We'd love to take a Deep Dive Into Amplifying Student Voices with you!
Hey Advocates,
Unfortunately, another senseless act of violence occurred earlier this week in the US. My heart goes out to the Covenant School community.
Darlene and I were in San Diego this week at the Deeper Learning Conference. We facilitated a four-hour workshop, "A Deep Dive into Amplifying Student Voices." We believe that students need to occupy spaces where they can freely be themselves. However, society has taught us which identities are prioritized and valued. Doing so contributes to normalizing how different identities from the dominant group are devalued and othered. Schools are spaces that are supposed to serve all students; when students' lived experiences are not valued or treated as equally important, they either adapt to the culture or ostracize themselves due to feelings of oppression.
Our session was about developing a framework for fostering a culture of belonging in which each student feels valued and loved at your school. We had participants at all grade levels and discussed how to develop that sense of belonging to even our early childhood students.
Darlene and I moderated a student interview portion of the workshop that answered some tough questions about their school experiences and examples of why they felt their voices were heard at school. Our two high school students had a lot of rich dialog and engagement in our session. The students shared stories of their teachers and administrators that supported school walkouts, discussions on racial slurs, and the importance of being there for their classmates.
Of course, we took the data from our student interviews for mind mapping, problem-solving, and poster presentations.
Here's a video of some of the highlights.
The participants left the session with the skills to foster a sense of belonging in their schools. We'd love to take a Deep Dive Into Amplifying Student Voices with you!
Content created this week:
Show Highlights
- Teaching Black music to students
- Strategies for learning about music from students
- Considering the lyrics and content of hip hop
- Teaching music in core subjects
That's all for this week.
- Sheldon
Leading Equity Center Services
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