Student Government and a Democratic Education

Speaker 1 Hey. The Human Restoration Project just launched a funding drive to keep delivering quality content like this podcast to you. In addition to our podcast, free resources, thoughts, research, professional development, and more, we're looking at expanding our organization. We're building up our infrastructure to market to a larger audience, incorporate as a five zero one c three, hire editors and artists, and build a conference of micro credentialing suite. Imagine your favorite progressive ideas available through certifications that could be presented for continuing education credits or job resume builders. We want our content to resonate and ripple across the world and your contribution gives us the resources to make that happen and all of this isn't cheap to do. A few dollars is all that it takes. If every episodic podcast listener gave us $3, we would meet all of these goals and more within one month. All $3 patrons will receive a human restoration project sticker from us, plus continually you'll receive goodies over the course of the year. We we really deeply appreciate you. This podcast is brought to you by Burton Hable, Dustin Rideout and Susan Michelle Harrison. Thank you for your support. If you would like to keep our endeavor going and push for a narrative of change that focuses on systemic shifts and not just small strategies to tweak around the edges, visit our website at humanrestorationproject.org. Hello, and welcome to season three episode 16 of Things Fall Apart, our podcast of the Human Restoration Project. My name is Chris McNutt and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio. In this discussion, we're talking to two incredible individuals about democratic education. What it truly means to engage students in the classroom that not only hear students, but actively involves them in the schooling process. We often think of democratic education as student government where students are sadly often pigeon held into glorified party planning committees that really do very little. But what if things could be different? First, what if we establish democratic norms in our classroom where students are on equal footing with us to discuss curriculum and classroom changes, where the topics we discuss in class and the assignments that are given are a contract between the two of us, you know, our job as educators is to support rather than tell people what to do. And then what if we built student governments that operate in the school as an actual government, as in they had a place with the school board. And if they don't get what they want, they protest. They demand things that every human being has the right to have. And this is often against what, you know, a legacy administrator would want. After all phones, that's their property, so they should let them be used. Dress code, well, that's part of the first amendment. Emotional well-being, well, who really cares about grades when people are stressed and anxious as the ever increasing majority of teenagers are. These issues matter deeply to students and they should matter to us as well. The people in our classrooms are people, they're human beings and they deserve the same respect that any individual has. Sometimes, yeah, they're students and they might push boundaries and they might get on our nerves, but they still should have the rights that they're beholden to, especially when these rights are needed to navigate our ever changing world. The state of democracy in the modern world is dismal to say the least. No matter the political party, people aren't happy with the representatives, money corrupts the system, people don't have their even most basic needs met in some of the richest countries on earth. Despite social studies being taught to practically every student, voting in The United States is still relatively uncommon and people rarely demand change. Yes, we're seeing an influx of young people taking a stand, but imagine if all young people were given the opportunity to express themselves and recognize their voice matters and is heard. The world will be radically different and for the better. First, have Carla Marshall who has worked in various IB programs across Switzerland, Germany, and Hong Kong and is currently the head of curriculum development and research and vice principal at United World College Southeast Asia in Singapore. Carla is an expert at preparing students for a flourishing democracy.

Speaker 2 I've been traveling and working in different schools in Asia and Europe for the past thirteen years, but I'm originally from California, so born and raised there. And that's really where I initially became interested in progressive education, as a child actually, because I was lucky enough to go to a wonderful, small, progressive school in Los Angeles. And in that school environment, we learned through, you know, long year long themes. Learning was integrated, and we really had a lot of opportunities to kind of stretch and extend our thinking through the arts, woodworking, music, drama. I even remember being in second grade and sitting by myself or next to a friend in the courtyard between classrooms with my sawhorse, my c clamp, and a saw while working on woodworking projects, and I'm not really sure that that would happen today. It's called, Westland. And what's really interesting is, I kept quite a, you know, loose association with the school. Like, as I was getting older and I finished my teaching certification, and then I wrote something on kind of some of the powerful moments I had around, like, dramatic representation of doing, you know, kind of interpretive dance around the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous period, learning about dinosaurs when I was in grade three or whatever, and, wrote a piece and sent it to my old teachers who happened to still be there, which was amazing. And I think about two or three years ago, I had a look at the website. And, what's really interesting is some of the same, structures or student experiences that I had as a student still exist there now, which is just amazing to think you have that kind of continuity of experience, because they really feel like they've

Speaker 1 crafted something special. So let's open up with the state of education and how democratic education connects with neoliberalism and what the current state of democratic education is when there's just so much corporate connection to school such as career ready education. Although I I don't take any issue with the idea of having students learning how to work, When it's the sole focus, I wonder how that's affecting how democracy functions and how learners see themselves.

