#edlead

Engage students as citizens.

Peter Horn, Ed.D. 

To engage students as citizens, educators must design school experiences so students see themselves as having power to change the world.

If that sounds grandiose, consider that one place "the world" begins for us is school. Despite the popular distinction between "school" and "the real world," school is the world kids know for a significant percentage of their waking hours as they grow up.

If they come to understand that their views and actions can make a difference at school, they will be much likelier to believe they can make a difference in the larger community as adults. Here are 9 ways to start:

CLASSROOM LEVEL 

Respect their input about teaching. Click for a quick strategy teachers can use today. 

Debate less, dialogue more. Move beyond artificial debates with “winners” and “losers” (points scored, face lost). Instead, support discussions in which students learn to help each other think through matters of genuine and mutual interest. Yes, this is a tall order: facilitating a meaningful discussion is one of the most rewarding things a teacher can do--but it's also one of the most difficult to master. Explicit coaching is necessary to develop this capacity.

Develop critical literacy strategies. Put simply, critical literacy pushes beyond mastery of decoding and comprehension to develop students' ability to engage a range of texts (from science textbooks to poems to pop-up Internet ads) and ask critical questions about authorship, implicit assumptions, and consequences. See related poster above, and this brief video by the poster's designer, Professor Susan Sandretto of the University of Otago (New Zealand). 

Solicit student viewpoints across the curriculum. Students can practice skills relating to civil discourse in every subject area, from pros/cons of vitamin supplements in Physical Education to differing strategies for solving a proof in Geometry Honors. 

Let students co-create learning experiences. Many teachers ask students to give oral presentations, but comparatively few seek out students' input in developing essential questions for exploration or designing labs or planning units. Education philosopher and champion of democracy John Dewey wrote, "There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active co-operation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying."*

SCHOOL LEVEL 

Invite students to participate on school committees. If you have a committee for an issue where student voice could valuably inform discussion (e.g. academic integrity, stress, homework, mission statement), invite students to join as panel-presenters or members. 

Model civic dialogue. Beginning shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, I co-moderated a forum for political discussion open to the entire community of the public high school where I was teaching. Here we practiced civic dialogue: non-threatening, respectful conversations about topics that are difficult to talk about. We stressed listening, reason-giving, and taking others' views seriously. In addition to discussions of war and peace, we took up topics along the gamut of same-sex marriage, racism, the U.N. oil-for-food scandal, grade reporting, elitism, and the observation of Columbus Day.  

Make public art. Many schools honor student expression via formal outlets like literary magazines, fall dramas and spring art shows, but also important are informal coffeehouses and other spaces for students to make and exhibit their own ideas about the world. In the spring of 2013, a group of teachers collaborated to build public questions around how and what we see. What was especially cool about this project was how easily all members of the school community could include their own views--and eyes! Click for link. 

Let students lead. Especially given our increasingly digital world, students have a great stake in relevant preparation with respect to technology and innovative thinking. In the alternative education setting I used to direct, teachers identified a team of students to pilot our 1:1 laptop initiative. These students met our expectations that they set and solve problems, and gradually lean in toward their leadership potential as they helped us plan how to scale up from 8 participants to 91. 

*Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Touchstone.