Listening to students is always the right first step

One of the persistent challenges in education policy and school improvement centers on the purpose of schooling that we work toward. There is much to say about the purposes we pursue, implicitly and explicitly, but the thing they have in common is their consistently centering adult perspectives. Whether we focus on graduation, college/career readiness, civic engagement, or simply gainful employment, we usually frame these goals as outcomes that are “good for” students.

Framing schooling outcomes this way, our work to help students achieve them has to begin with convincing students that the outcomes are good for them. Until we do that, students have no reason to engage or take on the work that we know they will need to do in order to navigate futures that are “good for” them.

Some students are conditioned to believe that success in doing what educators and schools lay out for them to do will carry future benefits that make it worth their while to do what is asked of them by the adults in their schools. Of course, this behavior reveals an incredibly strong sense of trust by these students in the adults and institutions that they are part of. Unfortunately, this level of trust corelates strongly with student identification with teachers and other adults in their schools, and this kind of interpersonal identification is much more accessible to students whose racial and gender demographics match those of their teachers and whose families have developed a culture of expectations built on experiences with postsecondary pathways and lucrative employment opportunities.

Most students are not conditioned to enjoy a great deal of trust in their schools, nor are they armed with the social capital of a family whose members have been attending colleges and universities for generations since the turn of the last century. Convincing most students that the outcomes the adults in school choose for them ought to be aggressively pursued can be quite challenging. Certainly strong advising systems and other adult support that is built on genuine relationships with students can provide a first step toward building this level of trust, and educators who do that work with students can help them achieve incredible successes in pursuing postsecondary pathways. However, most students never develop this level of relational support in their schools.

How can schools help students consider and decide what they want to achieve from their schooling? Instead of hoping that adults will be able to communicate to students what is good for them, what would happen if we started by asking them their goals in the first place? What if this developmentally appropriate exercise played an early part in every student’s educational path? What would students say if we asked them what their hopes and dreams are? Starting there, what would it look like to help students learn how to pursue those dreams so that they could position their time in schools more meaningfully as part of the pathway to realizing futures they hope for?

If it feels the same either way to you, try some conversations with students. Educators have these conversations with many students every day, but our schools are designed largely to push these conversations to the periphery and to see them as extra “nice to haves.” If you are a policy maker or school leader hoping for greater connections between students and adults, start looking for ways to center the school day on those instead of on the standardized tests, high-quality instructional materials, and engaging pedagogy that we work on over and over again in professional development sessions where students are almost never present.

Don’t get me wrong; these tools are important and meaningful, but they are tools that we should be using to help students achieve their goals, hopes, and dreams, not adults’.

Complaining about “unmotivated students” as if finding motivation in the lessons we offer without connecting them to their own goals were their responsibility is a principal reason why our incredible tools do not work as we hope they will. Let’s start by asking students what they want to accomplish and then help them learn to access all that is available to them to support them on their way.

Consider the student stories and the ideas raised in this article, Guiding Young People Not to Colleges or Careers — But to Good Lives. If that gets you thinking, reach out to us at Covariant Education for support with this critical shift from work that benefits students to work that responds to them.

Can we shift our work in ed policy and school improvement from work that is designed to do what is “good for” students and instead move toward asking them what they want to accomplish?

Listening to students is always the right first step.