Speaker 2 What do you think of of that connection? I think today, you know, we're hearing a lot about the need to prepare students for the, you know, quote unquote world of work. I mean, this is something that I've heard many, many times going to conferences and hearing, you know, oh, they need to know coding. Oh, they need to know robotics. So that, like, the the heavy, heavy STEM, kind of push that's being brought into schools, which is which is great. Of course, we want our students to be able to get employment and remain agile in changing economic circumstances. But we also want them to be good people, good citizens who are able to protect and develop democratic institutions. So, you know, going back to John Dewey, and he describes education as a social function where the youth learn from adults how to support the flourishing of society. So it's not just about my education is preparing me to be able to get a job. It's really about how do we really take into account the fact that our learners are the sole future representatives of the democracies that they will inevitably serve in the future. And for this reason, learners need to be initiated into the ways of being that support society and be given authentic

Speaker 1 opportunities to be part of this process. And my personal connection to this is I work at a a public STEM school, and you know the STEM initiative was brought out of this need for career readiness which is a constant balancing act of understanding that STEM is certainly the focus but also we have to recognize that STEM jobs aren't necessarily the end all be all and there's a lot more important things than just the world of work or being quote unquote, like, your future ready. Being a STEM school, I don't think that that's,

Speaker 2 like a make or break. Like, if you're a STEM school, you can't be teaching democratic education because I think it actually has to do with the way that we are kind of intentionally creating social structures that would enable students to become active members of society. So if we kind of work backwards from that in terms of what it looks like, if we if we ask ourselves the question, what makes healthy democracies? It's like, okay. Well, it's equality and voice. So to what extent do students' voices value are valued equally? Diversity in thought and opinion. So, like, to what extent do does student learning encourage diversity in thinking or the sharing of ideas or the wrestling with opinions? Active participation. So to what extent do are students encouraged to actively participate? And I don't just mean, like, raising their hands in a classroom setting, but really in a hands on way where they can, shape things within the school environment. And then, of course, the point you made earlier around agency and self efficacy. So, you know, to what extent do students feel that their actions can actually make a difference in the world? You know, are they apathetic? Which, you know, I think comes from a place of believing that, you know, their actions are meaningless, or do they truly feel that they can enact change? So I think if you you can distill it, those things would be what we would look for in a democratic education. You know, students feel they have a voice, that their voice isn't more or less important than than others, that they're encouraged to explore diverse perspectives, participate actively,

Speaker 1 and develop their sense of agency and self efficacy kind of along the way. And to make room for this style of education, I wonder how we can systemically restructure schools to ensure that these democratic ordeals are not only enabled, but there's enough time to really holistically get to know students and support their well-being. Realistically, a democratic education at most schools is just a a glorified student council in like an AP government class. Although there's pockets of cool work going on with student governments, it is not mainstream. So what structures would you see as a barrier to allowing this to happen? As in, what could you get rid of in order to support a cause like this? It's interesting, like, what to get rid of as opposed to what to keep or to enhance

