Student Initiatives in Values Education, Civics and Citizenship Education and Inclusive Student Voice

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Student Initiativesin Values Education, Civics
and Citizenship Education and Inclusive Student
Voice

• What are we learning?
• Roger Holdsworth
• r.holdsworth_at_unimelb.edu.au

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Abiding Challenges and Directions

• Basic ideas effective learning partnerships
  between students and teachers
• Underlying ideas about the changing nature of
  young peoples role in society - valuing young
  people?
• Hence changed nature of schools responsibility
• Thus youth and student participation approaches
• Emerges as
• Middle years
• Civics and citizenship education
• Student voice
• Student engagement (deep engagement)

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A values approach to active participation

• Student participation - not a thing or
  project, but an underlying orientation verb
  not noun
• Commitment to respecting trusting students
• Strengths-based commissioning students as
  experts
• Investigative querying issues and challenging
  students
• Experiencing real consequences and action making
  a difference
• Inclusive especially of marginalised students

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Today

• WHY? - background theory
• Some examples - practical ideas
• Some learnings - irrespective of what you do
• Some reflections about Values and CCE

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Changed roles
In the family, the young remain, while the
activities from which they could learn have moved
out in the workplace, the activities from which
they could learn remain, but the young themselves
have been excluded The student role of young
persons has become enlarged to the point where
that role constitutes the major portion of their
youth. But the student role is not a role of
taking action and experiencing consequences It
is a relatively passive role, always in
preparation for action, but never acting
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Action Poverty
The consequences of the expansion of the student
role, and the action poverty it implies for the
young, has been an increased restiveness among
the young. They are shielded from
responsibility, and they become irresponsible
they are held in a dependent status, and they
come to act as dependents they are kept away
from productive work, and they become
unproductive. James Coleman (1972) How do the
young become adults?, Johns Hopkins University
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Deferred Outcomes - Deferred Value!

• Outcomes in schools are deferred to a future -
  useful in a job or when you study further
• For some students, outcomes of this future are
  highly uncertain and they know this
• But also lessons for all students Your only
  value is in what you will become, not what you
  are or can do today

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Deferred Citizenship
Learning about democracy and citizenship when I
was at school, was a bit like reading holiday
brochures in prison Derry Hannam, English
School Inspector and adviser/trainer for the
Council of Europe on Education for Democratic
Citizenship
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Development of a strong self-concept
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Arenas of Participation

• In young peoples own organisations (SRCs, JSCs,
  Student Councils)
• In formal decision-making processes
  (representation on School Council etc)
• In action/classrooms/curriculum (cross-age and
  peer tutoring, community research and action,
  resource production, oral histories, media
  production, job creation etc)

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Critiques of Traditional Student Council
Approaches

• Who gets to be involved?
• About what?
• Links to students and school decision-making
• Non-curricular
• Ineffective
• See Student Councils and Beyond.
• R Holdsworth (2005) via Connect

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Student Participatory Curriculum Approaches

• Cross-age and peer tutoring
• Media production (print, radio, TV)
• Oral histories
• Job/Work Creation (Enterprise)
• Resource production
• Peer mediation, support, intervention
• Community research and action .

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Expertise

• Need to see students as expert voices and actors
  because of their specific experiences
• Eg cross-age tutoring program choose students to
  tutor in areas in which they are failing because
  of their knowledge of failure

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Student Action Teams
Student Action Teams involve a group of students
who work on a real, identified issue of community
interest. The students carry out research on the
topic and develop solutions either proposals
for others or action they then take.
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SAT Principles

• An active role for young people as part of their
  community
• Young people as community investigators
• Young people doing something that makes a
  difference or brings about change
• Programs that involve learning and meet academic
  goals

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SAT Examples

• Community safety (Statewide, 2000, 2002)
• Traffic safety (Darebin, 2003)
• Environment (Darebin, 2005, 2006)
• Police relations (Werribee, 2003)
• Intergenerational conflict (Bright, 2000)
• Bullying (Doncaster, 2002)
• Values (Manningham, 2006, 2007 Darebin 2007)
• School Engagement (Preston/Thornbury, 2007-9)
• Transition (East Bentleigh NSW, 2009)

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Specific Examples

• Altona SC SAT investigates and recommends on
  truancy
• Taylors Lakes PS SAT investigates common student
  concerns about transition, finds answers and
  publishes booklet for all families
• Doncaster SC SAT investigates bullying in school
  and community and leads school initiatives
• Wanganui Park SC SAT investigates image of
  suburb and takes action to improve it
• Primary school in Geelong SAT investigates
  location of school crossing and approaches local
  Council to change it etc

