From student voice to student leadership

When did we first discover that children had something useful to say about their education? When did we first find out that children had an in-built propensity for leadership? Answers to this question would point to a literature extending back through A.S. Neill to Jean Jacques Rousseau and the ‘Romantic’ school of the nineteenth century in which the child and ‘his’ needs, desires and inherent vitality occupied centre stage. 

The re-invention of ‘voice’ in the Third Millennium covers a variety of interpretations,  ranging from the periodic gathering of survey data and formal consultation through pupil councils to school cultures in which pupils’ concerns and interests are embedded in the day-to-day flow of school and classroom life. Sir Ken Robinson, who chaired the Government Creativity Committee in the late 1990s, argued that all too often the inherent ‘genius’ which children bring with them to school was silenced early on in classroom life. It was, he contended, a learned silence, progressively internalised, diminishing children’s natural intelligence and making a mockery of the conceit of children ‘developing their full potential’. This is difficult, if not impossible, to realise, he maintained, within a pressurised curriculum in which teachers ask the questions (to which they already know the answers) rather than attending to questions which arise from students’ own inherent impulse to learn.

Research over the last decade (for example, Galton and MacBeath, 2008) confirms that the more structured, target and assessment-driven the curriculum, the less space there is for spontaneity of expression either on the part of teachers or children. Children quickly get to know where the boundaries are drawn and the amount of latitude that there is for negotiation. So student voice and student leadership find a more congenial place beyond the curriculum, in extra-curricular activities, clubs, sports, outdoor centres and school trips, in study support and in initiatives such as the Children’s University, Playing for Success, weekend and summer schools.

However, this does injustice to the many teachers in whose classrooms there is scope and latitude for open expression and honest feedback. It does injustice to classrooms in which there is enough trust for teachers and pupils to genuinely share their feelings and in which pupils are helped to develop a sense of self-identity and agency. This is what is meant by the misused and misunderstood term ‘dialogue’, a process which is not simply about speaking and listening but about a shared search for meaning and mutual understanding. It reconceptualises the 80/20 norm (80% teacher talk 20% pupil talk) to one in which 80% of teacher time is listening, listening for understanding, assessing for learning, evaluating for improvement. It is what Robin Alexander (2004) terms ‘dialogic teaching’.

Dialogue is at the very heart of the learning classroom and the learning school. It is integral to self-evaluation, not as a ritual data gathering exercise but as an ongoing activity integral to the process of learning and teaching, intrinsic in leadership, indispensable for school improvement. It is a term, however, much devalued by pre-determined criteria, by hand-me-down protocols, by the ritual administration of the Self Evaluation Form (the SEF) and through other forms of mechanistic audit prior to school inspection. School self-evaluation in its most meaningful sense is a process of reflection and conversation embedded in the day-to-day work of the classrooms, extending across subjects, and beyond school into homes and neighbourhoods, and in concert with local and national partners. It is  process that grows and flourishes when supported by external ‘review’ (a more friendly term than ‘inspection’),  a form of dialogue which takes as its focus the quality, rigour and ownership of the school’s own approach to evidence-based practice.

‘Voice’ is both integral to self-evaluation and a precondition for leadership. The ability to make one’s voice heard, but also to tune in to  voices different from one’s own, perhaps even views diametrically opposed, is an essential quality of leadership, whether exercised by headteachers, teachers, support staff or students.

What then is distinctive about student leadership? Students start from the disadvantage of having the least authority within the school hierarchy.  They sit for the most part on the very lowest ring of Schultz’s ladder of participation (figure 1) and only in rare circumstances do they aspire to the highest rung of decision-making. Rights and responsibilities are, in general, given rather than assumed. Historically, this has taken the form of prefects, in the worst (but not untypical cases) condoning a form of institutional bullying which was damaging in equal measure to those exercising power as to those subject to it.

In contemporary form, student leadership roles are exercised in student councils, as monitors, mentors or buddies, positions to which students are appointed or elected. However, when we look beneath the surface manifestations of status and hierarchy, into the ‘underlife’ of school and classroom, leadership may be perceived as something spontaneous, not always in consonance with the school’s priorities or teachers wishes but powerful nonetheless in shaping attitudes and relationships. It is crucial that we are able to discern the incipient flow of leadership activity and harness its potential power for constructive rather than destructive ends.

In a 2004 study for the National College of  School Leadership (NCSL), we identified six forms of distributed leadership from formal delegation to ‘spontaneous’ and ‘cultural leadership’. While the study was concerned primarily with heads, the way in which leadership is dispersed through the school applies with equal relevance to students. Spontaneous leadership refers to situations in which anyone without formal status or authority may take initiative on behalf of one’s peers or ‘superiors’. For example:

‘On a school trip a student falls in to the river. Standing around watching, deliberating, are teachers, support staff, students and a volunteer parent. The need for leadership, galvanizing the indecisive spectators into collective action is immediate. It is a student who is first to sum up the situation and to take action, directing the activity of those around her.’

