Closing the Opportunity Gap with Afterschool & Summer Learning” doesn’t fully describe the range of topics covered, from data, to science and art, to improving program quality, to finding and sustainability. Nearly every state has a network of Afterschool programs, and the conference is held by the national network of these state networks. Yet one major voice was missing at the conference, the voice of young people.

While this is a disappointment, it is also an opportunity for me and a number of other educators at the conference to change this for the future and so, if the young people of the Cooperative Catalyst are willing, I would ask you some questions.  I will share your answers with adults who administer these programs and I will report back with my findings.  I am also trying to create active roles for young people who would like to get more involved in the future.

I would love to get your views on Afterschool programs in and out of schools.

What is your general experience in Afterschool?

What activities are engaging?

What could school learn from Afterschool?

What barriers keep youth from participating?

What should adults remember as we work with youth to improve Afterschool programs?

What’s great; what needs improvement?

What questions should I ask the adults on your behalf (besides “where are the young people in this room right now”,?)

Any additional ideas, visions or suggestions are also welcome!

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Greg Williamson is the Director of Student Support at the Washington State education agency and long time advocate of youth voice and youth action.

I only take one AP class this year. I must be lazy.

After school I enjoy watching the news or reading a book, rather than studying or doing all of my homework. I must be lazy.

I often get lost during spanish, analyzing the globe that is strategically placed near my desk. I must be lazy.

I’ve never had an all night study session because I prefer to go to sleep, I must be lazy.

Last year I went to a concert the night before a test. I must be lazy.

I prefer to learn spanish by watching a movie or reading the news rather than complete worksheets and fill in vocabulary sheets. I must be lazy.

Math class bores me. I must be lazy.

I try to take as little time as possible to do homework. I must be lazy.

I make it a priority to think and analyze history rather than memorize it. I must be lazy.

During class I think about everything but class. I must be lazy.

I hate school. I must be lazy.

We must end the notion that people who don’t put their hearts and soul into school are lazy. Instead we must realize that for many people it is impossible to put their heart and soul into a system they feel doesn’t help them learn and doesn’t let them follow their passions.

The frustrated kids who realize that learning is more than what school makes it out to be. . . they aren’t lazy, they just have better things to do. Let their minds wander. School can be different.

There’s a formula that all the “advanced” students recognize; copy, cram, exam, repeat, graduate. It is a formula created by the Teacher’s need to produce numbers out of you to give to the next guy up. When we commit to this formula, we give in to the systematic transport of filled bubbles on our paper to files in someone’s cabinet. We, as students, are typically comfortable with this formula, for it provides safety and certainty. We KNOW that we can memorize the test review tonight and ace the test tomorrow, and this is an assurance we adore because it guarantees the future. We are masters of this formula, and we think that because we can produce these high test scores, that we have reached capacity. Intelligence goes beyond a 100.

 I used to give in. I used to have a 4.0 GPA. I used to do ALL of my homework. I used to copy ALL of the PowerPoint notes. I used to turn in ALL my work on time. I used to feel on the top of the world when I got an A on exam or a paper. Then it hit me. Then I asked one simple question, “why?” I started to wonder what this was supposed to do to me. I had a 4.0 GPA, but I have never been, nor will ever be, a perfect student. I don’t even consider myself smart for having those high grades because it was so simple to me—just do all the work and “Wow! You’re a genius! You memorized a word on a paper and saw the same word on another paper, and WOW! You somehow managed to make this Einstein level connection to get an A on your tests! WOW! You sure are one heck of a scholar Mr. Isaac! I mean just OH MY GOSH. You can get into any university you want for this amazing feat! I can’t believe you can actually memorize words like that! Kudos to you, Good Student!” This realization that, to a school’s eyes, I was someone more intelligent than another individual who had lower grades upset me. I was no more deserving a teen for giving in. I was no more entitled to be more successful of a person than someone who didn’t care to memorize words.