Speaker 2 in your environment. I guess, you know, what you just described around tokenistic student council experiences. I mean, if we say that our social structures within the school environment are teaching our students about democracy, then having a kind of powerless student council without any decision making power besides, you know, this is the theme of the the dance is not really, sending the the message, I think, that we want for our students today. I think, you know, it comes down to considering those natural power differentials within the school environment. So the way that teachers naturally have more power than students, how can they shift some of that power to students so that you can build more, equality within classroom environments? And I don't think that has to be, you know, big kind of huge events. It can be the small things that really make a difference. So, you know, I teach seventh grade social studies, and we start every lesson in a circle. So there's no you know, this is the most important person sitting at the front, and we're all sitting on stools. We're all sitting on the same stools, which are slightly uncomfortable, you know, so I'm sitting with them on the same stools. I'm not sitting in my cushy teacher chair, which says, you know, well, you guys can sit on the hard stools, and I'm gonna sit on the nice chair. Like, what's the message that we're sending students there? So that's very small, but I think it sends a message around the way that power is shared within that classroom environment. And in the same way, you know, when you have discussions with students, does every student comment ping pong back to the teacher, or is there a way that you can have authentic dialogue where students are then calling on their peers after they've spoken? You know? So I really have tried hard with my students, and they're not used to this. So it takes a little bit of time, to say, you know, okay. You're not talking to me. We're we are a community of learners. When we're having a discussion, I expect that we're all listening because we can learn from each other, you know, this idea that learning is social. So when someone speaks, they get the chance to call on someone else, And, you know, we talk about what are some of the ways that we can respond to people by saying, you know, I would like to connect to or I agree with or I would like to disagree because, you know, giving students those stems to be able to, engage in effective discussion is, I think, really important for them to see what it looks like to have healthy discourse, which is part and parcel of having, you know, a healthy democratic institution. Because it's not about polarizing views and saying, you're wrong, you're right. Right? It's about understanding that there are multiple perspectives that may be valid for different reasons and, taking the opportunity to think about why someone may think something different than you actually expands your understanding of the the issue or the the topic. You know what? I I hear what you're saying resonates

Speaker 1 with me when it comes to that neoliberal connection. We often say to students, complete your work, and I I do it still sometimes, I try to catch myself because the implication of relating work to learning has a lot of hidden messages. Are our students employees that should be punished when they don't meet our expectations? Is school a place to mirror the workforce? And and even then, is school a place that's meant to change that in societal

Speaker 2 norm that work should be seen like this? I was nodding my head when you were talking about saying to students, complete your work, do your work, here's your work, because I think it also hides what we would like students to be doing, which is, you know, engaging in some thinking processes. You know, if if the work is to analyze or to contrast or to think about, you know, consider, then using more specific verbs actually helps students know what success looks like. So partly, it's about being fair to them in terms of what we're asking them to do. But then I also agree with you that when we call things work, sometimes it can also be perceived as burden burdensome. And we want the learning to be an you know, in an environment where students are motivated, where they see the relevance of their learning to things outside the classroom. And so being very conscientious about the way that we introduce tasks, I think, is is definitely part of it. In terms of the debate piece, I was actually having a conversation about this the other day because someone said, you know, there's a history of debate. You know, debate has been around for a long time in secondary education, and it's absolutely true. And I my personal issue with it is when it like what you said, it's about winning the debate by taking one viewpoint and then kind of needing to break down the viewpoint of the other. And I think there are a lot of really nice ways that you can modify that. So I do four corner debates quite often in my classroom, which, you know, are the there are four corners of your room, strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. So it's more like a spectrum. And then you you read out a provocative statement. So for example, you could say, in the middle ages unit that we're teaching right now, you know, feudalism, was more a uniting force than a dividing force. And then they have to go to their corner, and they have to say, you know, talk to the person there. Why are you there? But the most important part of that is that then we have our discussion where it's like, okay. Why did you decide to go to strongly agree? Let's share that with the class. How does that compare to the people and disagree? Does anyone wanna move? Has anyone's perspective changed as a result of the conversation? Go ahead and move corners. That's totally fine. And it's not about someone winning or losing. It's about stretching our thinking, being able to provide evidence for the reasons why we think certain things. So I would have criteria for students on the board. I want you to say what you believe and why you believe that. You know, in the case study, dot dot dot, we saw, and then they have to kind of give some examples that would ground or support their thinking. So you have things like that, and then you also have, more structured tasks like, you know, the structured academic controversy tasks where students are given you know, it's more of a kind of a reading and writing, task than it is a speaking and listening one. But I think being sure as practitioners that it's not about polarizing opinions. It's about understanding how people may have different perspectives for different reasons based on their, you know, who the stakeholder is in the environment. And there's a few programs that have really nice resources around that, like, the Brown University Choices program. They've got some really nice activities for, like, a climate change example. We had, a unit last year on climate change, and it was, okay. Think about, you know, the the perspective of the person in the NGO, the perspective of someone working for the oil company, the perspective of someone in government. What do you think that these individuals would say is the best way to try to tackle this? Is it, you know, all countries pay? Is it just that the people who created the most emissions pay? Is it no one pays and we just go on with development because there are developing nations that will be hurt if there's any kind of, you know, change to the current structures? And I think activities like that make it really clear that sometimes you choose a particular outcome or solution based on your your perspective as an individual in your role in society.

