On the one hand, mediocre adult speakers already abound. I have no reason to believe students would be any more dynamic or engaging. My experience with student speakers has been one of very little note-taking and a whole lot of watch-checking.

And on the other hand, I’m not sure I even understand the premise for lending students the floor. Both voices — student and adult — don’t carry the same weight for me in this conversation.

Testimonially speaking, I’d rather hear a student talk about what she’s liked and disliked about her learning experiences. But analytically? Adults, far more often than kids, have the historical perspective and cognitive skills to talk about education. Generally speaking, I don’t think kids have enough perspective to talk about kids.

In sum this feels like a tribute to school-change ideals in, kind of ironically, a forum where they don’t fit.

It is completely true that most student presentations are patronizing them. It’s not fair that we trot them out once in a while, ask them about things they have no knowledge or control over, and then wonder why miracles didn’t happen.

Asking a student, “how would you change education” is crazy. They can’t change education, and wouldn’t know what to do if they could. As Dan commented, they don’t have the perspective. In this sense, student showcases are a more real representation of student voice in action, but are often segregated away from the main conference sessions or exhibit halls.

Including student voice MUST be an ongoing process about real issues that impact their lives in real ways. There has to be adults involved in the process long term committed to making it happen.

I can also tell you from personal experience that any session at a conference with students presenting will not draw a large audience, no matter how fabulous it is. People go to conferences for lots of reasons, and I guess one of those reasons is to get away from their everyday job of interacting with students.

In my experience, the students at my school seem to have something to say. We haven’t done it enough, but we’ve had them come in and talk during our staff development sessions and the teachers sure seem to listen. Sure, they don’t have the perspective we do, but they do have a perspective that should matter to us – don’t they? Here’s what Molly had to say on the blog awhile back:

“All too often, we feel as if our teachers are condescending or trying to spoon-feed us things. I would suggest you sit down with a few students and really talk to them. Not about grades or what they did in biology last week. But talk to them, you’ll find that we’re people. Actual people with thought processes just as complex as anyone over the age of eighteen. Sometimes adults, parents, teachers or just people in the community forget that teenagers are still people. I could be wrong, but I certainly feel like a real person, and I hope to remind people that perhaps we aren’t so different after all.”

Now, you may not value what Molly has to say, but shouldn’t we? Dan, if Molly was in one of your high school math classes, would you listen to her? Scott, if she was in one of your university classes, would what she has to say matter to you? Sylvia, from a constructivist perspective, shouldn’t Molly and her classmates’ ideas and feelings – what they currently think and believe about the classroom and world around them – help inform our pedagogy?

Of course they won’t have all the experience that many of us have, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have experience that matters – the experience of actually being on the receiving end of what we are doing. And haven’t the experienced adults, with our “historical perspective and cognitive skills” and with “things that we have knowledge and control over,” made one or two bad decisions surrounding education?

So, because we’ve done a bad job of including them in the conversation, and we don’t take them seriously or show up to listen to them, their voices don’t matter? At what age do folks have enough perspective that we should listen to what they have to say? How many years do you have to teach before you’re allowed to talk about this stuff? Three? Five? Ten? If you’re not in the classroom, then what qualifications do you need to have the appropriate “perspective?” And who decides?

I’m not trying to be argumentative here, really, I’m just honestly wondering. I guess I would disagree, Sylvia, that students can’t change education – I think they change it every day. Because they are the ones that decide each and every day whether what we try works or not. And, ultimately, if we leave the customer’s perspective out of the conversation, will they buy our stuff?

I’m not sure if I added something to the conversation or not, but I’ll now return to my usual cynical self, doing my best to get away from my everyday job dealing with students (and educators).

And just like there are forums where students are better equipped than teachers, I don’t think it’s necessarily condescending to suggest the converse is true.

