The Student Revolution!

The Student Revolution!

"Students should not be afraid of their schools, schools should be afraid of their students."

Let us, as students, start a learning revolution. 

To My Fellow Students:

We are not pawns in a game - not anymore. It is time for us as individuals to rise up and let our voices be heard. Are you tired of going to school every day exhausted from the same old thing? Walking into a school, waiting for a bell to ring, so you can go to the next class and be educated in ways that you do not enjoy? Being taught by people that supposedly have more disciplinary power then you, and that is the reason they can tell you what and how to learn?

If you have ask any of these questions, please take a moment to understand my thoughts and ideas about how we, as individuals, can bind together to not only change our school but education in the entire world.

Why do we not have power as students?

We walk into school as students who are the bottom of the power chain. Students have less power than that of a teacher. A teacher has less power than a principal. A principal has less power than a superintendent. Power is everywhere around us, but for some reason from the very day we start school we are at the bottom. We are rendered virtually powerless. Why? The answer to this question is… Oh wait, there is not an answer.

Now, I am not saying that students are belittled; more so that we have no way of changing our own education. We are told every day to stay quiet, stay still, and to stay in our "place". Why is it that we must be quiet? Why is it that we must stay still? Why is it that we have a certain “place” that we must stay in no matter what we want or what we need? I am not saying that we should completely reject all forms of being told what to do, because I find that these powers are necessary but only to a certain extent. We should have a say in how we learn

Why do students not have power to endorse change in their education? Is it not students who are learning in school? Shouldn't we have a say in how we learn or how we learn best? 

Why we should lead change in our education

As students we are told every day how to do something new in each class we go to. Information is thrown in our brains at the speed of light. Every student has that one class that they struggle with or that one teacher they struggle to understand. These are just two of many issues in traditional schooling. But what are the solutions to these many issues? It’s quite simple: WE MUST RISE UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Teachers are not listening to us, to what we need, to what we don’t understand. They teach in the same way every year and do not change. If they refuse to change, we have no other choice but to invoke change at a different level. We must change our own education as students. It starts with banding together, and that, my friends, is why I am writing to you - a student who wishes to change his education, begin putting in motion the wheels of an education revolution.

How can we change our education as students?

Let me interject a brief personal thought before I begin. I do not want to be the only person who presents ideas. Many of the suggestions I offer are from others that I believe would be good ideas for change for our school. If you have an idea that you would like for me to blog about that will change our education in a positive way, I encourage and urge you to comment on the bottom of the blog.

We will be covering a few main points in this first post. These are only the beginning of ways we can change and move education to be student-centered and student-led.

1. Technology in our school: The Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) Policy.

2. Un-Schooling: Why traditional education is making us “dumber” instead of smarter.

3. The Student Leadership Team: Much like the student council but different in that we have a say in what sort of policies are passed and enforced throughout our school.

Let’s start with technology in school and BYOD 

I do not see why as kids we are restricted in our access to knowledge. We are the first generation to have access to a wealth of information through the internet and many devices we own. As students, we must stand up for our generation. Most adults and most administrators do not understand how we access the information. Our generation learns more from our smart phones, iPads, Mac Books, laptops, and tablets than we do from any book. It’s just how our minds work!

One of the necessary changes that must take place in our school is allowing student owned technology devices anytime and anywhere for learning. The current policy allows student to bring electronic devices but requires that they be in the off position during the school day. We should make sweeping changes to this policy and allow kids who own their own technology to use that technology in an educational way. Students should be designing and creating the BYOD Policy. 

The National Honor Society and the Student Council should student source the BYOD policy. Once finalized, students will have anytime, anywhere access to the vast amounts of global knowledge at their fingertips through the use of laptops, smart phones, iPods, iPads, Galaxy tablets, Kindles, other devices, and devices yet invented. Rather than the school spending valuable financial resources to provide these devices, students will be allowed to bring one or more devices to school to use as their learning tools. This isn’t to say the technology is mandatory, but that technology is no longer outlawed – it’s allowed.