Speaker 1 For educators who want to promote a learning style like this, where would they start? I know many schools function like this fully, like a subpar school, but there's plenty of public schools that need just a starting point. What would an educator do? You know, the the best place to start is probably

Speaker 2 your own school, your own school context and you might have some individuals within that context that are interested in something similar. So and the reason I say that is that I think it will look different in every school because every school is unique and dynamic and changing. And if you have, you know, a teacher down the hall that's trying some things with you, then you also have that camaraderie that you're doing something together and can collaboratively work on it and discuss it. So I think it's that question of to what degree can some of these questions be brought into collaborative planning meetings when they happen in the school environment. So really asking yourself, okay. So let's go over our unit that we're teaching. To what extent are we gathering student voice? You know, to what extent are students experiencing a diversity in opinion and thought? To what extent are we asking student hate, you know, through the creation of projects or or other means? And to what extent do they have some agency over their learning? And that alone, having that as a kind of litmus for a unit, I think would have, you know, produced some great conversations that it doesn't have to be earth shattering what the changes may be in the classroom. It could be those small tweaks where it's, oh, well, originally, was going to do, you know, this particular activity, but instead, I'm only gonna provide, you know, the first half, and then they're gonna have to do some research on their own, and then they can choose what they'd like to study. I mean, it's those things where you can creatively design together. So I think that's probably the first port of call. And then, of course, online, there's a bunch of places to go. So I mentioned the the choices program, which I think is really great for social studies educators that I would highly recommend. They do have a lot of resources online, which are are free and easy to access. Then there's some other you know, depending on what you're looking at and interested in, there are some other resources about kind of like the Harkness method, which is like the spider web discussion or Socratic dialogue or just Socratic discussion. I think there's a lot online for that as well. So I guess I would start there, and then probably in the process of looking, you'd go down that rabbit hole of the the World Wide Web and find a bunch of other stuff that it would be helpful.

Speaker 1 Again, I want to remind you about our funding drive. Our work can take off as much as our Patreon subscribers can allow it to be, and some of this stuff really does require some serious financial backing. One thing that we're really excited about is micro credentialing, which was actually connected to us via Carly Marshall. We wanna find ways to connect CEUs, professional development, digital badging, and more to our existing and future resources. By doing so, not only do we reward the efforts of educators seeking this form of education, we also encourage building leaders to utilize progressive ed and attract educators who might just not have any experience in this field. By contributing $3 a month, you will help spark this initiative and allow it to come to life. Visit us on our website at humanrestorationproject.org to learn more. Our next guest is Merritt Jones, who is the executive director of the student led organization Student Voice. Mera is in her third year at Duke and has been involved with the organization since high school. Student Voice, which you can find at stu,stu,voice.org, in my opinion is one of the most interesting and exciting organizations currently in development. Not only is it run by students, it provides a beautiful website full of exciting resources, amazing student written articles, and materials for supporting student led chapters that honestly do disrupt the flow of traditional schooling. I want to take a second and read the student bill of rights, which is student voices major initial resource which has links to projects that students are currently working on surrounding it plus resources to support these ideas in a classroom setting. So they exist of access and affordability for an equitable education. Civic participation for students with equal rights, the ability for students to influence decisions, a focus on deeper learning, a need for diversity and inclusivity, a right to do process, freedom of expression, and access to modern technology and a mentally, physically, and emotionally safe positive school culture.