Specifically, any sort of keynote address or discussion of how students learn, almost by definition, cannot be led by a student. I’m sure a student could supplement the discussion but how many of them have the crazy sort of meta- self-aware reflexivity to _lead_ it?

Maybe I’m wrong. Teachers — by which I mean me — oughtta encourage students more often to speak in adult forums. Let’s encourage them to submit break-out session proposals. Let’s help ‘em with the application. But let’s also draw the line at _reserving_ some presenter slots for them out of any sort of age-ist affirmative action. But I’m all for letting them compete for my limited time and attention on their own merits.

See, this isn’t about denying Molly her humanity. I probably patronize my students in a zillion unfortunate ways that escape me, but this has nothing to do with Molly “having something to say.” I believe she does. But we don’t dole out presenter appointments on that qualification alone. What she has to say has to be intellectually challenging and she’s gotta be able to say it well.

I don’t know many _adults_ who can claim that one.

Karl, although I now teach adults, not adolescents, I continue to be an extremely student-centered instructor (just ask ‘em!). I also believe, like you, that students have a lot of worthwhile things to say and show us. In fact, I’d even go so far as to agree with Robert Epstein that we’ve infantilized teenagers and are paying the price for it:

http://tinyurl.com/32yw66

My beef is not with the students at all, actually. If student panels or demonstrations aren’t treated seriously by adults, it’s not the kids’ fault. It’s the fault of the adults who structured the opportunity and/or the adults who attend.

So… why are most student presentations so inane / condescending / nonproductive / boring / unhelpful (at least in my opinion)? Maybe it’s the lack of connection to the students that get trotted out: we listen to our own students much more than we do some abstract set of students from somewhere else (see http://tinyurl.com/386sk9). Or maybe it’s that the presentations aren’t structured correctly. Or maybe it’s just adults’ general tendency to discount whatever students have to say absent some compelling reason to do otherwise (e.g., we know them). I don’t know what the reasons are exactly. I just know that I’ve done a lot of watch-checking like Dan and, for the few student presentations that I thought were really good/interesting, I don’t think anyone else agreed and thus little or no impact occurred.

It’s a conundrum. Someone who’s smarter than me must have the answer for how to create a good student-run presentation for adults. I’d love to hear it so we can replicate it.

Please note that I include our session in the non-intellectually challenging category. We shared some of our successes and challenges surrounding staff development and student-centered instruction, and folks seemed to find it helpful, but I don’t think anyone would call it intellectually challenging. And I think having thoughtful, well-prepared students in our session – as well as many of the others – would’ve added to the conversation.

As far as how to structure student-run presentations (or joint student/adult presentations), I think that’s definitely something to think about (and I imagine Sylvia could help us a lot with this). I echo what Kern said in the sense that I don’t think we’ve given them much practice. From K through 12, we don’t really ask them to present anything meaningful (with some exceptions, of course), nor do we really give them any practice in making real decisions. Then we’re flabbergasted when they graduate and can’t make good presentations or decisions. I think a good place to start would be to expect more of them (and ourselves) K-12, and to help them develop those capacities. It’s certainly something I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about for my own school. Perhaps instead of looking at our watches, we should actually do something to improve the situation . . .

Also, they will work with and train adult teachers. Whenever they run tech sessions for the teachers, both groups win. Now, let me say this is easiest with technology topics, because the average teacher complains that they “know nothing about this tech stuff.” (even when they do) and students are more or less accustomed to helping adults with it. (parents, etc.) But once the dynamic is formally established that teachers can lean on students for help, and vice versa it spreads.

The most ‘traditional’ (to put it nicely) teacher I work with asked me at the end of the year if I could recommend a student to be his tech support. Score! The teacher is outsourcing his online presence to a student who will press the keys and make it happen, but think of the model.

It’s extremely unlikely that this teacher has ever given up any control of his classroom before, and I want to be clear, in this it’s not about giving up control, but how the student will learn to collaborate with their ‘client’ in this environment. Very cool.