I was pleased to see this piece in the Huffington Post a while back and finally gotten around to writing about it. As the author Lisa Nielsen says in her opening…

It’s rare for education reformers, policymakers, and funders to listen to those at the heart of education reform work: The students.

Seems to me that in most education policy statements and discussions in the media, the students are not seen so much as the clients or key stakeholders in the education process, but more like the product. I think it is important that we resist the conventional wisdom of looking at education as an institution manufacturing an educated citizenry as its “product”, whose stakeholders are not our young people, but only political and economic leaders and parents (as necessary votes to keep at least those political leaders in office).

FYI, Nielson sets the context for this list of items from K-12 students…

In fact Ann Curry, who hosted Education Nation’s first student panel, admitted folks at NBC were a little nervous about putting kids on stage. In their “Voices of a Nation” discussion, young people provided insight into their own experiences with education and what they think needs to be done to ensure that every student receives a world-class education. After the discussion Curry knew these students didn’t disappoint. She told viewers, “Students wanted to say something that made a difference to you (adults) and they did. Now adults need to listen.”

So here are each of the sentiments shared by the students as listed by Nielsen in her piece. For whatever reason, the statements are very brief and lack any detail of meaning, but given that, they still communicate some important messages that I think we adults that attempt to play a role in young people’s development need to wrestle with… Continue reading →