The Value of Student Voice

In my previous post, I wrote about my response to Clint Smith's "The Danger of Silence". This teacher's commitment to developing student voice is inspirational. Imagine a school culture defined by this commitment!

Educators are blessed to have both the means and opportunity to help our students break the silence by creating classroom cultures that embrace student voice. Many teachers believe that they allow student voice in their classrooms by giving students menu boards or letting them turn and talk with a partner. Perhaps that is Student Voice at its basest level, but what Mr. Smith describes at the beginning of his video concerning the culture he creates with his students is Student Voice at its best. By requiring students to work through the silences in their lives and giving them permission to speak their truth and to listen and responds to the truths of those around them, he is building their capacity for empathetic words and actions. 

In a healthy school culture, students have ample opportunities to participate in decision making and to refine the skills of discussion and dissent, but this does not happen in school cultures where:

• decisions are handed down rather than collaboratively decided
• questioning is discouraged or punished 
• compliance is valued and rewarded
• a "good student" is defined as one who obediently completes tasks without speaking
• lessons are tightly scripted with most of the lines delivered by the teacher 
• disagreement is not allowed or modeled

Student voice is an essential component of a school's culture because it empowers students to take ownership of the culture with which they surround themselves. If they are allowed to do that as children, they will also do it as adults. Incorporating Student Voice rarely happens organically. Instead it should be an intentional focus of the school. 

For more insight on Student Voice, read the following articles:

• Empowering Student Voice through Classroom Culture
• Empower Students: 5 Powerful Strategies
• Establishing a Culture of Student Voice
• Overcoming Barriers to Student Voice

The Curse and Blessing of Silence

I've watched this TED Talk video by slam poet and teacher Clint Smith over and over the last few days. Mr. Smith reflects on "The Danger of Silence" and asserts that "Silence is the residue of fear." His words are bold as he awakens us to the vital imperative of not only using our voices but also providing a culture for others in which they can use theirs. 

There is danger in silence when it is used, as Mr. Smith says, to "appease ignorance", to give permission for words and deeds that are inhumane. His words convict me as I remember times I chose to remain silently safe rather than speak up for what was right. 

 But then I know there are also times that my silence can be a gift:

•  when I choose to stop and listen when my teenage son says, "Can I tell you my side of the story?"
• when I listen to the story of a stranger
• when I seek to listen to that person with whom I disagree and try to understand his viewpoint
• when I receive negative feedback
• when I allow other ideas to be shared before mine

So as Ecclesiastes 3 says there is "a time to be silent and a time to speak".  My silence can be a danger or a gift ---my challenge is to learn the difference. 

Snow Shovel Epiphany about Inclusion

It's January 22 and we are in the midst of an epic snowstorm. We could get a foot of snow before it's all over (that's epic in the South), and for my husband, it is a winter paradise because he gets to break out the snow shovel. My husband, David, loves to shovel snow. In fact, I would say he is a champion snow shoveler. I have no doubt that he could win American Ninja Warrior if snow shoveling were involved. Today I decided to join him to see if I enjoyed it as much as he. He started at one end of the driveway and I started at the other end with the plan to meet in the middle. After what felt like an hour (but was really only ten minutes), I had gone 10 feet and he had gone 1/3 of the driveway. I was thinking I had reached my snow shoveling capacity, but then David looked at me and said "You tired already?" Something sparked within me. I stuck out my chin and said, "Of course, not. In fact, I won't stop shoveling until you do". So I kept on shoveling until David stopped. There was just something about his challenge and his faster pace that made me want to push myself past what I thought I could do.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about an inservice I attended with Dr. Richard Villa about Inclusion. It challenged my thinking about homogeneous vs. heterogeneous groupings. Is it in the best interest of the student to group them by ability level? If not, then why do we continue to place students on "tracks" from middle school through high school. Why put all the "advanced" students in one class segregated from the "remedial" group? If I had been shoveling with someone like myself today, we both would have stopped shoveling after ten feet, but because I was with someone with a greater capacity, I was pushed to go further. Heterogeneous groupings provide a win-win for all.

• An opportunity for higher level students to experience the deepest level of learning and retention because they are presenting and teaching others. 
• An opportunity for lower level students to see models of how far they can go and to be inspired to aim higher and farther. 
• An opportunity for teachers to think critically about their instruction as they continually differentiate to meet the needs of all students in their classrooms. 

What magic are we missing in our classrooms by ability grouping our students?

How to build a wall

The first book I completed as part of my #SixtyBooks challenge was A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen. It tells the story of a young girl named Gerta who wakes up in her hometown of Berlin on August 13, 1961 to find a wall being constructed ---the wall that would divide East Berlin from West Berlin for the next 30 years. For Gerta's family, the wall also meant separation from her father and brother, Dominic, who had travelled to West Berlin looking for work and did not return prior to the wall's construction. This left Gerta, her mother and her brother, Fritz to fend for themselves in East Berlin. The book details Gerta's desire and ultimate decision to defy the wall and risk everything to gain freedom and be reunited with her family. 

As I read the book I reflected on the experience of living in a world where citizens were told what to think, what to say, and even how much to eat---a world where dissent was a punishable offense. The wall was built in Berlin long before the wire and cement appeared. The wall was merely a tangible symbol of a culture nurtured by fear and apathy. While it may not be to the extreme of walls and armed guards, there are businesses, schools, churches, and communities that are building walls when the leaders operate by the following norms:

• Maintain the status quo at all costs -Make decisions based on preserving the power, position, and privileges of those in the inner circle. Use those on the outer circle to protect and provide for the inner circle. 
• Intentionally surround yourself with people who make you comfortable and agree with you - Value blind loyalty above all else. See anyone who makes you uncomfortable or asks challenging questions as an enemy. View conflict as an obstacle rather than a pathway to growth. 
• Ostracize bold opinions and personalities - Send messages both directly and indirectly that disagreement equals disloyalty. Suppress discussion. Make decisions in secret.
• Ignore or rationalize any feedback that implies shortcoming on the part of the leadership or organization - Any discussions about the issues raised in the feedback should involve intense problem admiration and/or vilification of the ones who gave the feedback.

