Empowering Students Through Voice and Agency – Part 1

Background

It would be no surprise to hear the notion of “student voice and agency” referenced frequently in discussions in schools, Professional Learning Teams, Principal and professional learning networks or Communities of Practice. The notion of “voice and agency” is one that has doubtlessly been discussed for many a year across many groups of educators in many parts of the world. To narrow the focus, in 2018, the Department of Education and Training (DET) in Victoria, Australia, published a draft of “Amplify – Empowering students through voice, agency and leadership”. The document states in its opening section, that it is “a practice guide for school leaders and teachers. It explains how to create the conditions, employ the practices and develop the behaviours, attitudes and learning environments that are conducive to student voice, agency and leadership.” (Page 6).

Amplify puts forward a strong case for why students should be empowered through voice, agency and leadership. To summarise some of the key aspects that can be considered goals as outlined in Amplify (Page 11), this might include:

• power to influence change
• level of autonomy and power of a learner
• opportunity to collaborate with peers and adults around what is learnt, how it is learnt and how learning is assessed
• opportunity to direct and take responsibility of learning
• independence and self-regulation

Going beyond the school experience

Pleasingly, Amplify provides a clear outline for its position on the topic that is readable and accessible and it also acknowledges the rigour and complexity of the professional work of teachers and school leaders in achieving its aims. It does not oversimplify the matter to a basic list of suggestions or a one-size-fits-all approach nor focus its goals too narrowly on the limits of the school experience for students. Amplify outlines its case for empowering students as life-long learners, in line with the dot-pointed outcomes above, through voice, agency and leadership within the context of the department’s “Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO)”, with a key aspect to note, being a focus on voice and agency in the context of the nature of learning for all students, as evidenced by its focus on Practice Principles, High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) and the implementation of a pedagogical model (DET’s e5 model is provided as an example). The document also outlines the role of school leaders and teachers within “structures, processes and practices to empower students”.

Its direction veers from notions such as individual student leaders or student councils being the primary avenue for voice or agency. Rather, the focus is driven towards the overall outcome of education and learning for all students being empowered as successful and active life-long learners and participants within society. This is in contrast to matters that might, on occasion within dialogue on the topic, be raised within the sphere of supporting student voice, which may appear more surface, contrived, isolated or arbitrary in nature. For example, input into classroom or school yard rules or arrangements, student input into newsletters or annual school magazines, the forming of lunch-time groups or the design on the up-coming graduation top – all matters which may seem to enable an opportunity for student voice, but are limited within their scope to the experience of school life. This is not necessarily to diminish student input in relation to such matters or role of student councils or individual student leaders – these facets of adults collaborating with learners may form part of how empowerment may manifest in certain situations as per the need in the specific context of school life and may be achievable starting points. However, true development of empowerment goes beyond the boundaries of outcomes limited to the school experience. The crucial opportunity afforded to students in their educational experience is key in achieving the goal of become increasingly self-actualising, life-long learners who are empowered to take action and be participants within society, having the ability to envisage their own futures and develop the abilities and dispositions to achieve these visions beyond just the context of the school.

Challenges and Driving Questions

If educators can agree that voice and agency describes the empowerment of students through learning relationships that benefit the mutual improvement, opportunity and empowerment of all stakeholders within a community with a focus around life-long learning, brought about as a result of the embedded learning process, then it follows that the challenge for school leaders and teachers is to create the conditions in which this can continually occur. This should extend to the culture and environment for learning, and importantly, the implementation of pedagogy that supports the design of learning tasks and contexts that are conducive to requiring students to exercise the types of behaviours and experience the types of opportunities to empower student voice and agency. Whilst Amplify provides a strong grounding on which to have an understanding of the empowerment of students through voice and agency, which may lead to profitable professional practice, inevitably, it will be through targeted dialogue and further inquiry that school leaders and teachers will be able to collaborate to create effective implementation at the school level. To drive the conversation forward, some initial questions that may be asked, include:

• What type of learning is most conducive towards empowering students through voice and agency?
• Is enough focus and time directed toward pedagogy that underpins the design of learning tasks and contexts in which learners are challenged and empowered to exercise the types of behaviours and experience the types of opportunities to empower student voice and agency?
• What might be required to achieve perpetual and sustainable growth in the empowerment of students through voice and agency in a trajectory over their schooling years?
• What might currently be some inhibitors to the empowerment of students through voice and agency? How might these inhibitors be classified? Can these inhibitors be mitigated?
• How might all stakeholders collaborate to empower students through voice and agency?
• How will educators know when students are empowered through voice and agency and how will they know to what degree this is being achieved?

Further thoughts on the topic? Critical Trajectories looks forward to establishing an audience who will follow the blog and its social media outlets on Twitter and Facebook. In addition to the comments section on each post, these platforms will provide opportunity for engaging in dialogue with other educators in relation to topics raised here and elsewhere.