Here is a small video explaining the ins- and outs- of BYOD and how the imperfections people cling to about why BYOD would not work are debunked to show it will, in fact, work:

The point of BYOD policy that should be raised by students is that we feel so restricted in our learning that many of us do not enjoy going to school five days a week. So how do students start a revolution in this aspect? We as students must stand up to our school. As many individuals we can stand together and, perhaps, change the way we use technology to better our learning. This is our time!

Why we need a change to Un-Schooling

I know many of you are asking: What is Un-Schooling?

Un-Schooling is a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, to include play, game play, household responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum. Un-Schooling encourages exploration of activities often initiated by the children themselves and facilitated by adults. Un-Schooling differs from conventional schooling principally in the concept that standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as well as other traditionally accepted notions of education, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child. (Source. VIA: wiki) 

According to Un-Schooling pioneer John Holt, "the anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know." Proponents of Un-schooling assert that individualized, child-led learning is more efficient and respectful of children's time, takes advantage of their interests, and allows deeper exploration of subjects than what is possible in conventional education.

What are the alternatives to traditional school that we can implement to begin Un-Schooling? Project-based learning, Socratic circle discussions, and student lead learning. I have found in my everyday school life that when a teacher gives me group discussion work or a project to do, I learn significantly more than I do completing a worksheet by myself. 

Has it ever occurred to you that you learn more from your fellow students than you do your teachers? Think about it…Yes, you do! 

Our teachers believe that they must throw worksheets at us and give us large quantities of homework. But we can change this! This is not just so we can get out of our homework. It is to expand our knowledge and to help us learn better. Mundane worksheets and irrelevant homework makes students hate school and hate learning. As students, we should love learning. 

Justine Tart is a nationally acclaimed and award winning instructional technologist. He is an instructional technologist and administrator who appears regularly on the technology conference circuit and is considered an expert in the use and development of instructional technology in the United States.  His views on homework are exceptional and appear below.    (http://www.justintarte.com/2011/08/my-thoughts-on-homework.html) 

- More times than not homework adds little value when it comes to student learning.

- There is pressure from society to continue giving homework because that is the way it has always been done.

- Assigned homework rarely has any true relevancy or purpose for students, thus completion rates are negatively affected.

- When a student receives a zero for not completing homework, he/she is NOT learning about responsibility and "the real world."

- Grading homework on completion typically inflates grades and ultimately distorts overall content mastery.

- Homework should be an extension of the learning environment that provides students the opportunity to explore and discover.

- Homework can be a valuable tool in schools, but I believe too often homework is misused and ultimately detracts from the learning environment.

- More homework does NOT equal more learning.

- Students should not spend all night every night doing homework. I don't know many people who work 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., so why should students be subjected to that?

- The natural love and curiosity of learning are destroyed by too much irrelevant and unproductive homework...

So what do we do as students???

We Un-School our school. No, not literally deconstruct our school. We have to take a stand and join together as a student community and let our school leaders know that we do not like learning in a traditional way. They must acknowledge our cries to better our education. As students, we have nothing to lose. This joint effort brings me to the third and final point of this post:

The Student Leadership Team!

The above two projects will not work without an organizing body - the Student Leadership Team. We have Student Council and National Honor society, but we do not have at our school an open group that can be joined and accessed by everyone to produce change in our school. This is why the Student Leadership Team in necessary. As individuals are voices are small, but as a team with one might voice, we can be heard. We will not make "ranks" or "representatives" that segregate our one voice. Instead, we will discuss issues and find solutions together.

The current say we have in our school policies does not currently exist. We have made petitions for things we felt should be enforced differently but to no avail The names on the piece of paper where but names on a page to our leaders.

IT IS TIME TO BAND TOGETHER AND KNOCK DOWN THE DOOR!

IT IS TIME TO LEAD OUR EDUCATION WITH STUDENT VOICES!