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It’s rare for education reformers, policymakers, and funders to listen to those at the heart of education reform work: The 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.”
Below are the sentiments shared by these current and former students during the segment.
- I have to critically think in college, but your tests don’t teach me that.
- We learn in different ways at different rates.
- I can’t learn from you if you are not willing to connect with me.
- Teaching by the book is not teaching. It’s just talking.
- Caring about each student is more important than teaching the class.
- Every young person has a dream. Your job is to help bring us closer to our dreams.
- We need more than teachers. We need life coaches.
- The community should become more involved in schools.
- Even if you don’t want to be a teacher, you can offer a student an apprenticeship.
- Us youth love all the new technologies that come out. When you acknowledge this and use technology in your teaching it makes learning much more interesting.
- You should be trained not just in teaching but also in counseling.
- Tell me something good that I’m doing so that I can keep growing in that.
- When you can feel like a family member it helps so much.
- We appreciate when you connect with us in our worlds such as the teacher who provided us with extra help using Xbox and Skype
- Our teachers have too many students to enable them to connect with us in they way we need them to.
- Bring the electives that we are actually interested in back to school. Things like drama, art, cooking, music.
- Education leaders, teachers, funders, and policy makers need to start listening to student voice in all areas including teacher evaluations.
- You need to use tools in the classroom that we use in the real world like Facebook, email, and other tools we use to connect and communicate.
- You need to love a student before you can teach a student.
- We do tests to make teachers look good and the school look good, but we know they don’t help us to learn what’s important to us.