There are many occasions within school life when spontaneous leadership may be exercised by students, often without permission – an intuitive impulse to do the right thing, to make good, to help a weaker colleague, to support a struggling member of staff. This is most likely to occur when there is ‘cultural leadership’, referring to a set conditions and norms which implicitly encourage students to take responsibility for their peers, to lead where leadership is warranted and to follow where following is necessary. Leading may be an individual or a shared activity. Talking to the press about his football team, Arsenal’s manager Arsene Wenger said: ‘Leaders are no longer a relevant to the way our team’ success. There are eleven players all of whom share leadership. That is what makes the team work’. In other words, leadership flows within the team organically as everyone maintains alert to where their team mates are, leading and following as occasion and opportunity demand.

The potential for student leadership is nowhere more graphically illustrated than in the Learning School, a truly ground breaking initiative now in its eighth year. The brainchild of Stewart, assistant headteacher in Anderson High School on the Shetland Isles, it offered to volunteer students a sabbatical year in which to conduct self-evaluation in classrooms throughout the world.  Every year in late August two or three Anderson High volunteers meet with their counterparts from Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Ireland, South Africa, the U.S. (in the past countries have included Hong Kong, Korea and Japan) to plan their research in each of the countries they will visit during the following months, spending four to six weeks in each school, supporting participating teachers and students in self-evaluation.

Gathering data, documenting the quality of life in classrooms and in the communities they serve requires these young people to develop a range of team working and leadership skills not previously available to them in their schools.  Travelling across the world, working together as a group, living with families in townships in South Africa and in Japanese households with no English spoken, dealing with crises, solving problems, negotiating their way through linguistic and cultural conventions demands a high level of adaptability and diplomacy. Acting as ethnographic researchers – able to perceive a Czech, German or South African student’s experience ‘from the inside’ in a range of differing cultural contexts has the effect of helping Learning School students to reflect critically on their own learning and sense of agency.

‘I have been researching and observing students learning but also learning myself. As I saw learning in five different schools and many classrooms I also saw what I would have been like in those situations and would have loved to have been able to evaluate own preferred style of learning. It has also made me appreciate that only so much is down to other people and that if you really want to succeed you need to put in the effort yourself and in the end you're the one who will benefit.’ (Robert, in interview, Cambridge, 2002)

Working together to analyse and synthesise their findings for disparate teacher, academic or policy-making audiences has brought a whole new raft of skills and insights. Preparing to speak in public, to give shape and voice to a complexity of ideas and impressions, to separate the objective from the subjective, to speak in two voices, one with academic distance, one fraught with emotion has, in the testimony of many, done most to raise their self-esteem and personal authority. Perhaps not surprisingly, LS students had to deal with resistance from teachers, in some cultural settings more overt, in others more difficult to perceive and interpret.

‘This year has allowed me to see things from a different angle and to realise that sometimes we place limitations on ourselves and that there is so much more that we can do.’ (Jolene in MacBeath and Sugimine, 2002 p. 38)

With a new meta-perspective on schooling, some of the Learning School students found it hard to re-adjust to the passivity and intellectual constraints of school life and the linearity of classroom learning. Others, though, have been able to channel their energy into changing their schools. It does not require a round the world trip to see opportunities for change although it undoubtedly accelerates the process. Schools and classrooms can be exciting and adventurous places when teachers and senior leaders overcome their fear of letting go.

For students, teachers and senior leaders it means shaping and continuously developing cultural contexts that both enable and challenge students to be more influential in their own and others’ learning. Enabling students to carry out research with the support of critical friends is a strategy that has proved effective in strengthening voice and nurturing the seeds of leadership. But teachers, too, need support in reframing their professional identity so that their authority is not threatened by sharing responsibility. The development of ‘cultural leadership’ takes time and patience, a willingness to deal with setbacks and disappointments, a long-term capacity building process but ultimately a highly rewarding one.

References

Alexander, R (2004). Towards dialogic teaching, Dialogos.
Galton, M & MacBeath, J (2008). Teachers under pressure, London, Sage.
MacBeath, J and Sugimine, H (2002). Self evaluation in the global classroom, London, Routledge.
Schultz, P (2003). ‘Students and democracy’. In J MacBeath and L Moos (Eds.) Democratic learning: the challenge to school effectiveness. London, Routledge.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor John MacBeath University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom.

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