Speaker 3 So civil rights is really the first thing we developed as an organization. Back in 2015, our the founders of the organization have been talking to folks about, you know, we needed to have a platform or something we stood for. And so I took a gap year before starting college in 2016. And during that gap year, a colleague and I were on the road talking to students and having them vote. And so this originally started as a voting platform. It was 12 rights that a team created, from some field testing and focus groups we had done. And then we, I guess, field tested those out across The US since we were visiting schools. We had a couple thousand students vote, I think, five or 6,000, if I'm correct, vote on the rights, and and we saw what trends and got some feedback on the language. And so what you see today is a revised version from that very original should go on rates. And so I I can talk about, specifically, some of the ones that constantly emerge. And these are just things that we really wanted to create because, you know, we would go and have these conversations with students, and the education system is so big and has so many, like, issues. And so I think it was really helpful for us to create a tool that said, where do we get started? Like, pick one spot and think about something you are personally passionate about and something you wanna address. And so constantly, the top three voter rights are or have been historically civic participation, modern technology, and free expression. And then diversity inclusivity is usually high too depending on the school population. But all of these, we agree, are just absolutely fundamental to a quality education. So we've developed some resources around those that if you, like, click on each right, then you can see some of the guides that we've created over the years and some of the conversations and pieces students have written to go along with them. But we really we really just use it as a frame for all of our programs to have a starting place for students to think about this really massive system. And I love this explicit focus on encouraging students to take charge

Speaker 1 in their own hands and adopt these policies within their schools. We've seen students take charge at the global level and such as leading protest and activism but we haven't really seen much report on when it comes to students radically changing their educational environment. How has student voice implored students in order to make these changes? We've seen a lot of really great local change happen

Speaker 3 because we go into schools, especially as we've been on tour having conversations on the ground. You know, we use these as a framework for hosting rounds of discussions where we have students speak critically about their education. Because we know in schools, students are asked to think critically about everything about education. So providing that space has really done some cool work, and I can speak to a couple of those things. School climate and, as one of the rights ends up being one that students really like to tackle. And so we've seen students helping take charge of that and especially around mental health, which is something we hear in almost every school we visit. Students are struggling with that. Some of that is why have two students helping work with district officials to help advocate for funding grow funding allocation for additional guidance counselors. Some of that might be just students working with admin teams to switch up the way lunch is done so that students have greater free time during the day and more flexibility. So that has to do with scheduling, which we can't really see as an issue. It's because sometimes it's peer to peer education. You know, some schools are not resource rich. And so students are taking that into their own hands by creating workshops for each other. And then doing these brown tables, we found to be, like, a really cathartic starting process to just, like, being able to talk about what you feel like is going on. So those are some of the things around mental health or staying happen. But we're seeing a lot of students, of course, take up the issue of dress code and create more equitable policies. And we've kind of started as we've been traveling, keeping a bank of resources, and policies that we think are good to help share. And so that policy starts when, you know, somebody says, we don't like the dress code policy, and then we can share policies that we think are more equitable for students and better embrace diversity and and gender and culture. And so those are a few things that we're thinking about. And let's go broader too when you start see some of our partner organizations do really broad institutional work. Like, in Kentucky, they're doing just really deep work through the project community voice team at a state level, restoring need based funding to students through lottery systems, which was a big campaign that happened a couple years ago. So on the affordability access and affordability piece. And then they're also starting a pilot where they're doing school climate audits, where students are auditing their own schools, and doing surveys and and collecting data to be able to present back to principals to talk about school climate.

Speaker 1 Right. And this concept of having students actively involved in your organization both virtually, but also physically through the chapter system is a really unique spin for a nonprofit to be working nationwide.

