Student Voice as a "good thing"

If my “good thing” monitor is working then “Student Voice” has been re-branded and re-visioned and we are going to hear a lot more “Student Voice” stuff in the next 6 months.  

Calls for educators to listen to “Student Voice”  have been with us since Dewey .... This recent promotion of “Student Voice” is probably a response to the collective educational ennui over “personalisation” - the last “good thing” to be broadcast, MoE glossy pamphlet-ed, and edu_conference work shopped and keynoted across the conversational corridors of education in New Zealand. 

Much like personalisation  (see “Personalisation as education’s killer app”  ), “Student Voice” is one of those terms we assume is a “good thing” and as such is a term whose meaning is never interrogated and clarified ... we carelessly fling “Student Voice” around in educational conversations along with terms like “learning community” “child centered classrooms”, “inquiry learning”, "engagement,  or “relevant and authentic” ..... and we all take different meanings from what is said.

For example, listening to “Student Voice” (all that talking, laughing, crying, yelling, txting and whispering) is one thing .... acting upon “Student Voice” quite another .... 

For if we are only charged with listening the first thing you'd want to ask is whose voice are we listening to ...

'we must recognise that the school's embossed invitation to participate looks unfamiliar, unattractive, or out of reach to many students, especially those most in need of serious changes at their school.'  Elena Silva cited in Fielding 2001

And if we are only charged with listening with no expectation of action, the next thing we might ask is why those students who can see past the personal glory of being the chosen one ... the “safe one” invited to represent “student opinion” by those with institutional authority .... would continue to bother to share their voice ...

It is a bit like what happens to teachers who are consulted widely by SMT but find none of their suggestions acted upon ...

In truth there is a sad irony in hearing all these educators talk about the importance of “Student Voice” when so many of their colleagues work in schools where they lack “Teacher Voice”.   

Michael Fielding’s analysis is useful here, and his Framework for Assessing Student Voice pasted below is a great place to start looking at what is really happening in schools who claim to value “Student Voice”

Framework for Assessing Student Voice

Speaking

Who is allowed to speak?
To whom are they allowed to speak?
What are they allowed to speak about?
What language is allowed or encouraged?

Listening

Who is listening?
Why are they listening?
How are they listening?

Skills

Are the skills of dialogue encouraged and supported through training or other appropriate means?
Are those skills understood, developed, and practiced in the context of democratic values and dispositions?
Are those skills themselves transformed by those values and dispositions?

Attitudes and Dispositions

How do those involved regard each other?
To what degree are the principle of equal value and the dispositions of care felt reciprocally and demonstrated through the reality of daily encounter?

Systems

How often does dialogue and encounter in which Student Voice is centrally important occur?
Who decides?
How do the systems enshrining the value and necessity of Student Voice mesh with or relate to other organizational arrangements (particularly those involving adults)?

Organizational Culture

Do the cultural norms and values of the school proclaim the centrality of Student Voice within the context of education as a shared responsibility and shared achievement?
Do the practices, traditions, and routine daily encounters demonstrate values supportive of Student Voice?

Spaces and the Making of Meaning

Where are the public spaces (physical and metaphorical) in which these encounters might take place?
Who controls them?
What values shape their being and their use?

Action

What action is taken?
Who feels responsible?
What happens if aspirations and good intentions are not realized?

The Future

Do we need new structures?
Do we need new ways of relating to others?

From Fielding, M. (2001). “Beyond the rhetoric of Student Voice:new departures or new constraints in the transformation of 21st century schooling? Forum 43(2): 100-109. Pdf

 

In response to Fielding’s questions about new structures and new ways of relating to others ... I’d say yes, yes, yes ...

For calls for “Student Voice” in school, to have any credibility we need to see educational institutions where students are not only participating in the ways identified through the framework, they should also be participating in different contexts ...

“Student Voice” should see institutional structures develop where students are participating and contributing as:

teachers,
researchers,
planners of curriculum delivery,
appraisers of learning, classroom environments, classes offered and teachers,
decision makers on system-wide school issues around finances, budgets, employment, curriculum, pedagogy, technologies, property, health and safety ... 
advocates
etc etc

And when they participate, students need to see their contributions acted upon.

And even then, if the balance of authority means that what is acted upon is determined by teachers then it would seem fair to challenge the whole notion of “Student Voice”  ... to ask what exactly are “Student Voices” participating in.

Still this week I am more interested in exploring the other side of “Voice”  - in interrogating the many meanings of "Silence' .

and that is making me wonder about how we should understand “Student Silence”....