Students Use Web Site to Raise Awareness, Work for Change in Education
Three years ago, when his math class at a Minneapolis school swelled to 52 students and school policies became rigid, Brett Campbell started getting interested in issues affecting his education.
Now a sophomore at Avalon School, a St. Paul charter school that encourages student participation in school policymaking, Campbell takes his experience and interest in education beyond his school to a Web site where he discusses education issues with students, policymakers and other adults and works on projects to raise awareness and influence policy.
L. to r.: Brett Campbell, sophomore at Avalon Charter, Gayle Smaller, graduate of Patrick Henry High School, Shanaye Mitchell, graduate of North High School and Annie Wood, sophomore at Southwest High School.
Since an advisor introduced him to it two years ago, Campbell has been active on StudentsSpeakOut.org (SSO), a social networking site the Minnesota Citizens League developed to engage students to co-define school problems and help identify solutions.
"A lot of times [school] policies are imposed on students without being created by students or discussed, which [the Web site] has done a really good job in allowing us to do,” he said. “I can finally talk about what I feel and people are listening and want to hear what I have to say.”
Last year Campbell and four other students focused on the issue of bullying. On SSO, they analyzed and discussed information gathered from students. Several elected officials and researchers joined the discussion. The students presented their conclusions, involving student-teacher trust, at Minneapolis Public Schools’ teacher training this spring. They also created and posted two videos on SSO.
In going through the process, Campbell said he and the other students had the challenge of backing up their thesis and figuring out what they could do with insights they gained.
Students felt adults listened, said project participant Nora Kane, a (Minneapolis) Southwest High School freshman. “I had always thought that students did not have much say in what went on in the schools and about how things could be improved, so working on the project made me realize that students can voice their opinions and be listened to.”
Besides expressing themselves, students learn on SSO, said Kim Farris-Berg, SSO coordinator. “In school students don’t have a lot of experiential opportunities to learn about active citizenship and what their voice means in the policy process. Participating on SSO, they learn that people will actually listen to them if they do communicate their ideas.”
For Campbell, concern about his education has led to helping influence the educational system. SSO is “allowing me to make a difference,” he said. “It’s creating and analyzing things, and doing something about it, not just me sitting with my friends talking about why a new rule or something in our school is not satisfactory for us. …it allows me to have more power than I normally would even if I wanted to do something within my school.”
Students Speak Out was created by the Citizens League as a place for constructive dialogue between students and adults about school and education. To join, sign up at http://www.studentsspeakout.org/.
