Not sure if you’ve noticed, but students outnumber teachers in your building. By a lot. Yet, especially in elementary school, we don’t always allow students to take leadership roles and express their voice in the way that school works. I recently had the honor to be invited to a Student Voice team. I love this! It would also be a great club if your school has them.
What is Student Voice Team?
The team includes staff and students who will have conversations about inclusion and acceptance, especially in your building. The team encourages students to share their experiences and ideas about how to make the school a place that everyone can love and learn. Students will learn how to use their voice to work with others in identifying areas of growth, talking about solutions, setting goals, and making changes.
Selecting Students
Selecting students will depend on how your team is organized, when it will meet and how many students you can accommodate. I strongly recommend having your team during the school day so that all students have the opportunity to participate. Our team meets for 40 minutes with 4th-5th graders. Some of the students miss a small portion of their instructional time but most of the 40 minutes overlaps lunches and specials. To apply, students can use their voice to inspire others by writing a speech, making a video, or creating a presentation. Mostly, this is about wanting students who are inspired by the opportunity and are going to take it seriously.
Team Meetings
Each meeting has a similar flow that allows for some learning by students and ample opportunity for them to talk and share. Before the meeting, students are given an article related to the topic of each meeting. In our first meeting, we read the article: Lives Turned Upside Down: Homeless Children in Their Own Words and Photographs
Here is an example agenda:
It's been such a pleasure to see the conversations that students have! Other topics to include: Disability, Race, and Bullying.
Here is an example agenda:
- Introduction/Greetings
- Warm Up Activity
- Team Norms
- Discussion: What were your thoughts or feelings about the article?
- Brian says that he lives in a house with his family but has no electricity. How do you think this affects Brian?
- What do you think some of Brian’s biggest worries or struggles would be?
- If Brian was a friend of yours, what questions would you want to ask him?
- What do you think would help Brian feel comfortable and relaxed at school?
- If Brian was a student at our school, would he be successful here?
- Ideas for action: How can we take what we've learned and make our school more inclusive for all students?
It's been such a pleasure to see the conversations that students have! Other topics to include: Disability, Race, and Bullying.
Next Steps
Next, I'd like to think more about how we can leave time and intention for action. We fill our entire time together with discussion and I'd like to add sessions for action or activities between meetings. Have you ever led a Student Voice Group? What topics did you discuss? I'd love to hear all about it!