 So I became enlightened. Light broke in upon me by degrees, as light broke into Frederick Douglass when he became literate. Just as he did, I realized how enslaved and oppressed my peers are, and how we’ve become “beasts” because of our own obliviousness to our slavery.  We are animals who don’t know any better, leashed by years of obedience training. These students, whom America considers the most scholarly, are the students who are the most willing of slaves- Valedictorians absolutely love to be slaves to their education!  I, like Frederick Douglass witnessing the mindless oppression of his brethren, witness my fellow pupils to be “beasts” who are unaware of their own condition because they have yet to be enlightened by the truth of educational literacy. The notion brings me agony! Slaves liberated themselves by learning to read and write. Students will liberate themselves by learning to think and question. For the sake of my fellow subjugates, let’s break the chains of the intellectual oppression which we endure to finally set free our essence from educational slavery!

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Christian Isaac is a Hispanic high school junior from San Antonio Texas who leads The Movement and likes to do things differently. He believes in a quality education for every student in America, and plans to make a reality of his dream to transform education.

Is this learning?

We all stress ourselves out to memorize the formulas. We all have had that cram night before the final. We all BS homework at the last second so as not to “get a zero”. We all use Spark Notes. We all discuss answers post-test.

I started writing my ideas about learning on My Blog. Like many of the people likely reading this post, I am a student, and my interest in education unfortunately comes out of frustration. From the time I was young, school was about grades, “good grades” to be more specific. Why? Well to get into a good college of course.

I believe learning and school can, and should be a lot more than what school has made it out to be. I find learning in many things, for instance, I enjoy arguing with pundits on the news and exploring the city of New York (My favorite place on earth). Experiences like these make my mind what it is, and I am thankful for all the experiences I’ve had.

School has done a very sad and unfortunate thing. It has placed a number on my learning. No longer is my weekend trip to the city valued, but now it is merely a distraction from my SAT work or cramming for another test. No longer can I be at peace with a book, unless that book is called “Hot Words for the SAT”. My valuable learning experiences, discussions, debates, and really just exploring my mind, are secondary to the tests, quizzes, writing assignments, etc. that may make or break my status as “smart”.

Who has, or has had someone close to them cry over a bad grade? Did it make you mad? Did it make you/him/her hate the subject you/he/she got the bad grade in?

The extent we go to thinking and stressing over grades is honestly insane, but in the world we live in, it makes sense. Get the A, get into the brand name college, get the job, live in a gingerbread house with angels as children. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Of course, that’s not how it really works, but getting good grades certainly does give people advantages for getting into college, which is obviously a factor in our future.

I understand that in the world we live in, grades can make or break one’s life; I’m not going to dispute that. But I’m going to make an even bigger point. I’m here to say that the world we live in shouldn’t put stress on grades. Actually, I think grades are harmful.

Okay I know what your thinking now is “he is going to go on a rant about how grades are immoral and hurt kids feelings”. Well, to be honest, I think that has legitimacy, but I hope you’ll find the points I make a little deeper than that.

Grades have always been a big part of my life, as I’m sure they are yours, if you are a student. I prided myself on the 100s I would get on spelling tests, or the As I may have gotten in middle school and high school. Yes, when I got my first 79 it made me very upset. Yes, when I got a B in 8th grade math it killed me. And honestly, every kid who gets stressed over grades has every right to be stressed. College admissions, the need to compete with your classmates, and all the other attitudes our schools hammer into us scare the hell out of us.

And you know what, the grades I’m getting now are fine, but it’s still scary that I don’t have Ivy League quality grades. In addition to the stress caused by grades, there are many problems that I believe having grades causes regarding education.

Plain and simple, I think grades simplify, complicate, and take away from the beautiful process that is learning. Does that sound like a bit of a contradiction? Let me explain. Grades put a number on education. If two people both get an A in social studies, who would know that one person used to struggle? Who would know that the other person found some great insight into history? Who would know what they learned? And again, if a person got an F in math, let’s say, who would ever know if he really did understand the concepts he was taught? Maybe the kid really does think like a mathematician and just doesn’t like how math is taught in his class. The point is that learning is a complicated process hindered by grades.