You would think that any community that embraces these norms would not be able to survive and thrive; however, as long as the individuals within them choose to stay constrained by and compliant to these tenets, then walls remain. 

So the burden of freedom rests not on the nation, city, school, or organization that builds the wall; rather it is on the individuals who choose to reside within its shadow.  

A deeper look at inclusion (courtesy of Dr. Richard Villa)

My second semester kicked off with two exceptional days of inservice facilitated by international educational expert Dr. Richard Villa. He worked with our faculty on building an inclusive culture. I could have gladly spent the whole week listening and learning from him. He greatly challenged my thinking, convincing me that inclusion isn't merely an option or one strategy but is rather a right to which all students are entitled. Inclusion goes far beyond "taking care of the special ed. students"; it is cultivating a culture in which all members are valued---learning and growing together. 

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Villa pointed out that many schools define themselves as inclusive when they are not because they operate with a flipped hierarchy of needs. When you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, he places belonging before achievement. But some cultures flip the hierarchy by sending a message directly (or indirectly) that only when you achieve can you belong. We send that message when we insist on homogeneous groupings of students, when co-teachers designate "your students" and "my students", when we label classes or groups by ability, and when we insist on planning "one size fits all" lessons. The basic need of belonging should never have to be earned. 

One way to address this hierarchal flip is to stop labeling students as "problems". Dr. Villa walked our faculty through the process of pro-active, strength-based brainstorming to address when a student is struggling. He emphasized that when a student has difficulties in a classroom, it is not due to a bad teacher or a bad student, but merely a mismatch between the student's strengths and learning preferences and the teacher's methods, materials, and processes. He taught us how to collaboratively identify the mismatches and brainstorm many possible solutions. The conversation resulted not only in solutions for this particular student, but also strategies that could be utilized to meet the needs of all learners. 

After these two days of inservice, I came away with a revitalized understanding of co-teaching and differentiation and how they support the essential element of inclusion in a school culture. As educators we can not condone the practice of sorting students by ability. The key to effective education is not found in academic segregation. According to Villa, 'as long as you can send away anyone who challenges the status quo, then you never change the status quo." Inclusion makes us better and keeps us moving forward. Ultimately it causes all of us----teachers and students to embrace and celebrate our differences as we support and compel one another's growth. 

BOOKS BY VILLA

• A Guide to Co-Teaching: New Lessons and Strategies to Facilitate Student Learning
• Differentiated Instruction: Planning for Universal Design and Teaching for College and Career Readiness
• Collaborating with Students in Instruction and Decision Making

Resolution Re-mix: It's all about the verbs

Since it is the beginning of a fresh, new year and I haven't blogged for over six months, it seems appropriate to kick-off this re-emergence with a resolution re-mix. 

Every January, I, like many others make resolutions. I typically come up with five or six of them written in lengthy sentences with exact details:

•  By (insert date here), I will do (insert verb here) for (insert time here) long every day 
•  I won't (insert verb here) anymore. 
• I will give up (insert vice here) for an entire year. 

I've always figured the more specific I am the more likely I am to complete it, but unfortunately my resolutions drift to the wayside about halfway through January. I fall short of the specific target and just decide to give up. I didn't achieve it in the exact way I had planned, so in my mind I have failed. And for some reason, I've also convinced myself that you only have one chance to achieve a resolution. If for some reason, you fail on January 15th, then you can't try again until next January when it is officially time for making resolutions again. 

So this year, I'm going to do a resolution re-mix. The concepts of reflecting and resolving are ones I believe in and want to practice, but this cycle of resolving and giving up isn't getting me anywhere. For 2016, my resolution list is going to be simpler and cleaner ---no more wordy sentences, no more rigid timelines. I'm getting rid of the adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and prepositions and just going with a bulleted list of verbs ---the action words. 

2016 RESOLUTIONS

• Blog - As a literacy coach, I have been convicted that I can not teach writing if I am not regularly engaged in the practice of writing. I can not model reflection, if I am not utilizing regular methods of reflection. I seem to blog in spurts. I hope this year to make it a part of my normal routine. 
• Read - I am taking part in the Sixty Books reading challenge and tracking the books I read on Goodreads. 
• Run - I'm hesitant to even include this one. I'm fairly certain it is just a holiday delusion that will quickly pass when I get back on my regular schedule.  I barely walk consistently for exercise, but lately I've been thinking about trying to run. I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually run in the last year. When I see people running in my neighborhood, they don't even look like they are having fun... yet, much like Forrest Gump, I just have this urge to take off running. This is the one verb that is pushing me to an unknown realm, the one I am most doubtful of. I'm going to use Couch to 5K for my plan. 
• Believe (again) - Yes, I know. I broke my own rule and put in an adverb, but I had to. This past year, I lost my job. I was "fired", and it was the first time anything like that had happened to me. Thankfully, I had many friends and family members who shared with me similar experiences, so I knew I wasn't alone, but I have to admit it shook me to the core. I started doubting my own worth, my own abilities and perceptions. I doubted the sovereignty of God. I doubted the goodness of people. For the last half of 2015, I spent many moments pulling back from people and places afraid to trust again. This year, I desperately want to grow through that experience and use it as a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block---to learn, change, and most of all believe (again).

Here's to 2016 and a year full of verbs.