The voice of young people in schooling transformation

How can we talk of a leadership role for young people in transforming schooling when we continue to use language that keeps them in subservient positions? What we are or more particularly, what our schools are, is so often defined by the language we use. This language defines our actions and, despite our intentions, we are patronising at best and, at worst, totally condescending.

This relates largely to our attitude towards legitimate sharing of authority.

Edna Aphek (2001) in discussing young people in the information age, talked about role reversal and the need for older people to share authority with younger people. The latter have so much more access to information and freedom of the mind than any other generation. Despite this, we still manage schools and the people within them so that anyone from the past 200 years would still recognise them and, indeed, if teachers would still know how to work in them. More sadly, many people in 2008 feel comfortable because schools still look and feel as they did when they went to school. Imagine their reaction if hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, retail stores, dentist surgeries, and so on, still felt and looked like they did even 20 years ago! Yet, many people still accept that schools do.

Lord David Putnam compared the 19th century operating theatre and classroom to the 21st century operating theatre and classroom and suggested that a surgeon from 1900 would be an exercise in futility, but a 1900 teacher would still be able to teach something. On a tangent, when was the last time a school teacher won a Nobel prize? On language, we still use words like ‘teacher’ to distinguish the adult in the room from the rest. We still use ‘student’, but aren’t we all still students or learners?  Some, particularly in the UK, still use the word ‘pupil’, implying the gap in status between the older and the younger person.

Rupert Murdoch, in the first of the 2008 Boyer Lectures, talked about the need to reform our ‘19th century’ education system. He says: ‘In short, we have a 21st century economy with a 19th century education system, and it is leaving too many children behind. That is an injustice to these citizens, and it puts a future burden on Australian society.’

I think central to this reform is ‘the voice of young people’. We are in a global knowledge economy and this has been brought home so much more by the current global economic crisis. In this economy, young people are accustomed to immediacy, freedom of mind and search (Google it!), instant communication, and close networking. They have enormous skill and I am tired of those people who say but they can’t use some of the software we use! Of course, many can’t but they sure learn it very quickly and use it when it is important to do so and also they then surpass our skills. The 21st century has given young people a greater sense of ownership of their own lives and I believe they use this ownership well. However, their schools do not allow them to be empowered. I sometimes hear the ‘odd’ principal talking about empowering young people or indeed, questioning why young people do not take the ownership they are being offered. At best, they will collaborate and share with us, but they are very tired of our ageing schooling philosophies.

They do not want ownership of ‘our schools’. To do this would have them rejecting their world, indeed the world of the 21st century. So, unless we are going to genuinely respect young people and their world and acknowledge the legitimacy of their voice, we will not have schooling transformation. This does not mean that student voice is always right, any more than the voice of any principal is always right. The right to have it listened to in a collaborative culture, however, is central to transformation.

Student voice is about the culture of the school. It is about how people listen and hear and whether as a single voice or a group voice you believe that you can make a difference. Of course, the adults in schools have to be part of this. It is very difficult to have student voice if school staff do not own their own jobs and feel able to make a difference. Staff will be scared of student voice if they have not been given the freedom, indeed the skill, to manage their own work. If staff doesn’t have this they will be out of step with the adult role models that young people get through interacting with their global society and the Internet.  This is not the problem of staff but that of leadership or lack of it. Education is one of the few, if indeed not the only industry where employees have not been empowered to make a difference as creative and collaborative individuals. Again, however, staff voice is not about a consensus view of the past but being required to manage themselves and their work.

So, I strongly advocate schooling transformation that has legitimate student voice at the centre of the school culture. This can be seen through the following.

• Collaboration policies and practices. At ELTHAM we have a policy from student council that says any policy that affects students must involve consultation with it. This is accepted.
• Freedom to make a difference. Our policy is simple: If it is within our strategic directions, consistent with our values and we can afford it, then do it. It applies to individuals and teams, staff and students.
• We apply our values and policies to everyone. Occupational health and safety does place a different responsibility on the adult. However, this is accepted as normal.
• Open doors: doors are not closed. We don’t use gatekeepers, although appointments at times apply. Further, all meetings are open unless personnel are being discussed.
• Young people are part of all committees. That they chose not to attend sometimes is their decision and no reason not to have students as equal members.
• Negotiate expectations
• Acknowledge and involve all groups in the school not just those appointed to or elected to leadership positions. As with politics, those elected rarely represent a good cross section of the population.
• Change the language. Young people are first and foremost people not students or pupils; ‘girls and boys’ puts them down. Get rid of the term ‘rules’, they rarely apply in society. We have expectations, guidelines, laws and they apply to everyone not just young people. Classrooms have expectations on all members.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr David Warner is Principal/CEO of ELTHAM College of Education and Melbourne City School. He is also author of ‘Schooling for the knowledge era’ (ACER Press 2006).

 

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