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Topics for SATs

• Real (authentic) - not hypothetical
• Uncertain outcomes - real questions
• Of concern to young people (important, engaging)
• Open to action and change
• Substantial - needs research

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SAT in Operation Overall Structure

• Engagement Event (Forum 1)
• Research Phase what is the issue? what do we
  know about it?
• Research Reporting Event (Forum 2)
• Action Phase what will we change? what will we
  do?
• Action Reporting Event (Forum 3)

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SAT Flow Chart
Engagement Event
RESEARCH PHASE
Research Reporting Event
ACTION PHASE
Action Reporting Event
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Some examples of process

• Traffic Safety - data on accidents

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One Students Response (traffic safety)
When I saw these figures, I was first of all
surprised, then angry, then determined to do
something about them! Primary school student,
Preston, 2003
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Some examples of process

• Traffic Safety - data on accidents
• Environment - sharing their knowledge of area

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A Wider Challenge
Are we happy for our students to be servants of
our communities? How can we build students as
shapers of their uncertain communities?
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Student Action Teams are about supporting young
people to question, construct and develop the
sorts of multiple communities in which they live
and wish to live. Connect, 2004
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Some examples of process

• Traffic Safety - data on accidents
• Environment - sharing their knowledge of area
• Values - sharing their information on school
  values

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One Students Response (Values Education)
( sniff sniff ) We didnt get to choose
integrity, and I wanted to do integrity so I
would understand what it meant! Primary school
student, Manningham cluster, 2005
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The role of metaphor

• Thank God Youre Here!
• Curating a Museum of Values
• Mission Impossible
• Researcher or CSI (Crime Scene Investigator)
• Wheres the Evidence? game show

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Fun!
Importance of fun, but It doesnt have to
be fun all the time not fun, just
worthwhile. (student)
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Some examples of process

• Traffic Safety - data on accidents
• Environment - sharing their knowledge of area
• Values - sharing their information on school
  values
• Engagement - body-mapping, the switch-o-meter
  etc

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eg Engaging students about Student Engagement
What does engagement mean?
Oh you mean whether were switched on or witched
off?
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but then

• Its not as simple as on or off you can
  have different levels of engagement.
• How could we show this?

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Further questions

• What influences the level of engagement?
• Can you control it?
• I wonder how the level of engagement changes
  during the school day?

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Taking Pulse Readings
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Analysing Engagement
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since then

• Decisions about action - student-run excursions
• Theory the more we know about engagement, the
  more were engaged
• Assessing impact how do we know weve made a
  difference?
• 2009 sharing our story

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Practical Issues

• Which students? and How select?
• Curriculum location
• Ad hoc/withdrawal
• Responsible to SRC
• Within a class
• Time frame
• Teacher support/time
• Skill training

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Some things were learning

• Real issue - as seen by students and others
• Commissioning - role of the outsider for task,
  audience (presentations), task-setting
• Uncertainty - not pre-arranged outcomes students
  and teachers as co-researchers
• Time for research - no quick answers avoid
  moving to action too fast (but need for action
  too)
• Inclusiveness - not just the good kids the
  importance of expertise
• Questioning - the importance of the questions
  that drive us to the next stage

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SATs, Values CCE

• V and V (like Garth Boomers ideas of
  Negotiation and negotiation Values and
  values) - implicit and explicit?
• Values education underlies the SAT approach
  valuing students (respect, doing your best,
  giving responsibility, care and compassion, etc
  etc)
• Making values explicit within SATs
• Active citizenship real and valued roles
  within communities

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Three-Way Test of Value

• Value to the Participants student choice
  active commitment makes sense to them
• Community Value active, hands-on audience
  beyond the classroom seen to be of value by the
  community
• Academic Value involves learning meets or
  exceeds mandated curriculum goals shared
  knowledge of what these goals are

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Resources
Connect magazine 33 per year (6 issues) 12
Brooke Street, Northcote 3070 Student Councils
and Beyond 108 page book 33 (27.50 for
Connect subscribers) Student Action Teams 90
page book 33 (27.50 for Connect
subscribers) Reaching High 120-page book on
student-run literacy camps DVD 33 (27.50
for Connect subscribers) These last three
order from Connect www.geocities.com/rogermhold/C
onnect Student Action Team Manual on-line at
www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/curricman/
middleyear/StudentActionTeamsManual2003.pdf Austr
alian Youth Research Centre reports on Student
Action Teams Working Paper 21 Research Report
22 03 8344 9633 or yrc-info_at_unimelb.edu.au