Shulman 18
“How can student voice be used to create a positive school culture?”
Marc Shulman
Integrated Math/Science
High Tech Middle Media Arts
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of student voice at High Tech Middle Media Arts and to see how it can be used to positively improve the culture of the school. Three focus teachers (including me), the director, and 125 students participated in this action research project and helped examine the effects that student voice had on a school's culture. Through surveys, interviews, and group forums, students discussed how to better the school, where they felt they were heard in the school, and who they felt comfortable talking with in the school. Findings indicate that there was a direct relationship between student voice and school culture; opportunities where teachers and students can build deep relationships emerged as well. The main theme that surfaced was that when students have a voice in their school, a sense of pride, engagement, preservation and self-advocacy emerges leading to a school with motivated students.
Introduction
Research Question: “How can student voice be used to create a positive school culture?”
In March of 2008, I experienced something that I will never, in my life, forget. A day in my life that will forever change the way I teach my students. I realized the value of a loving culture and a student’s desire to be heard.
This happened in Gaithersburg, Maryland, when I visited my old school where I began my teaching career. As I walked into the school, almost immediately the secretary began to tell me about all of the issues and problems facing the current students and staff. Behavior issues leading to suspensions and expulsions were on the top of the list.
I wanted to visit an old colleague of mine, Paul, and as I walked into his classroom, I felt like I was in some WWE cage match. The students were out of control. It seemed that Paul had lost control of his class. As the class left, I asked Paul what was going on in the school. He said that he felt completely unsupported by administration to regain control. He continued to say that administration is simply kicking students out and that all students needed was to be loved and nurtured, “things we aren’t allowed to do.”
I wanted to speak directly with the students to get their perspective of the school’s current situation. Paul rounded up several students, all very different academically and socially, and we began to talk. I began asking them about the school community and their perception of it. All of the students had very similar answers; that a positive school community is a place where students and staff can interact without anyone getting in trouble all the time, a place where everyone is supported by everyone, and a place where you can feel safe. My old school was officially not a positive school community, not a safe place to be, not a place where everyone felt supported.
Throughout the interview, the students kept saying that the school needed to change. The school needed to be a place where they can learn, a place to feel safe, a place to be heard. The students were ready to make a change within their school. One student said, “I go to Mr. B [principal] and he keeps shutting us down. He won’t even listen or give the ideas a chance.” I left them saying, “Hang in there; you also have the power to change this place.” Students talk, they have opinions, and if we were to listen to them, how powerful could that be? But, they are only kids, right? What do they know?
This experience opened my eyes to the way a school culture is created and not maintained. In schools all over the country, many students have valuable ideas, but are not being heard to the degree where their input is making major changes in schools. Too many schools are suffering from a culture that is not safe, not balanced, and not loving.
This experience led me to where I am now, to my current thesis question, which builds my desire to incorporate those students who want to be heard in creating a place that is safe, loving, and nurturing. Who knows the student body better than students themselves?
Thesis Question: “How can student voice be used to create a positive school culture?”
I wanted to organize a group of student representatives from each grade level. Students had to apply and interview to become a representative. It was a student government of sorts, but with no titles given (i.e. President, V. President, Treasurer, etc.) I did not want students to have a stigma of superiority over fellow representatives.These students met with me and two other teachers weekly (on Tuesdays, during staff Study Group meetings) and attempted to attend staff meetings on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month (due to many scheduling conflicts, this only occurred one time).This was an ideal forum for students to share concerns, questions, ideas and thoughts of our student body. The representatives also met with adults within the school community to gain insight on their ideas and hear about any school news, disciplinary issues, information from staff meetings, and anything they felt is necessary to continue ensuring a positive school community. Like Debbie Meier said, “There’s a radical—and wonderful—new idea here…that all children could and should be inventors of their own theories, critics of other people’s ideas, analyzers of evidence, and makers of their own world. It’s an idea with revolutionary implications, if we take it seriously.” (Meier, 2002)
If we can listen to our students, have meaningful discussions in a professional setting (not only in the classroom), really listen to them and move forward with their ideas, we can create a student centered community and a positive school culture where students are motivated to succeed.
Lit Review
Why is it important to involve students in the decision making processes of the school?
Students in schools are inventors, critics, analyzers, and leaders. By stifling their voice, we are putting all of our schools at a disadvantage. Students are the reason schools exist, so why not put them in the driver’s seat and include their input into the decision making processes. Learning must be rooted in the experiences that students come from. School is an example of an experience that students have in common. Creating a positive experience for all students, where they are involved and feel meaningful to the bigger picture is an experience I am attempting to create. Currently around the world, there is widespread effort to engage students in the improvement of school communities. (Freire, 1998.) Students are beginning to play larger roles in schools, becoming stakeholders of their communities rather than bodies in a classroom.