Now, I also said that grades complicate learning. Grades put into education so many things that just shouldn’t be considered part of the learning process. Why should I have been thinking about college admissions in 5th grade? Why should teachers be forced to give a lower grade to a kid struggling in their class, yet whom they can tell has intelligence? Why should parents feel their child is a failure because of tests and grades? Why should a kid hate a subject for the rest of their life because of a class they got a bad grade in?

Grades and rote learning really go hand in hand. Memorizing, regurgitating the facts, and forgetting it the day after the test. I know a common argument I hear is that grades motivate people to work hard. And yes that is true. But when working hard means BSing homework at midnight or the period before, I think that causes more harm than good. Or when working hard means memorizing and regurgitating at the expense of having fun and enjoying one’s day, I think that’s a problem too. Honestly, grades cause kids to take shortcuts. Instead of understanding and thinking critically about a topic, kids memorize what they need to know for the test. That too, is not learning.

I think grades are part of a bigger problem with how we view learning. As I mentioned in an earlier post, learning shouldn’t be viewed as a competition, which unfortunately, it is. But another problem is our attitudes that everything has to be measured, and that if it’s not measured its not important. The immeasurable aspects of one’s learning are the most important. That is how a kid interacts with information, people, and his own mind.

We have to stop being preoccupied with standardization, we have to stop being preoccupied with “seeing progress” through numbers, we have to let kids be kids. Let me learn how I want to learn. Value the things I value. My trip to the city is as important, if not more so, than my grade on the SATs. Think of what made your mind work it’s hardest when you were in high school. What you loved doing. The experiences that made you, YOU. Now realize that in those moments, you were learning more than you ever could have by just trying to get “good grades”. I want to learn. But if school stays this way, then I don’t want to go to school.

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Justin is an 11th grader at Syosset High School in New York. His frustration with school prompted him to start a blog entitled “My World As a Classroom” where he shares his feelings about school and learning. He feels that he learns best when he can follow his passions and explore his mind and new places.

How can they know,
how hard the burden?
How can they know,
how heavy the load?
Struggle finds a strong heart
and tears, rivers of love
and silence binds us all.
~ Susan Herrick

How can they know? That question has been an ongoing refrain in my head for some time now. Who are they? Students, all ages. What should they know? That is the question of our age, isn’t it?

How can they know? At the Making Connections conference earlier this month, Zoe Weil said the teaching profession has the most influence on our future, yet our current educational goals are not worthy of our students hearts and minds. Students aren’t learning about how our every day choices affect the world. We are not empowering them to investigate the impact of their own choices.

How can they know? At the Global Education Conference this past week, I had the privilege of moderating three youth-led sessions. Ms. Devlin’s 4th grade class shared their passion for service-based learning. Amanda, a high school student, shared her interest in building a global collaborative project with other students to bring global awareness into the classroom. Jordan, a college student, wants to expand upon his student-led World School Initiative. One constant that came shining through in all these sessions is that youth are passionate about and energized for making a difference in the world.

How can they know? My own experience with Project Justice has convinced me that student voices are powerful. As stereotypes were broken down and comprehension began to dawn, I saw first-hand the energy and passion of youth that was both inspiring and frankly a little overwhelming. Is that why we have such a difficult time appreciating the input, perspectives and contributions of our youth?

How can they know? Amanda is frustrated that lessons are stuck in the classroom, knowledge isn’t applied and students are unaware. Jordan kindly observed that even though “youth are uniquely equipped to think creatively and think outside the box… our voices have been a little muffled.”

guardrail by jakubson @ http://www.sxc.hu

How can they know? What role do we educators play in the acquisition of this knowledge? Jordan shared a great analogy for the role of adults: the student as the driver and the adults involved throughout their life act as guardrails. As educators, we can instruct on how to drive, point out landmarks, provide directions and stand as guardrails, but the student needs to be firmly in the driver’s seat.

They can know because we trust them enough to give them the opportunity. We can seek out the Jordan’s, Amanda’s and Ms. Devlin’s in the world and start sharing with and encouraging each other. I hope you will check out the wealth of resources as you prepare to stand guard: protecting and empowering a student’s voice.

Originally posted @ piecesofstardust.tumblr.com.