Speaker 3 I think the one thing that's really important for us as we've grown over the years is to have in person engagement. And at this point in the game, you know, we're engaging thousands of students directly and and through in person events every year. And we've been really fortunate to get funding to make that happen, like the tour we've been on. So we often, especially in communities, try to have a school visit, but then often those are coupled with events like town halls or some kind of a community event where we're bringing together local organizers or existing student groups. And a lot of times, these are traditionally education improvement groups, which has been really cool. Like, we were in Waterloo, Iowa, which is one of the most segregated cities. You probably have heard of Nicole Hannah Jones. That is her hometown. And we host an event there with students, from both sides of the river who go to different schools. And it was the first time, you know, these things have been able to have conversations, about what their vastly different school experiences were like. In a lot of ways that change has been happening in that community is through empowering youth with the art. And they've given young people the space to paint murals and to just have a space to make and create art, which has been a really cool thing to watch happen on the ground. So the these events can take a lot of forms. Like, we'll be in DC in a couple of weeks having kind of our wrap up to this tour in the form of International Students Day, But chat rooms every year on November 17, we try to do some kind of programming. But this will bring students together from our tour and from, you know, years of engagement to really have hard conversations about the schools today. The last time we did this in person convening was right after the election in 2016. And so it's kind of seeing, you know, where we've where are we since then, and how has the climate of school changed. And then just really trying to decide where we go from there, what can we do collectively, what can we do locally, and making sure that we're, just supporting each other in the in the work that we're doing and sharing ideas and figuring out what works in one school and what doesn't work in another, and then learning from our success and failure. But that's, like, really important to us to do in person sometimes because the online connection can feel really lonely, And we really like to be a connector of students all over, that any student who connects with us on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook

Speaker 1 can feel part of the community, but we really like to go visit those communities and let them know that they're definitely not this alone. Who do you see as the first line if you will of people looking for partnerships with student voice? As in is it teachers who come across your resources and then use them in the classroom? Is it students who want to see a change in their school that maybe isn't recognizing them? Is it a combination? It is all of the above, certainly,

Speaker 3 especially as we've been on tour. Some of these we've put out a call out to the schools and so some of those were student initiated, some were teacher initiated. It works best when we have teacher and adult partnership. Those are most successful chapters and models up and when, you know, from the beginning, we have a highly engaged educator and a student there to help through that process. Or it's been even better when, you know, it's the admin reaching out to us to say, hey. This is something we wanna do in our school. Because we know so much of policy also happens at a board level too or school for their top down. And so our chapters program is really holistic, and it's something we've only recently started. We tried to resist for a long time because we didn't want to be guided or have to be guided by numbers and how many numbers we have of chapters, but it was kind of by demand as people wanted various interest entry points that we've now really developed a robust set of programs like chapters and, like, the most recent when you'll check out on our website is the Youth Action Network, which kind of coincides with the chapters program. It's a way for us to provide online programming that's open to anyone. Like, we just had a call this week really diving deep into equity research with folks out at CU Boulder that have helping us create the programming for this every week. And we have really incredible attendance, and so all the chapter leaders are invited to show up to those. They're always recorded so people can go back and watch them. But our chapters look really different. It's and it's why I really love our chapters program. And we actually just put a call today to hire a new chapters program coordinator because that's it's growing so much. But our chapters are small as a smaller school in Alaska has about, I think, 30 students to the Chicago Public School System who have student voice allies or student voice kind of board in every school and, like, the entire Chicago Public School convenes their student voice representatives from each school every quarter. And so, you know, there's, like, a wide variety of what a chapter can look like, and we're really open to how that looks. But it we know it works best when we have really good educators, student partnerships. So if the teacher comes to us, we'll help them find students and then vice versa. But it definitely is best. We we've seen success from from the beginning. We can have students and teachers and partners.

Speaker 1 For those who are seeking to partner with StudentVoice or have their students check out their resource, where can they learn more? Of course. Our website has really great resources, especially imagine there's lots of teachers in the audience.

Speaker 3 We've really been working hard to develop resources for teachers. So there is a specific resource tab, where we have some guides that we've been updating and working to get reupdated. You can read incredible stories, from our school. I've reading from last year's training and cohort, which I just find inspiring. I like to pick up sometimes. But I think we have a really great facilitation guide for figuring out how to start these conversations, and then just some principles of engagement and different for starting fourteen year school. And then I would say that the biggest thing you can do is especially on Instagram, we are really trying to get more young people involved there. And so we have tried to create a lot more engaging content and figuring out how to work with the newest high school students. And so few of them are on Facebook or Twitter, which is how we, you know, we started as an organization. So we're really trying to develop our, platform and social media as well too.

Speaker 1 Thank you again for listening to Things Fall Apart from the Human Restoration Project. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education. Again, I encourage you to check out our funding drive to continue messages like this to reach out far and wide. Even the small donation adds up and helps us continue to restore humanity to education. So let's do this together. We need you.