I wanted to see a place that students created, a place where students are proud to be, and a place where each and every child feels safe to speak his or her mind. I have seen brilliant students, who have much to offer, sitting silent, feeling afraid to speak out. As educators, we must realize that students have a unique, critical perspective on the way they learn, the way we teach, and their school environment/community. When adults think of students, they think of them as beneficiaries of change. They rarely think of students as participants in a process of school change and organizational life (Fullan, 1991.) Their thoughts and ideas demand not only our attention, but responses too. Students need to be given the opportunity to actively shape their community within the school they attend.
Educational philosophers such as Johann Friedrich Herbart and Jean-Jacques Rousseau have claimed that children are basically good, should be nurtured and allowed to learn in their own ways at their own pace, and if properly nurtured, will act morally according to their own free will (Herbart, 1901; Rousseau, 1965). John Dewey sustained this idea, pushing student-centered education and rejecting the thought that kids are blank slates and empty vessels to be filled (Dewey, 1964). Students have much to say. They are vessels filled with a world of knowledge and information they experience and swallow daily.My vision was that by having students involved in the decision making processes of HTMMA, students and adults could form powerful partnerships to improve the community of our school.
Research generally indicates that students are still not participating enough in their own schooling. Student participation in schooling is critical to meeting student needs because quality educational outcomes are best achieved by harnessing student motivation through participation (Boomer, Lester, Onore, & Cook, 1992; Broadfoot, 1991; Glasser, 1990; Nixon, 1996). I feel that if students participate more in their classroom and school, such as being involved in the decision making processes, this will help to create a positive school culture. By increasing student voice and increasing student involvement within classrooms and the school as a whole, I hope to see a culture that embraces the student body. When students are involved in the decision making processes of the school (i.e. social functions, scheduling, organization of events, leadership roles, discipline, budgeting, etc.,) other students will have more people to look up to rather than just staff members.
What happens when students become more involved?
When students become more involved in the decision making processes of the school, many meaningful results occur, such as the following, from (Fletcher, 2005)
1. Students become allies and partners with adults in improving schools.
2. Students become trained and have authority to create real solutions to the challenges that schools face in learning, teaching, and leadership.
3. Student-Adult partnerships become a major component of every sustainable, responsive, and systematic approach to transforming schools.
When students become more involved in the operations of their school, new partnerships and relationships arise. This puts students in a place where they work closely with professionals and provides them with a forum to practice what we teach them.
Efforts to promote student engagement and voice are evident in many schools all over the world. In Canada, including student voice on district school boards was mandated by the Ontario Education Act in 1998. Students in each one of the 72 provincial school boards are represented by a 'pupil representative', commonly called "Student Trustee". They are meant to represent the needs and concerns of students in discussions with the school board administration and the province. In England, the English Secondary Student's Association is the representative body for high school students. Its goal is to support students in expressing their views about education by providing workshops and a network of support with other secondary school students. In the United States, Sound Out and What Kids Can Do are nonprofit education programs solely focused on engaging student involvement and adult-student partnerships throughout education. Sound Out and What Kids Can Do both work with students, educators, administrators, policy-makers, and academics to raise the profile, substance, and effect of student involvement in K-12 settings across the country.
While all of these schools are very different in their own right, they all have very similar key characteristics that I planned to find in my own school. Many students in many grades are engaged in education system-wide planning, research, teaching, evaluating, and decision making. Students’ ideas, knowledge, opinions and experience are validated and authorized through adult acknowledgment of students’ ability to improve schools. Students are incorporated into ongoing, sustainable school improvement activities in the form of learning, teaching, and leadership in schools. Students and adults acknowledge their mutual role as important stakeholders and their mutual dedication in improving learning, relationships, practices, policies and school culture. The final common characteristic between many schools around the world who are attempting to increase student engagement and voice is that classroom learning and student involvement are connected by ensuring relevancy for educators and significance to students (Fletcher, 2005.)
After compiling many different sources who agree that student involvement and voice are important to a school’s culture, all see different, yet positive outcomes with different affected areas within a school community. ‘Student learning’ is one area affected when students are more involved. Students become more invested in academic achievement, there is a gain in test scores, there are typically, higher graduation rates, and overall increased student engagement (Dean, L.; Murdock, S. 1992.) Students who take leads in school organizations and activities become one of many architects in building collective student identity. Particularly, it helps solidify for students their place and importance within a school. (Mitra, D. 2008) Other positively affected areas are the positive relationships between students and adults in schools and the community. Students gain a higher level of ownership in their school, gain an increase in a feeling of belonging and motivation, and they identify with their educational goals (Wilson, B.; Corbett, H.D. 2001.) What sparked my interest is how school culture is affected. There is a positive and productive climate within the school community. New resources emerge for the student body as students begin to share responsibilities. Rather than solely relying on the adult staff, students begin to rely on students for help and guidance. And finally, there is a stronger relationship between students and adults (Freire, 1998.)