What are the broadest possible roles for engaging students as partners throughout the K-12 education system?
The most important thing when engaging students in any role in school is to acknowledge their first duty: Learning. Their learning is paramount to being meaningfully involved throughout schools. Learning through meaningful student involvement should include: stated learning goals, meaningful action, and sustained, deep reflection.
Following are a several roles students can have that can transform schools and education forever.
Students as Facilitators »
Knowledge comes from study, experience, and reflection. Engaging students as learning guides and facilitators helps reinforce their commitment to learning and the subject they are teaching; it can also engage both young and older learners in exciting ways.
Studentsas Researchers »
Identifying issues, surveying interests, analyzing findings, and developing projects in response are all powerful avenues for Student Voice.
Studentsas Planners »
Planning includes program design, event planning, curriculum development, and hiring staff. Studentsplanning activities can lend validity, creativity, and applicability to abstract concepts and broad outcomes.
Studentsas Organizers »
Community organizing happens when leaders bring together everyone in a community in a role that fosters social change. Studentscommunity organizers focus on issues that affect themselves and their communities; they rally their peers, families, and community members for action.
Studentsas Advocates »
When studentsstand for their beliefs and understand the impact of their voices, they can represent their families and communities with pride, courage, and ability.
Studentsas Evaluators »
Assessing and evaluating the effects of programs, classes, activities, and projects can promote StudentVoice in powerful ways. Studentscan learn that their opinions are important, and their experiences are valid indicators of success.
Studentsas Experts »
Envisioning roles for students to teach studentsis relatively easy; seeing new roles for studentsto teach adults is more challenging. Studentsspecialists bring expert knowledge about particular subjects to programs and organizations, enriching everyone’s ability to be more effective.
Studentsas Advisors »
When studentsadvise adults they provide genuine knowledge, wisdom, and ideas to each other, adults, schools, and education agencies, and other locations and activities that affect them and their world at large.
Studentsas Designers »
Students participate in creating intentional, strategic plans for an array of activities, including curriculum, building construction, studentsand community programs, and more.
Studentsas Teachers »
Facilitating learning for themselves, other students and educators, other adults in schools, or adults throughout our schools can be teachers of small and large groups in all kinds of topics.
Studentsas Grant-Makers »
Students can identify funding, distribute grants, evaluate effectiveness, and conduct other parts of the process involved in grant-making.
Studentsas Lobbyists »
Influencing policy-makers, legislators, politicians, and the people who work for them are among the activities for studentsas lobbyists.
Studentsas Trainers »
When they train adults, students, children, and others, youth can share their wisdom, ideas, knowledge, attitudes, actions, and processes in order to guide programs, nurture organization and community cultures, and change the world.
Studentsas Politicians »
Running for political office at the community, city, county, or state levels, students can be politicians in a variety of positions. In some places, they can run for school boards or as education trustees too.
Studentsas Recruiters
Students building excitement, sharing motivation, or otherwise helping their peers and other people to get involved, create change, or make all sorts of things happen throughout schools and the entire education system.
Studentsas Social Entrepreneurs »
When studentsrecognize a social problem, they can use entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make schools and their communities change.
Studentsas Paid Staff »
When schools hire students, they can be staff members in schools and throughout the education system. They can fulfill many roles on this list in paid positions.
Studentsas Mentors
Mentoring is a non-hierarchical relationship between studentsand adults, adults and students, or among studentsthemselves, that helps facilitate learning and guidance for each participant.
Studentsas Decision-Makers »
Making rules in classrooms is not the only way to engage studentsin decision-making. Participating in formal and informal decision-making, studentscan be school board members, education committee members, and in many different roles throughout schools.
Studentsas Activity Leaders »
As activity leaders in schools and education agencies, studentscan facilitate, teach, guide, direct, and otherwise lead youth, adults, and children in a variety of ways.
Studentsas Policy-Makers »
When they research, plan, write, and evaluate education rules, regulations, laws, and other policies, studentsas policy-makers can enrich, substantiate, enliven, and impact the outcomes of policies and schools in many ways.
Students as Activists »
Struggling for education transformation, school improvement and educational justice, student activists may lead immediate, solo, large group and whole school efforts to make a difference in K-12 schools.
Next Steps
These are merelysomeof the roles. What others canYOU think of? It is also important to consider the issues you want to address. Have questions? Need ideas? Share your thoughts in the comments section!
- Meaningful Student Involvement Strategies
- Meaningful Student Involvement Activities
- Meaningful Student Involvement Methods
