Jeepers, there’s a lot of schools out there trying to do something about Student Voice as a key objective in their strategic plans.
Which kind of tells me that there might be something wrong with the way we collect data on this topic – but that’s probably a topic for another Home Truth.
Rather than seek to organise enormous Student Voice conferences with inspirational speakers or have students on your Executive Leadership Team (they’re not qualified, by the way) and leaving teachers feeling that their authority is being diminished – here’s three simple things you can do to elevate Student Voice in an easy and high-return way.
- Use circles for more of your classroom instruction. Your students will feel that they are doing education with their teachers, rather than feeling that it’s doing done to them.
- Teach them conflict resolution techniques. Almost nothing deflates the feelings of fairness and being heard like an arbitrary authority figure casting judgment over your truth.
- Adopt a decent Student Leadership Model. Rather than resign your student leaders to wandering the school asking people how many jellybeans are in this jar, have them accessed to a model focused on:
- Leadership Skill Development
- Community Contribution
- Representation
That’s pretty much it. Student Voice elevation needn’t be much more than that.
Keep fighting that good fight,
PS. We’ve developed just such a SLC program and we’d like you to have it. Email us and we’ll flick it your way.
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